[Cog]

Once you warn a country like Russia, many times over, not to go across you border, you do set up a kill. Would the Turks have been smarter to let their fighters get shot down?

Only in the fantasy world of the Russia worshippers.

[frankthetank]

Not a Russia worshipper...just hate ISIS. I think many in France fell the same.

Russia sending S400s to Syria...30 miles south of Turkish border... lol.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-pilot-res ... 8676.html#

[Satori]

Is NATO Ally Turkey Tacitly Fueling the ISIS War Machine?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... chine.html

and there are an increasing number of reports that Erdogan is personally profiting off of this
some put his haul at a billion dollars so far

so much for Turkey being our "ally"

[radon1]

One of the pilots is safe back at an airbase in Syria... So i guess there is something good out of it.

This sounds more and more like an ambush.

Russia should have had fighter jets up there ready for this...so in some ways they are dumb for not predicting this would/could happen.

Pu genuinely thought that Erdo was a personal friend of his. Thus, Pu didn't expect this to happen at all. Most likely, Pu will never talk to Erdo again on any serious level, Erdo is kind of blackmarked from Pu's cultural perspective now.

[AgentR11]

Once you warn a country like Russia, many times over, not to go across you border, you do set up a kill. Would the Turks have been smarter to let their fighters get shot down? Only in the fantasy world of the Russia worshippers.

Intercept and escort, far better, safer, and doesn't provide the Russians with domestic support for what they'll likely do with those S400s. They'll impose a no-fly zone along the Syrian border with Turkey. Turkey will challenge it, and a Russian will fire on a Turkish jet, which will then veer back into Turkey to be destroyed over Turkish territory. Opening a path to Art 5, and nuclear Armageddon.

With the escort response, the will to shoot (at)a Turkish jet would not exist, and that path to annihilation would not be on the table.

You didn't teach the Russians ANYTHING with that little exercise. Other than to perhaps not fly bombers without fighter escort / sam assist. You didn't protect our terrorists in those mountains. You didn't help FSA, you didn't harm Assad. You didn't protect Turkey's illicit oil revenue.

cog-disclaimer - blah blah, nato awesome, nato would of course win, putin sucks, putin is scum, blah blah.

[radon1]

The bunch who were shooting at the parachuting pilots:

https://youtu.be/0xbxdAbUfNg

Interesting stuff regarding them (google translation):

https://translate.google.ru/translate?h ... 91068.html

He has a specific name - Alpaslan Celik (Alpaslan Celik). But in fact he is not the Turkmens, and the real Turks, born in the town in the province of Elazig Keban. Alpaslan - the son of the former mayor of this town, and the city is located here. Turkmenistan there and does not smell


...

This flag and the gesture symbols .. Turkish youth organization Bozkurt ("Grey Wolves") - right-wing Turkish nationalists! Vicky "is the most radical wing of the MHP, adheres to the ideology of Pan-Turkism and neo-fascism. Actively involved in the political violence of the 1970s, acted part of the international anti-communist Gladio system. The militants accused the organization in a number of murders and terrorist attacks, including the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Since the 1990s, he switched to combat Kurdish separatist movement and ethnic and religious minorities. "

Again, who is pulling the strings in the army.

[Tanada]

One of the pilots is safe back at an airbase in Syria... So i guess there is something good out of it.

This sounds more and more like an ambush.

Russia should have had fighter jets up there ready for this...so in some ways they are dumb for not predicting this would/could happen.

Pu genuinely thought that Erdo was a personal friend of his. Thus, Pu didn't expect this to happen at all. Most likely, Pu will never talk to Erdo again on any serious level, Erdo is kind of blackmarked from Pu's cultural perspective now.

The 'rebel' forces being targeted do not have aircraft to threaten the bombers with and Turkey has claimed to be an ally in the fight against ISIS. Taken at face value Russia would have been wasting a lot of fuel for no purpose if they had escorted every bombing run with fighter aircraft.

