F-15E shot down over Iran

ppragman said:
Something I was thinking about last night, but I bet the Russians and Chinese have been absolutely flooding the Iranians with MANPADs since the start of the war. I mean, I'm not a mil guy, but it's what I would do. If the big geopolitical enemy went to war with another country I would give them all the assistance I could without stepping in if only to test out the equipment I have. It has probably taken them 30 days or so to even get a sufficient amount of MANPADs into the country to make it painful for us. Then the Iranians had to decide where they can be dangerous. I won't be surprised if we don't see further airplanes shot down, then eventually further escalation because it's good for China and Russia if we're bogged down in this. Karl Vilson's war instead of Charlie Wilson.
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The definition of proxy war. Iran has the advantage of having both US equipment and Russian equipment. And has continually been getting Russian equipment in trade for other weapons such as drones.

Russia has been doing that against us for many decades, just as iran has been doing the same thing against us since ‘79, through their various groups.
 
ppragman said:
Something I was thinking about last night, but I bet the Russians and Chinese have been absolutely flooding the Iranians with MANPADs since the start of the war. I mean, I'm not a mil guy, but it's what I would do. If the big geopolitical enemy went to war with another country I would give them all the assistance I could without stepping in if only to test out the equipment I have. It has probably taken them 30 days or so to even get a sufficient amount of MANPADs into the country to make it painful for us. Then the Iranians had to decide where they can be dangerous. I won't be surprised if we don't see further airplanes shot down, then eventually further escalation because it's good for China and Russia if we're bogged down in this. Karl Vilson's war instead of Charlie Wilson.
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It's a long stand tradition of proxy wars.


(edit)

Dammit, ninja'd
 
MikeD said:
The definition of proxy war. Iran has the advantage of having both US equipment and Russian equipment. And has continually been getting Russian equipment in trade for other weapons such as drones.
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I mean, I am absolutely not in favor of this conflict to be clear, but it's been pretty clear who the "Axis of A-Holes" has been for the last decade or so.

Russia + China + Iran + North Korea + Belarus + Cuba + Venezuela a few other randos versus America + Israel + a reluctant EU + the GCC + a smattering of American vassals.

I don't know, if you were to write this in a novel it'd probably be considered "too trite to publish" but how this is playing out seems pretty damn obvious.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Always surprised that people are surprised that war isn’t bloodless
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Trust me, I understand the human costs of war as well as anyone else here does.

The point I was trying to make is yesterday had a lot of carnage in an aerial war that hadn't had much up until that point, at least lost to *enemy* fire.
 
MikeD said:
The definition of proxy war. Iran has the advantage of having both US equipment and Russian equipment. And has continually been getting Russian equipment in trade for other weapons such as drones.

Russia has been doing that against us for many decades, just as iran has been doing the same thing against us since ‘79, through their various groups.
Click to expand...

5000+ low tech Vietnam-era AAA batteries are capable of spewing a donkey-load of hate.
 
MikeD said:
Day CSAR has always been highly risky. We always planned for it as an opportunity arises or timing demands, decision matrix for going in daytime versus night time for making a pickup when we were deployed down range on CSAR duty. Especially in areas like this where there’s not a ton of low/contour terrain masking in all ingress/egress routes to speak of. Ground fire always has, and always will, have the advantage over you as an air asset when you are operating inside their WEZ. Sometimes you have to.
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Yeah my guess, right on wrong call, the order was given to "go now". So they did. Obviously the night much more heavily favors our capabilities broadly speaking, though can of course be detrimental in other respects in this type of mission. Anyway, I guess I mean I doubt they had the luxury of time in this case. Probably a pretty small window of opportunity with such a populous and geographically broad defensive force. Just speculating
 
ppragman said:
Something I was thinking about last night, but I bet the Russians and Chinese have been absolutely flooding the Iranians with MANPADs since the start of the war. I mean, I'm not a mil guy, but it's what I would do. If the big geopolitical enemy went to war with another country I would give them all the assistance I could without stepping in if only to test out the equipment I have. It has probably taken them 30 days or so to even get a sufficient amount of MANPADs into the country to make it painful for us. Then the Iranians had to decide where they can be dangerous. I won't be surprised if we don't see further airplanes shot down, then eventually further escalation because it's good for China and Russia if we're bogged down in this. Karl Vilson's war instead of Charlie Wilson.
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100%. They will send whatever they can, that hasn't been expended in Ukraine. I imagine they will get some pretty capable things into the hands of the Iranians soon, if they haven't already.
 
