How to take down an F-117
strategypage.com
strategypage.com
That is very impressive.
If he only had serious computing power, enough cell phone towers, and plenty of fiber-optic cable, he could have triangulated the position of steal bombers from the interference patterns.
Also, old Soviet radars operate on longer wavelengths and interestingly enough are sometimes more effective at detecting stealth aircraft.
The fuselage of the F-117 is covered with a top-secret radiation-absorbing paint. This paint is designed to operate over a certain range of frequencies, i.e., it's supposed to provide impedance matching over a certain frequency band (a bit like a thin-film in optics). Hence, if the enemy uses radars operating at frequencies for which the F-117 is not stealth, then there's a big problem. Using an old German radar from WW2 the F-117's radar signature is as big as the one of a non-stealth aircraft like the F/A-18.
BTW, Zoltan (who is a Serb of Hungarian ethnicity, as the name suggests) is now a baker:
"Dani said that his unit has had annual reunions on every March 27 since 1999 when a cake in the shape of the F-117 is served."
Nice!
So, the world's best Air Force goes to war and does not use encrypted communications? This is mind-boggling. To make matters worse, the NATO planes tended to follow the same routes every night. They were begging to be shot down.
Last but not least, never underestimate the ferocity and tenacity of the Serbs. The Ottomans and the Nazis sure learned their lesson.
There was a lot of grumbling among the USAF back then about certain countries not encrypting their communications. Greece was one of these, although I don't think they participated in the war (they were big fans of Milosevic and welcomed him and his wife with huge gatherings at the Thessaloniki airport). Since Zoltan was not a native speaker of English, I doubt he could distinguish the accents of pilots from differnet countries, particularly as educated people in many NATO countries speak excellent English.
What sticks out in my mind most is how happy Zoltan and his buddies are to celebrate defending the mass murders and rapes of Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party. And with a cake in the shape of a plane.
I wonder what flavor of frosting they use.
Also, stories about Milosevic's regime are wildly over-shot by the western propaganda.
Greetings from Serbia
I am American and I did a bit of research on the war with Serbia and have to say that you are correct. We have been fed some very good propaganda.
The most interesting point was how CIA was arming Albanians and encouraging them to provoke the Serbs. Also most Americans are un-ware (again very good propanda efforts were made), that Serbian atrocities started after the bombings. Those attrocities are still atrocities and are in no way justified, but their portail in the Western media is terribly skewed.
It was very interesting to find out that at the same time as we were supposed to "prevent atrocities" in Serbia we dramatically increased Turkey's arms shiptment quota so they can bomb Kurdish villages. It was a quid-pro-quo kind of deal. Turkey said if you "bomb and use our airspace, then we want to bomb too." And bomb they did, big time. About 3000 Kurdish villages were destroyed.
If you were albanian, you couldn't go to school were you could learn your own language, you couldn't get a job a state industry (except for crappy jobs), you couldn't go to college/university where you can study in your own language. You even needed a visa to get out of Kosova!
BTW, Albanians there have been trying to secede peacefully since 1990, where they formed their own goverment. They had their own parallel structures, schools, etc. Slovenia split, got attacked, then Croatia split and endedup with war, then we all now of the Bosnian massacres.
It seem in all these, the common denominator is Serbia, and Slobodan, using vapid nationalism for his own purposes.
Kosova was going to end up just like Bosnia, where over 200k people were massacred if the west didn't intervene. he was doing the exact same tactics that he did during the previous war.
BTW, the Albanians in Kosova got armed after 1997, when there were trouble in Albania, and all the army depot got emptied, and you could find a Ak-47 for less than $100.
There were no american weapons in the region.
I agree with that. I never said that Serbians didn't commit attrocities. What I a blaming here is the Western propaganda machine (well ok, not Western, mostly NATO i.e. American) for lying.
Would you deny the facts that Serbian paramilitary forces intensified their attacks greatly after the bombing started?
I am not saying there we no masacres before, it is just that US knew it would get worse afterwards, they knew international observers would withdraw, but they decided to bomb anyway. Then they lied through their teeth when they used the victims of the retaliatory attacks of the Serbs to justify the bombings.
Yes, it was Serbian army who killed, but US (a suposedly rational country) knew that Slobodan would react in that way, and they didn't give a fuck. So it wasn't about humanitarian help, it was about saber rattling and not letting NATO get embarrassed in the middle of Europe.
It was not too long after USSR fell, European Union was gainging strength and US and NATO had to show the world who is boss. Yes, as a result they helped Albanians, and it is hard to play the "what if" game and guess what happened if they never went it. But they definetly didn't go in because they love Albanians or they cannot tollerate attrocities in the world. Look at Turkey and Indonesia -- both US clients that committed attrocities and nobody in US is bothered by it.
But innocent civilians being killed are innocent civilians being killed. It doesn't matter who's killing or what color their skin or what religion they are. There are terrible killing and attrocities still going on in the world.
We should do something about it if we can. But if we don't or we can't. We shouldn't lie about it, and pretend we do while we have completely different motives for our foreign war "adventures"
I wouldn't mind if the government actually told everyone what its real motives are. Perhaps there will be less support for war, or perhaps there won't. At least we won't be lied to.
Still, nice to hear that someone is interested in more then flashy headlines.
In light of my comment bellow, I will not pursue the subject further, HN is not the place for it.
I'm pretty sure that is a blatantly false statement. But if you would like to convince me otherwise, please show me some sources.
Then: Kosovo and the Metaphor War by Roland Paris (Political Science Quarterly, Volume 117, Number 3, Fall 2002) is a good analysis of how metaphors of previous wars and events were used to promote the war.
For 10x infation of number of deaths by NATO propaganda machine in preparing for war try: Kosovo: Orders of Magnitude by Adam Jones (IDEA Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, July 2000).
On the media portrail and lack of journalistic impartiality try: Ruigrok, Nel., Schoenbach, Klaus., Scholten, Otto. and De Ridder, J.. "Covering the Bosnian War: ‘Journalism of Attachment’ in Dutch Newspapers" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden International Congress Centre, Dresden, Germany, Jun 16, 2006 (http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p92731_index.html)
Also note that there was a humanitarian catastrophy and there were certainly terible masacres going before the bombings and there were on both sides and have been going on for centuries. But after March 24, 1999 the Serbian attrocities intensified terribly.
You can listen to press reports around the time. For example Clinton says on March 24, 1999 that the reason for the war is "to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to harm the people of Kosovo." However intelligence reports warned him that bombing will actually intensify the attacks and that is exactly what happened. The large number of victim from these retaliatory attacks were then used as the reasons for the bombing.
> I'm pretty sure that is a blatantly false statement.
Well, do you have any sources? Please show that the number of claimed dead and missing Albanians (around 100,000) by NATO media monkeys was true as that was used to justify the war.
Please show evidence that US had purely humanitarian objectives, and reasons for US not getting involved in much larger humanitarian crises in Africa, South America, Asia (especially Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia). Some of then occuring simoultaneusly with the Kosovo war (hint: try Indonesia, it's a easy one).
Thanks for the links. I think your statement
there were certainly terible masacres going before the bombings
gets to the point of why I was skeptical about your earlier post. It would be incredible to say that United States bombing started Serbian-inflicted atrocities, when Serb atrocities were plainly occurring before there was any aerial bombing anywhere in the Balkans. I do not claim that the United States policy under the Clinton administration was ideal (or even beneficial to the United States) but I do claim that massacres were already occurring before there was any United States intervention.
There is no Turk vs Kurd fight going on its just an up moron brain washing people and turning them in to each other.
Get your facts right.
Alright, "my facts" are that European Court has consitently condemned Turkey for human right violations agains Kurds. "Your facts" are that you claim to have Kurdish friends. I think, I'll stick to "my facts" for now...
