I would say that its should be more for domestic purposes.
With all the misfortunes they need to show some success and initiative.

I don't believe so.


.......

NATO gets quoted with saying that it could be a drone that got lost over Western Afghanistan last week.

The loss of a drone in general now can be seen as "confirmed", I guess.

It's some extremely sensible piece of hightech the Iranians got their hands on. A present from heaven, so to speak. China, Russia will be willing to pay a lot to get a glance at it. The Iranians also will love to examine it themselves.

:har:

Standing ovation from the imperial guards. All of whom know about knee wounds.

It became clear that Israel would not change its' settlement policy in Jerusalem (even less so when considering that the new blocks that Germany complained about are located in a part of Jerusalem that would fall to Israel anyway if that controversial deal the Europeans expect Israel to accept, would become a valid treaty), which was the major object of German criticism. Building that boat, with over a third of the price payed by the German state/tax payer, means plenty of jobs being maintained, and so that "symbolic" act by the Israelis may have served as an opportunity to escape a deadlock.

Also, this year saw German arms sales going booming. The government has silently eased many former restrictions for military goods. This year's arms sales by Germany hit an all-time record. It is seen as a fundamental, drastic change in Germany's arms and military platforms sales policies.

I believe that this money would go to PA anyway.
Netanyahu got a lot of criticism over this move domestically as well....
This was more of a warning of things to come if PA keeps on climbing the tree but at this stage it still makes no sense.
Netanyahu is not stupid even though he has a lot of morons in his coalition.
For Merkel it might be just an opportunity....or whatever.

Anyway...

Damn, that drone the Iranians presented, looks almost intact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098562

So much for keeping secret high technology.

'Cyber Warfare' eh?

Payback for the computerised attack on their nuclear progamme?

You always run the risk of losses when flying over enemy/hostile territory.

TBH I'm not so sure I believe them...could be a model :hmmm:

Obligatory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8-kNPKNCtg

The PRC and Pakistan will already have men on the way. Well...it was a nice secret while it lasted...

If it's that "intact," I'm more inclined to believe that the real drone was more totaled than the Iranians had hoped, and then built a 1:1 scale model of it using Wikipedia as their reference to save face.

According to what I've read, it was specifically made without using unique technology. This is owing to the fact that it was designed to operate over hostile territory and one was almost certainly going to be downed eventually.

:haha:

That is hilarious.

Possible it's a sort of trojan horse? Perhaps it was intended to be "shot down", captured by the Iranians, and has a transponder to send back info on its final destination. Perhaps as a means of determining the exact locale of Iranian research facilities or to dtermine who the ultimate "buyer" of the drone might be...

IIRC, it was rumored that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Triploi several years ago during an attack on Libya was due to a transponder beacon on a piece of U.S. technology the Chinese had acquired from Libya...

http://www.airforce-technology.com/p...-170-sentinel/

As I steted earlier....a model.

Link?

Earlier this day I read on some meanwhile forgotten side that Obama had ruled ouzt a demand by the armed forced to derstroy the drone via an air strike. Those precious diplomatic sentiments, you know, talks in Paris with Vietnam in flames and all that.

According to BBC and the NYT, Iran claims to have electronically hijacked the drone, and then remote-controlled it to a safe landing.

Don'T know if the claim is true - but that in can be done - and would be done sooner or later by somebody - I think must be clear to everybody. You can harden electronics and comm-links. And you can penetrate hardened systems.

This hitech gadgets and warfare is all nice and well against an inferior enemy. But an enemy of sufficient own hitech capability turns a dependency on such hitech stuff into something that can unpleasantly boomerang against you. You launch a drone to bomb the enemy - and the drone gets hijacked and bombs you. You have clever ammunitions navigating by itself on basis of GPS, and somebody floods the atmosphere with static noise. You have trained supoerior movement coordination via computerised, satellite-supported comm-links, and somebody switches the birds off or silences their chirping.

Agreed :yep:

I don't profess to speak from a position of definite understanding...but I doubt thry currently have the capability.....I certainly hope they don't.

I ain't no expert, but it looks fake.

* It's painted beige/tan. USAF RQ-170s are painted haze grey.

* No markings whatsoever, not even any numbers. USAF RQ-170s should have USAF markings on them (roundel, etc).

* Not a scratch. Even if it landed safely in the desert, it should have some wear and tear.