///AMG said:
Yeah my guess, right on wrong call, the order was given to "go now". So they did. Obviously the night much more heavily favors our capabilities broadly speaking, though can of course be detrimental in other respects in this type of mission. Anyway, I guess I mean I doubt they had the luxury of time in this case. Probably a pretty small window of opportunity with such a populous and geographically broad defensive force. Just speculating
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I’m thinking it was a snatch and grab opportunity before the IRGC could organize a search or get into the area. High risk, but necessary at times. Of course, during Vietnam, all rescues were daytime, in the highest threat areas there were; night rescues began in the last 4 months of the war.
 
FlyingAccountant said:
There's a video going around of the aftermath of an A10 gun run on some Iranians that were apparently pursuing the WSO.

Oof.
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Nothing to gloat about, or get some weird "brrrt" hard-on over (some probably will). But it is an incredible brotherhood, that all those assets and all your buds in different airframes will go out there and hang it all out just to get one guy stuck on the ground. It is a somewhat-unspoken contract I'd say, when you fly in country. You know they will come for you if it all goes wrong. I'm glad to see that our guys are just as sharp as they were the last time these were commonplace, 50 years ago.

Sounds like they are now officially reporting the second F-15E crew member (apparently the WSO?) has been extracted.
 
///AMG said:
Nothing to gloat about, or get some weird "brrrt" hard-on over (some probably will). But it is an incredible brotherhood, that all those assets and all your buds in different airframes will go out there and hang it all out just to get one guy stuck on the ground. It is a somewhat-unspoken contract I'd say, when you fly in country. You know they will come for you if it all goes wrong. I'm glad to see that our guys are just as sharp as they were the last time these were commonplace, 50 years ago.

Sounds like they are now officially reporting the second F-15E crew member (apparently the WSO?) has been extracted.
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On a related note, my dad was buddies with Col.Hambleton.

en.wikipedia.org

Iceal Hambleton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
///AMG said:
Nothing to gloat about, or get some weird "brrrt" hard-on over (some probably will). But it is an incredible brotherhood, that all those assets and all your buds in different airframes will go out there and hang it all out just to get one guy stuck on the ground. It is a somewhat-unspoken contract I'd say, when you fly in country. You know they will come for you if it all goes wrong. I'm glad to see that our guys are just as sharp as they were the last time these were commonplace, 50 years ago.

Sounds like they are now officially reporting the second F-15E crew member (apparently the WSO?) has been extracted.
Click to expand...
In all sincerity, I can't wait for the book and movie about this op.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
On a related note, my dad was buddies with Col.Hambleton.

en.wikipedia.org

Iceal Hambleton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...

When I was but a midshipman, attending the USN Submarine Ball in downtown Seattle one night, we were all hanging out in this foyer near the ballroom with our cocktails. Unknown to us, in the adjoining ballroom, the Medal of Honor society (or whatever it is called) was having their annual get-together. So all of us were in the same cocktail hour effectively. An older kinda slight guy in a suit wearing a MoH around his neck approached a friend and me, stuck his hand and said "hey I was in the Navy too!" and introduced himself as Tom Norris. And then another much larger old guy came over, also wearing a suit and a MoH, and said something like "what kinda lies is this •head telling you? I saved his life!!" Tom Norris was the SEAL who rescued BAT-21/Col Hambleton, and the other guy was Michael Thornton who was another SEAL who did in fact save Tom's life several months later. It was a wild couple of guys to happen to meet, at an otherwise boring event
 
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