Zoltan did not commit any war crimes or ordered to do so. By that twisted logic, were Vietnam war USAF pilots in a pub after successful sortie celebrating My Lai massacre?
replace treason with "war crimes" and it would be as valid.
What constitutes "war crimes" is defined, in practice, by the winners of the war. I wonder if you notice that the winning side in a war never commits "war crimes" and if they do are never punished severely. If the Nazis had won, Roosevelt and Eisenhower would be the "war criminals" (please note the quotes). Stalin is not a "war criminal" in spite of being responsible for the deaths of more people than the Nazis ever killed.
The British were the first to use concentration camps to imprison the Boer women and children where they died like flies. How many British commanders w were prosecuted and punished, do you think?
Even when Americans lose wars, they are never prosecuted for war crimes. This is because American loss of a war does not (yet) involve the enemy invading the United States mainland and conducting prosecutions there.
Btw how many American soldiers were shot for My Lai?
From Wikipedia
My Lai "was the mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children, and elderly people.
Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated."
Certainly sounds like a "war crime" to me.
"After a four-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, William Calley was convicted, on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released from prison, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve four and one-half months in a military prison at Fort Benning."
"Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at My Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction."
So much for "war crimes" and "criminal regimes". Many non Americans believe the Bush/Cheney administration was a criminal regime waging unjustified "aggressive wars of conquest" (one of the main charges against the Japanese after world war 2, btw) Does that make them criminals?
Many Afghans believe that Predator drone attacks that kill civilians are "war crimes". Does that make the American army "criminal"?
Imo not really. "International Law" is much flimsier than the term would have us believe. Without a commonly understood idea of what a "crime" is, it is hard to have a law relating to that crime.
Are you claiming Americans never commit war crimes? Or that they are punished severely when they do? How is an American soldier fighting for his country in Iraq during Gulf War 2 any less "supporting a criminal regime" than this Serb commander downing planes that bomb his country?
Please note that I am not saying only Americans are war criminals or that the Nazis were not.
All sides in a war conduct "war crimes" (as seen by the victims). Who wins and what form the victory takes decides who is a "war criminal" (in terms of getting punished) and who is not.
There's a distinction between a criminal regime and instances of war crimes committed by a country's army. When a country's leaders organize the deliberate and purposeful extermination or forcible relocation of an ethnic population, that's a type of criminal regime. (There are other types, of course.) I would apply this standard to Andrew Jackson, Hitler, and Milosevic, and to the American, German, and Yugoslav governments under them. So while the Luftwaffe and flak gunners didn't kill any Jews themselves, they protected an illegitimate regime. Same for Zoltan, same for the US troops deployed outside the removal operation (for instance, the troops sent to menace the South during the nullification crisis).
When individual units or troops commit war crimes without the authorization of superiors, that's a separate issue. I would have rather seen Calley and his troops face trial in an international court, but there wasn't one then. There is one now, but the US is not yet party to it. I wish it were.
I think there may be evidence that the Bush administration was a criminal regime. I would not have fought for Bush.
I still don't know how to judge Zoltan, though. I'd say the same for a soldier in Iraq or a Luftwaffe pilot. I can appreciate his achievements, but I still raise questions about the morality of them.
NATO bombers (USA bombers in this instance, really) were attacking Serbia, and Zoltan was a soldier operating in his own country, defending it against enemy aggression. How can you raise morality questions against that?
And as I already said, the truth about Kosovo is far from what your media told you. Kosovo is now brought down to two functions only:
1. American army base (Bondsteel) 2. Haven for drug lords, and traffickers of people and weapons. Now they've got their own state in the heart of Europe, thanks to USA lobbying practice which is where all of it originated from.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether Serbia was in the right or in the wrong in Kosovo. It's just a bullshit argument to pretend Zoltan was doing something entirely separate from supporting the continued Serbian domination of Kosovo and its people. Either Serbia was in the right (in which case Zoltan would have been perfectly justified no matter what) or Serbia was in the wrong (in which case--since the bombing was an attempt to pressure Serbia to leave Kosovo--protecting Kosovo from bombing turned out to be indirectly supporting the domination of Kosovo.)