Now that Russia has proof Turkey would rather help the 'rebels' and 'ISIS' than work to stamp them out Russia will have no choice but to deploy more aircraft on every mission to prevent a repeat of this incident. That will be expensive for Russia, but it will be a lot more expensive for Turkey because they have now motivated Russia to erase every tanker truck hauling illicit crude to Turkey. Somebody or many somebodies just guaranteed they will lose a lot of money, and their pet terrorists will now be motivated to strike Turkey for not protecting them. In the real world game of war you need to either be all in, or step away. Otherwise you just bleed yourself dry with no hope of winning.

[frankthetank]

One of the pilots is safe back at an airbase in Syria... So i guess there is something good out of it.

This sounds more and more like an ambush.

Russia should have had fighter jets up there ready for this...so in some ways they are dumb for not predicting this would/could happen.

Pu genuinely thought that Erdo was a personal friend of his. Thus, Pu didn't expect this to happen at all. Most likely, Pu will never talk to Erdo again on any serious level, Erdo is kind of blackmarked from Pu's cultural perspective now.

It sounds like Erdogan is insane backstabber and has pissed off many leaders...even the Jews were pissed at him in the past... The US spies on him (according to Snowden) and Russia tried to buddy buddy with him )so they can get their nat gas to Europe) but that didn't work so well. Russia is also building a $20 billion nuclear power plant in Turkey..got to wonder how that goes...i'm sure Russia could build nukes elsewhere (seems like every country other then the US wants nuclear power now..obviously knowing that fossil fuels will eventually become expensive/shortages).

Turkey loses in all of this... Nato isn't going to swoop in when Russia starts dropping Turkish F16s out of the sky. Us probably likes it...keeps Putin busy fighting with a huge trading partner.

[frankthetank]

Anyone know how the S400 works when friendly and bad aircraft are in the same area? Can it distinguish friend from foe? So if a F16 is chasing a Sukhoi....can the S400 fire a couple of rounds off and not hit the good guy? I've always wondered this...it is said to have a range of 250 miles...

[AgentR11]

Anyone know how the S400 works when friendly and bad aircraft are in the same area? Can it distinguish friend from foe? So if a F16 is chasing a Sukhoi....can the S400 fire a couple of rounds off and not hit the good guy? I've always wondered this...it is said to have a range of 250 miles...

As its never been used in "anger" we can't know. As sick as it is to say, I'd bet money US/EU majors are hoping Turkey provokes the Russians to fire the thing so we can listen and answer just that question, and come up with targeted countermeasures for it.

[radon1]

Anyone know how the S400 works when friendly and bad aircraft are in the same area? Can it distinguish friend from foe? So if a F16 is chasing a Sukhoi....can the S400 fire a couple of rounds off and not hit the good guy? I've always wondered this...it is said to have a range of 250 miles...

http://www.sott.net/article/306107-Russ ... pabilities

"The S-400 is capable of hitting targets at a height of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles). Its second distinctive feature is fire-and-forget capability. Its missiles are fitted with a homing device which can lock on a target and destroy it. Unlike US systems, the S-400 does not need to track the target," Sivkov explained.

As to the rescued pilot,

http://tass.ru/en/defense/839304

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. A rescued pilot navigator of the Russian Su-24 bomber aircraft, downed on Tuesday by a Turkish fighter jet on the border with Syria, said there was not a single possibility that his plane had violated the airspace of Turkey.
"No, this is out of the question even for a one-second possibility, as we were at the altitude of 6,000 meters and the weather was clear," the pilot said in interview with Russia’s Rossiya-1 television channel.
"All our mission flight was in my personal full control until the explosion of the missile," he said.
"There was not even a slightest threat of getting into Turkey," the pilot added.
According to the man, there were no warnings from Turkey.
"In fact there were no warnings either via radio communication or optically. There were no contacts at all. That’s why we flew heading combat course as per normal," he said.
"If they wanted to warn us they could have come out by flying on parallel courses. But this did not happen. And the missile came to our jet’ tail all of a sudden… We didn’t even see it to have time for missile evasive maneuver," the navigator said.
The navigator pilot said he will continue his tour of duty in Syria and will remain assigned to the Hmeymim airbase.
"I’m looking forward to the moment I’ll be discharged (from hospital) because I’ll step back into the ranks then," Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, the navigator, told Rossiya One TV channel on Wednesday.
"I’ll ask the commanders for permission to stay on this airbase," he said. "I have a debt to pay off on the part of my commander [who was shot dead by militants from the ground after catapulting from the jets - TASS]."

