And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Remember when the Air Force forgot stealth didn't mean invisible and the Serbs shot one down with optical-sighted AA and the parts were brought to the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and another one bombed the Chinese Embassy?
The F-117 lost over Serbia was flying above cloud cover and essentially flew right into a Yugoslav version of the SA-3 Goa, a radar guided SAM site, after dropping its weapons on target and egressing. While stealth greatly reduces radar effectiveness, if you get close enough radar will eventually detect it. In this case at 14 miles the SA-3 surv radar was able to detect the plane closing on the SAM site, and several missiles were launched. At 8 miles two missiles passed close to the F-117, one without detonating, and the other close enough to detect and detonate. It was close enough to damage and cause the F-117 to tumble out of control, forcing the pilot to eject.
The F-117’s route had been used before, and the Serb battery commander may have set up his position to take advantage of this, and likely had intel from spotters and the target that was attacked to be on the lookout. The Serbs had a habit of locating their high value targets near civilian infrastructure like towns and hospitals, apparently hoping for collateral damage to use for propaganda. In response NATO restricted the directions from which NATO airplanes could use to attack so that over or under shots would be less likely to hit civilian targets.This restricted the ingress and egress routes that NATO aircraft could use, leading to reuse.. That may have been a factor in reusing the same route.
Also IIRC NATO aircraft flying ECM support for the strike were not able to participate for some reason, but the mission went ahead with F-117s only.
NATO flew over 26,000 sorties and only two aircraft were shot down, the F-117 and an F-16. Three or four others were damaged but retuned home.
Remember when the Air Force forgot stealth didn't mean invisible and the Serbs shot one down with optical-sighted AA and the parts were brought to the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and another one bombed the Chinese Embassy?
ReplyDeleteGood times.
Nobody “forgot” anything.
ReplyDeleteThe F-117 lost over Serbia was flying above cloud cover and essentially flew right into a Yugoslav version of the SA-3 Goa, a radar guided SAM site, after dropping its weapons on target and egressing. While stealth greatly reduces radar effectiveness, if you get close enough radar will eventually detect it. In this case at 14 miles the SA-3 surv radar was able to detect the plane closing on the SAM site, and several missiles were launched. At 8 miles two missiles passed close to the F-117, one without detonating, and the other close enough to detect and detonate. It was close enough to damage and cause the F-117 to tumble out of control, forcing the pilot to eject.
The F-117’s route had been used before, and the Serb battery commander may have set up his position to take advantage of this, and likely had intel from spotters and the target that was attacked to be on the lookout. The Serbs had a habit of locating their high value targets near civilian infrastructure like towns and hospitals, apparently hoping for collateral damage to use for propaganda. In response NATO restricted the directions from which NATO airplanes could use to attack so that over or under shots would be less likely to hit civilian targets.This restricted the ingress and egress routes that NATO aircraft could use, leading to reuse.. That may have been a factor in reusing the same route.
Also IIRC NATO aircraft flying ECM support for the strike were not able to participate for some reason, but the mission went ahead with F-117s only.
NATO flew over 26,000 sorties and only two aircraft were shot down, the F-117 and an F-16. Three or four others were damaged but retuned home.