You see, this is a thing about definitions. If you stretch them too hard they lose their meaning and you can't usably distinguish the concepts they denote. If you call every opposing soldier a war criminal, then it does only service actual war criminals.
Considering how little his actions mattered in the overall outcome, I can't help but think that he and his team simply relished the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to match their wits against the world's most advanced air force.
Just like von Braun was "happy" to bomb London with his rockets and killing many more concentration camp workers who were building his rockets. Somehow, Americans didn't mind making him their space age hero.
Not to even mentions Japanese "scientists" that were directly involved in horrendous bio-"experiments" on Chinese, but were never brought to trial, and instead went to become heads of big pharma companies in Japan. So if we want to talk about some kind of guilt-by-association, we should first examine our own track record.
I am not taking sides here, but do note that a soldier does what he is told. As far as I know, Zoltan did not murder any civilians. He was simply defending his country against an act of aggression. Given the atrocities committed by the Serbs, the aggression initiated by NATO may or may not have been justified. I will abstain from moral issues here.
Last but not least: do note that Zoltan is of Hungarian (not Serbian) ethnicity, and Hungarians are not Slavs. I doubt he was ideologically aligned with Milosevic.
Yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Early_Warning_and_Cont...
...do note that a soldier does what he is told. As far as I know, Zoltan did not murder any civilians.
US military personnel needn't obey all orders, only lawful orders. Zoltan wasn't just obeying orders, he was working overtime to support human slaughter.
He was simply defending his country against an act of aggression.
I really don't know what to say to that. If someone breaks into your home and begins killing and raping your family, and you fight back, is the attacker "defending himself against an act of aggression?"
Your analogy is confusing. The Serbs didn't break into American homes and rape/kill anyone. So how exactly was the US "fighting back"?
From the Serbian viewpoint, the USA could be seen as the party "breaking in" and killing civilians from the air (sure "collateral damage", but when it is your family beneath the rubble, I am sure it is a fine distinction) and the Serbs as the ones "fighting back".
" he was working overtime to support human slaughter."
A lot of non Americans believe this is precisely what US soldiers did (Vietnam) and do (Iraq / Afghanistan). I am not taking positions on who is "right", but this is why politics should be avoided on HN if possible - arguments on politics and religion can circle endlessly with no useful conclusion.
Seriously? You've basically vilified every soldier that has ever served in the history of any army ever.
I doubt that it was a Japanese plane in use there (though theoretically it could be).
The F117 is exclusively operated by the US air force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nato_awacs.jpg
I went for a walk in a British one at the Abbotsford Airshow this summer (all UK crew), and I know the NATO ones can have Canadian pilots and Radar ops.
The US does operate the E-3's as a part of their Air Force as well, but the NATO ones are not American.
There are lots of interesting craft here, not just AWACS.
Google maps has the area 'obfuscated', so I can't use that to look at the planes (it was to be expected), but I'm sure an opportunity will come soon enough.
edit: this side of the border there is actually quite a bit of resistance against the AWACS craft taking off and landing because they are technically in Germany but the noise pollution is mostly felt on the dutch side which is much more densely inhabited than the German one.
It may be simple, its often used for political or manipulation purposes because it is emotionally charged but it is never an accurate way to assess the situation. And it annoys me very much.
Or is kosher to kill civilians just as long as it's the USAF doing it?
Do you want me to go search how many Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. military personnel who were merely following "lawful orders"? What is a "lawful order to kill"? One that is according to the ROE?
Justified or not, NATO's attack was an act of aggression, by definition of aggression. No need to play semantics here. Go tell the civilians in Novi Sad (which is ethnically Hungarian) that destroying their city was justified because of what ethnical Serbs were doing in Kosovo. Go read a bit about the rich and convoluted history of the Balkans, because your black & white view of the world is a bit fuzzy.
Sadly, that describes the NATO position very well. There are "worthy victims" and "unworthy victims." Victims of our allies are "unworthy": if Isreal, Turkey, or some banana owned by the CIA is killing, then we never hear about it who died, we don't know their names, we don't see interviews on CNN with grieving relatives. If it is our enemies' killing anyone, then the victims become automatically "martirs" and we hear their personal stories, we know their names and watch the grieving families on TV.
> No need to play semantics here.
Propaganda is all about redefinition of words and skewing of semantics. Clinton administration did a remarcable job with propagnda during the war in Bosnia.
All the little pseudo-intellectual lapdogs at the time were writing in their little foreign policy journals how we entered into a new era, where US is a beacon of freedom and hope, and from now on we'll only have wars with pure humanitarian reasons.
That said, I'm personally dubious about this story being true - it reads more like a Serbian trying to explain how clever he was against the dumb Americans, even though his country got its butt kicked. Certainly for the AWACS guys, comms security is their bread-and-butter, so I'd be really surprised to learn that they stuffed it up so badly...
He never puts it that bluntly. And well, admit that he has something to brag about. As an ex RAAF radar engineer I'm sure you realize that scoring F-117 with ancient S-125 is no trivial feat.
As to his country getting its ass kicked, well. Really, what other outcome was there ever possible, victorious Serbian banner over Washington?
Now imagine what might have happened if the USAF had actually had tried to go up against fully equipped Red Army air defences. So much for Stealth.
But that simply isn't true. Why're British forces stuck with the outdated Clansman system? Your GSM mobile phone is more secure than the current-issue kit.
I blame the Object Management Group (the good people who brought you CORBA) for being given too much influence in designing the architecture ;-) Although, I guess I can't complain too much since I am defense contractor (I'm hoping to build them a fancy compiler with some neat AI/heuristic static analysis goodness baked right in :-D).
So did the Bosnians, Croats, Kosovars, and Macedonians.
I also recommend actually being in a war and then reading about it in the media. You would be surprised how biased CNN, Fox and BBC were during the NATO campaign in Kosovo (well, maybe not so much surprised by CNN and Fox). I personally was greatly disappointed by the BBC - I viewed them as one of the rare media telling mostly truth, but it turned out the BBC way of supporting official British politics was turning the blind eye to all bad things that were being done by Muslims in Kosovo.
And also, in near future you will get to see what kind of regime NATO was defending in Kosovo.
As far as F-117 is concerned, funny thing is how in Serbia we were watching Discovery channel's praising "documentaries" about that aircraft, telling (years after 1999) how it has never been shot down by the enemy. Well go to Belgrade and you can see it displayed, you don't even need a visa for Serbia.
Western media is a great war machine, much greater than some "invisible aircraft". And you miked, are either a part of that machine, or a foolish follower of their praise.
Why wait for the future... six months ago there was an affair regarding BND (German CIA) and Kosovo and this is what the German daily newspaper "Die Welt" writes about it. BTW, "Die Welt" is probably the most conservative newspaper in Germany and its reporting is actually quite pro-Kosovo-oriented. The subtitle "An act of revenge?" is most interesting for this discussion:
http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2806537/German-spy-af...
I completely agree with you btw. The rights and wrongs of any war (vs any technical hacks etc) are way off HN's focus. The suggested policy is apparently to flag any offending comments and keep quiet about it. How effective that policy is debatable.
I am for life and for human rights. I am not against the Serbs. I am against the Serbs who committed atrocities. Moreover, not all Serbs are the same. The ethnical salad bowl in the Balkans is mind-boggling. Superficial analyses are plain stupid in this case.
1) US F-16s up against Australian F-18s. In principle it should be a relatively level battle, but there's an important difference between the two aircraft - the F-16s are carrying AMRAAMs, whilst the Aussies had AIM9 Sidewinders. The AMRAAMS had standoff range - the F-16s could literally fire, and then turn tail and run, without ever entering the Australian missile range. The only successful way to engage them was to take them in a pincer movement, but that meant splitting your forces, they'd just turn and engage one group, which was now at half strength, and overwhelm with firepower...
2) Again, Oz vs US, the Aussies defending a site from attack. The radar was tracking the US aircraft coming in until they were about 200km away, at which point instead of just one flight of aircraft on the radar screen, we suddenly had three flights, each one performing seperate manoeuvres. They weren't just jamming the signal, they were generating alternative signals in real time, and basically feeding our antenna a pack of lies. We had to call in support from our over the horizon radar, just to figure out which was the real attack group... Of course, by the time that was done, they were already inside the defensive perimeter, so it was game over...
The point to all of this being that when the USAF is on the ball, it is an unstoppable machine. From ECM, to stealth to missile tech, to surveillance, they are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world. Their aircraft can act pretty much with impunity wherever they want in the world, whenever they want. Their only error is thinking that Air Supremecy automatically translates to political victory on the ground...
Anyway, this story is about 12 years out of date now :-/ But I'm sure the technological gap between the US and the rest of the world still exists - it was after all Rummy's hobby horse.
You guys get the cool new toys and we get the hand-me-downs, seems to be how it works :-)
It's quite similar to what John Boyd and his acolytes have talked about regarding military strategy for years. I recommend "Certain to Win" by Chet Richards for a digestible summary.
Something that's sorely lacking from the article is any information on US long-term strategy. Did the US air force use the full range of jamming and deception technology at their disposl, or were they content to lose a few planes to keep their true capabilities secret?
Lt. Col. Dale Zelko - The first missile went right over the top of me. So close, actually, that I was surprised it didn’t proximity fuse on me. I could feel the shock wave of it buffeting the aircraft. As soon as it went over I quickly re-acquired the second missile visually and when I did, I thought: “It’s goin’ to run right into me.” And it sure felt like it did.
RFA - So it was a direct hit?
Lt. Col. Dale Zelko - It may have proximity fused, I don’t know absolutely. In theory, if it didn’t have a warhead in it, if it was just a harpoon or a tree trunk, would it have gone through my aircraft? I don't know for certain. But if you look at the photos of the wreckage my entire left wing is missing. [...] The impact was extremely violent and slammed the aircraft into a left roll, negative g tuck. I estimate seven, if not more negative Gs which is enormous.
Double win.
His men undoubtedly most appreciated him because he kept them out of combat and alive.
And was the plane detected/shot down because of the defenders' skills or were there plane malfunctions, etc.?
I claim false advertising and would like my 30 seconds back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-7
1. Turn on 2. Point 3. Shoot 4. Run away.
IMO, if you're going Soviet heritage, it begins and ends al-Fresco. :-)
That. That is entertainment.
You'd be better of with the Albatross, even if it is slower. :)
I share your appreciation of speed though.
Either way, it's academic, mainly because you're not getting a jet trainer, I only want to get rated for one and neither of us can afford the fuel besides.
But yes you're correct... this fantasy is reserved for post acquisition day.
Btw. the reasons for invading Serbia back then have been debunked as propaganda later on in the same way the Iraq war excuses have been debunked. There were no Serbian concentration camps etc.
They were no more victims than Germans in WW2.
Edit: About half of referenced article is truth and makes sense.
However article is taken out of context of 90' on balkans. IMHO NATO intervention had a lot to do with feeling of guilt of NATO members for allowing the Bosnia debacle. Most westerners don't understand that Kosovo is Serbian hallow ground and that they would exterminate Albanians without thinking twice (once they were already on rampage). Short term this was probably the only solution. Long term there will be more bloodbath in Kosovo.