[Cog]

As I understand ground radar such as the Patriot system or military aircraft radar, when it hits a airplane it triggers a response from the airplanes transponder. This is the IFF system. In military applications, it will come back as unknown, neutral, or friendly. If things are done right the aircraft and the ground based missile batteries will all have the same codes so you don't shoot down a friendly plane. Transponders can also be turned off so you get no return ping. The radar can detect the aircraft but other than heading, speed, altitude and a rough size, you won't know if it was friendly or not.

IFF codes are changed frequently to prevent an enemy from spoofing you into thinking it is a friendly.

From the wiki about how a Patriot engages enemy planes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot

1.A hostile aircraft is detected by the AN/MPQ-65 Radar. The radar examines the track's size, speed, altitude, and heading, and decides whether or not it is a legitimate track or "clutter" created by RF interference.
2.If the track is classified by the radar as an aircraft, in the AN/MSQ-104 Engagement Control Station, an unidentified track appears on the screen of the Patriot operators. The operators examine the speed, altitude and heading of the track. Additionally, the IFF subsystem "pings" the track to determine if it has any IFF response.
3.Based on many factors, including the track's speed, altitude, heading, IFF response, or its presence in "safe passage corridors" or "missile engagement zones", the ECS operator, the TCO (tactical control officer), makes an ID recommendation to the ICC operator, the TD (tactical director).
4.The TD examines the track and decides to certify that it is hostile. Typically, the engagement authority for Patriot units rests with the Regional or Sector Air Defense Commander (RADC/SADC), who will be located either on a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser or on a USAF AWACS aircraft. A Patriot operator (called the "ADAFCO" or Air Defense Artillery Fire Control Officer) is colocated with the RADC/SADC to facilitate communication to the Patriot battalions.
5.The TD contacts the ADAFCO and correlates the track, ensuring that it is not a friendly aircraft.
6.The ADAFCO obtains the engagement command from RADC/SADC, and delegates the engagement back down to the Patriot battalion.
7.Once the engagement command is received, the TD selects a firing battery to take the shot and orders them to engage.
8.The TCO instructs the TCA to engage the track. The TCA brings the system's launchers from "standby" into "operate".
9.The TCA presses the "engage" switch indicator. This sends a signal to the selected launcher and fires a missile selected automatically by the system.
10.The AN/MPQ-65 Radar, which has been continuously tracking the hostile aircraft, "acquires" the just-fired missile and begins feeding it interception data. The Radar also "illuminates" the target for the missile's semi-active radar seeker.
11.The monopulse receiver in the missile's nose receives the reflection of illumination energy from the target. The track-via-missile uplink sends this data through an antenna in the missile's tail back to the AN/MPQ-65 set. In the ECS, computers calculate the maneuvers that the missile should perform in order to maintain a trajectory to the target and the TVM uplink sends these to the missile.
12.Once in the vicinity of the target, the missile detonates its proximity fused warhead.

[Cog]

From the article above:

"In fact there were no warnings either via radio communication or optically. There were no contacts at all. That’s why we flew heading combat course as per normal," he said.
"If they wanted to warn us they could have come out by flying on parallel courses. But this did not happen. And the missile came to our jet’ tail all of a sudden… We didn’t even see it to have time for missile evasive maneuver," the navigator said.

