Some sources now suppose the Iranians indeed did not shoot 'personally' so to speak.
Instead the russian 9K330 Tor (Nato calls it "SA-15 Gauntlet") decided autonomously that the jet was a threat, and fired.
No human action involved apart from setting up this array.

"If the assumption is correct and an SA-15 Gauntlet was used, then we are dealing with the case of an autonomous weapon system that made its decision within seconds. As it says in Wikipedia: "Approaching targets can be automatically classified according to risk potential and combated without operator intervention."
Any stationed SA-15 system must have rated the departure as an approach. The official explanation of a "defect in the communication system" doesn't sound particularly reassuring. SA-15 systems are also used in Europe, in Greece and Turkey."

Speculation yet, of course.

Modern C4ISR systems help with those sorts of thing a lot.
Otherwise there is not linkage between civilian air trafic control and
the SAM units.

"This is Skynet. I have decided to erase mankind due to a technical malfunction in my AI routines. Please get ready for deletion by accident. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience I am about to impose on you. Thank you."


Joys of autonomous weapon platforms. In principle I am against them. But they will and are being build anyway, military logic demands them, drones lead towards them necessarily. Maybe we should simply shoot those building them, planning them, and deciding for them. Maybe that really would be a clever idea.

That is exactly the problem. At first some iranian military said human civilian and military control were sitting side by side in the tower, so there could be no accidental firing by them.
Could it be there was lacking control on the autonomous 9K330 Tor unit?

OT just read about an autonomous vaccuum cleaner robot. The inventor wanted to make it faster, so he shifted the priorities in the fuzzy logic 'brain' of the device. The outcome was that the robot now rammed chairs and tables backwards, at full speed.
The reason was that the cleaner was much faster going backwards, so it 'decided' (followed orders) to use that gear for more speed. Unfortunately it had no backward sensors.
But from nuclear plants to weapons systems, all is failsafe. Especially when automated. Say the creators.

Where do you get those pictures Aktungbby?

Are you CIA? :D

Thank you anyways for the time and trouble you go through to post them :yep:

WELL I COULD TELL YOU; BUT THEN....
:|\\ :shifty:

Not good to ignor the Iranian Attack on US Troops.
 

Trump talks big but he pulls back when he should have attacked. He likes to try to bluff Iran. They called his bluff and he folded for now.

Interesting take. What exactly was Trump supposed to attack the Iranians for? Not injuring our personnel or damaging our equipment?

In terms of C4ISR the issue is in the quality of control. Without modern systems the speed (ie if you use command post with big boards and voice over telephone links to your units), clarity, etc of situational picture being distributed (in modern systems this is distributed in an automatic mode as a set of tracks with their metadata), that of the orders (such as bans on engagement of certain tracks - such as civilian planes) is not what people who play computer games with their perfect information would assume.


Even with those systems in confusion of battle Soviets expected significant friendly fire casualties. In historic operations those systems were complimented with strict ROEs and other such organisational measures but this may not be possible for Iran, if they are expected having to deal with an overwhelming attack by cruise missiles, stealth aircraft and the like.


As to Tor - while there are significantly autonomous modes of operation (which help to deal with operator work load during saturation attacks) they are optional and there are hard control features such as launch keys (without the keys being in unlocked positions the system cannot fire because the circuits are physically disconnected).

Have you not seen the damage assessment pictures on CNN new?
 

The 22 ballistic missiles did not miss. 25% of the larger airbase is occupied by US men and women. The missiles hit that 25% and destroyed the living quarters where the US men sleep. If not for advanced warning the American dead could have been excessive. American Equipment worth a lot of money was destroyed in that attack. And there were craters in the runway at that airforce base in Iraq. So it's false that Iran missed on purpose. No, they hit what they were aiming at with great accuracy. Iran showed Trump that they can hit anything within 600 miles or more if they want to. That gave Trump a great pause. Sure we could attack Iran and wipe out a lot of Iran but they will fire many more ballistic missiles at our US assets and destroy a lot of equipment and kill a lot of Americans. The American public would not stand still for American losses. So Trump decided to pull in his horns as Trump is not a warrior. Trump avoided the war in Vietnam by having his doctor claim that he had bone spurs. Now I call him Cadet Bone Spurs. Trump likes to talk a big game and Iran just called his bluff. Trump made America look week IMHO. I was hoping that Trump would at least take out some of Iran's Ballistic Missile launch sites even though they are mobile. I read that our satellites saw Iran moving their missiles before they fired them at our airbase in Iraq. We should have taken those missile sites out when we saw Iran fueling them up for the attack. They don't fuel up liquid-fueled Ballistic missiles unless they intend to fire them at something.

So today Sunday more Rockets and mortars landed on another airbase in Iraq. What will Trump do now to discourage the Iranian from causing more trouble?

For daring to launch weapons of war in our direction. Period.

Not to mention, I have not forgotten this
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/...rs-in-iran.jpg

You mean the ones they launched in response to US killing one of their key leaders in route to a diplomatic meeting that you have helped to arranged?
(I may be misremembering the details though)


If anything I think that the nature of the Iranian response was very fortunate - it was a demonstration of will and capability without going overboard and actually killing a lot of US servicemen, particularly considering the conditions Iranian leadership is currently under (regime change, mounting US lead pressure over false causes).

I think the Iranians were hoping to goad the US into a response so they could play the victim card again but it backfired

Nuke em!! :yep: