Quote:
Originally Posted by MH
Even if those pics are real i don't suppose that it should be such a big deal.
Good for Iranian propaganda but totally useless.
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Maybe, maybe not. The point is another one: such drones would be expected to have automatic systems destroying sensible electronics and auto-deletion of data stored aboard, systems that for some reason have failed, if the footage shown is real. That is the news here, and it is of concern for other drone models, more modern and sophisticated ones as well. The German article quotes a high-ranking Iranian military saying the drone had data from
several flights over Iranian territory aboard. For commando operations or planning a one-attempt bombing raid or missile strikes, such visual reference material can be interesting: how close to the runway are planes parked or devices installed? Spacing between buildings and aircraft = spacing between bomb ripples. Time needed for an agent or commando to run from here to there. Suspicious antennas over a building indicating presence of electronic high value targets. And so on.
The article also speaks in
plural about American bases being filmed during landing approaches. The material obviously is clear enough to have enabled experts by the views of the pictures to identify at least one of these bases as Kandahar, which also gets mentioned in the article by name. Finally it refers to - namels unmentioned - experts saying it would be very difficult to forge video footage like this, to this visual quality degree.
Remember the American naval surveillance plane the Chinese got their hands on some years ago, ten years or how long is it now? The plane I think emergency-landed in China without the crew having been able to completely destroy sensible data/electronics. Not to mention that the Chinese no doubt have learned quite a lot from inspecting that bird.