This tells me that Russia is not employing any type of AWACS system to protect its fighters. The pilots had no idea that the Turks were anywhere around them until they got a missile up their tail pipe. That is very useful information to have.

[Outcast_Searcher]

From the article above:

"In fact there were no warnings either via radio communication or optically. There were no contacts at all. That’s why we flew heading combat course as per normal," he said.
"If they wanted to warn us they could have come out by flying on parallel courses. But this did not happen. And the missile came to our jet’ tail all of a sudden… We didn’t even see it to have time for missile evasive maneuver," the navigator said.

This tells me that Russia is not employing any type of AWACS system to protect its fighters. The pilots had no idea that the Turks were anywhere around them until they got a missile up their tail pipe. That is very useful information to have.

Your're citing the Russian side of the story, and apparently assuming that's true.

But according to the New York Times, the Russians are lying and it was confirmed that Turkey DID warn the Russians TEN times about violating their airspace.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... .html?_r=0

Russia insisted that its jet never crossed into Turkey’s airspace and that Turkey never warned the Russian bomber. However, the United States military confirmed that Turkish pilots warned the Russian pilot 10 times, but that Russia ignored the warnings.

So, unless you want to say the NYT is fabricating things or that the US military is lying about this -- Russia has been caught with their pants on fire about this incident (and no, I'm not surprised).

And note, I'm citing the MSM, not some wild eyed blogger.

[frankthetank]

So these missile systems (s300/s400/Patriot/etc) must need to run 24/7? They must have onside diesel generators or something powering them? Maybe the US will push Turkey to sacrifice a jet to see how it works

I think from what i have read, the plane did cross into Turkey..although for less then a minute...maybe seconds. So obviously Turkey should have a right to defend itself...on the flip side the Russians are suppose to be bombing ISIS that most would agree are as#holes and need to be deleted. Turkey likes the oil smuggling going on//bombing bad for business. The US and its allies up to not very long ago seem to have given ISIS a free pass (in hopes they overthrow Assad)...after Paris that obviously had to change...some.

Who knows..life goes on. The fighting will continue...possibly for years. Europe gets flooded with refugees ...MIC makes more money...

[Plantagenet]

Its clear there have to be boots on the ground to defeat IS. The only boots on the ground with the motivation to boot IS out of Syria is the Syrian Army. Right now the Syrian army is fighting on two fronts---they have to fight the US supported forces in the north AND simultaneously fight the Islamic State forces to the south and east.

Its classic military strategy to wipe out the weaker forces opposing the Syrian army first (i.e. wipe out the Free Syrian Army, Al Nusra front etc.) before the Syrian Army takes on the larger power, i.e. the Islamic State.

The Russians know this----thats why they are going to bomb the FSA and support the Syrian Army in wiping out the Free Syrian Army, the Turkmen, and the other rebels in the north. Once they've consolidated their position, then the Syrian Army will be free to take on IS.


The Russian military strategy of first wiping out the US-backed FSA, the Turkmen, etc. in the north of Syria before taking on the Islamic State makes perfect sense.

[Keith_McClary]

Russia insisted that its jet never crossed into Turkey’s airspace and that Turkey never warned the Russian bomber. However, the United States military confirmed that Turkish pilots warned the Russian pilot 10 times, but that Russia ignored the warnings.

So, unless you want to say the NYT is fabricating things or that the US military is lying about this -- Russia has been caught with their pants on fire about this incident (and no, I'm not surprised).

And note, I'm citing the MSM, not some wild eyed blogger.

NYT doesn't even cite their usual anonymous "officials". And how does the US military military know this - their sky-spies are very selective about what they see or don't see (eg. MH17 and ISIS oil convoys).

[Outcast_Searcher]

So, unless you want to say the NYT is fabricating things or that the US military is lying about this -- Russia has been caught with their pants on fire about this incident (and no, I'm not surprised).

NYT doesn't even cite their usual anonymous "officials". And how does the US military military know this - their sky-spies are very selective about what they see or don't see (eg. MH17 and ISIS oil convoys).

They're obviously citing military officials since they state the US military is their source. Just because they don't SAY "military officials" doesn't mean anything, except perhaps to the conspiracy crowd.

So allies in NATO couldn't share information, even after the fact? So things like radios and audio recorders don't exist in the 21st century?

Acting like the US military couldn't know this is pretty myopic, don't you think?

I'm not saying the US military knows everything or chooses to share everything they know, but acting like it's a stretch that the US military could know about ten radio messages from a NATO ally a day after the events, given current technology is more than a little silly.

[AgentR11]

Well, Russia learned so much form having an unescorted bomber blown up near the Turkish border, that today they blew up a Turkish aid convoy inside Syria, and blew up some more oil tanker stuff inside Syria headed for Turkey... right near the Turkish border; pretty much right where the bomber went down if I read the story right...

Erdogan has to be an absolute moron. There's no other explanation.

If they wanted to sign the death warrants for those Turkomen villagers, they couldn't have done a better job.

[AgentR11]

BTW.. you guys arguing about whether the Russian jet crossed Turkish airspace or not, or whether Russia lied or not... You're falling for the same Russian scam they wrecked Ukraine with.

You are arguing about things that have no consequence. And Russia is telling outrageous lies to get you to argue about things that have no consequence. Distracts you from stuff that does have consequence.

If the Russian plane crossed the Turkish borders, the plane was blown up and there were no consequences from NATO with regard to the event.
If the Russian plane did not cross the Turkish border, the plane was blown up and there were no consequences from NATO with regard to the event.

What matters is what they are deploying in Latakia right now. What missions they are flying right now. What is their strategic objective. And whether Turkey will engage Russian jets in Syria by firing while the Turkish jet is still in Turkey; and what do WE do when Russia returns fires and a Turkish pilot and aircraft are destroyed, and Turkey whines Art 5....

Yesterday, Turkey blew up a nuthin and gave Russia all the domestic cover they needed to lock down the airspace and obliterate anything Turkish within Northern Syria. I don't think Putin wants to nuke Turkey, even though I'm certain there are Kremlin nuts that DO want to nuke Turkey right now, but I think he wants a chance to demo that he can kill NATO jets; and we gave him all the cover he needs to do it.

In turn, if we want to lock out Russia and enforce a no fly zone.... in addition to the crud on the ground they have there; they also have a "flagship" they are using, the Mosqva or some such. Its very old, but it has 16 tubes, and in each of those tubes is an antiship missile that can probably penetrate our CIWS systems. Its a puzzle. To kill the air defense system, that ship has to be destroyed, but there's little chance of destroying that ship without it being able to put those 16 in the air. Anyone that is depending on a 16/16 CIWS success is just living in an alternate reality; so its a fairly good bet that a couple NATO ships will end up on the bottom of the Med as well. If that happens; that's mission accomplished for Putin, wouldn't matter what the result is at Tartus/Latakia; he'll have demonstrated that a recapture of Crimea (which is defended by Bastion system, and Buyuan corvettes, far more potent) against active Russian defenses would likely cost tens of billions of dollars, and thousands of NATO lives. A price we won't pay. If CIWS gets that 16/16 success, then Russia knows they must defend Crimea with first instance use of nuclear weapons; and again that puts the price outside of what we're willing to pay.

I think its a very interesting, challenging puzzle from the Russian PoV, and they seem to be playing it pretty well. Our side of the puzzle sucks eggs; mostly because we're fighting for idiots that want us dead, and a bunch of sand we can't use for anything significant anymore. So we win, spend x & y, and get a worn nickel in a cup of poop as a prize.

As much as I don't think Obama is particularly wise when it comes to international engagements, he does appear able to recognize that a nickel in a cup of poop is a very gimpy prize.

lol. I wrote CIWS systems. kinda like Rio Frio River, or Rio Grande River.. sigh...