SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
The MQ-1 Predator and other similar UAVs are truly the pinnacle of advanced combat aviation. Splashing them represents a veritable tour de force of antiaircraft warfare, battlefield communication, and warning systems.
Iran shoots down two spy drones in Gulf
- Thread starter Karalysia
- Start date
Not at all. As the clip showed, these are slow moving machines. The issue is that they are also more or less stealthy machines. So you don't even see them unless they are pretty close. So on the scale of a country, they'd be difficult to hunt up and find. But not so difficult to shoot down once they are found.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
They aren't stealthy at all. I imagine any decent combat radar system would be able to spot them. The planes in the videos certainly didn't have any difficulty targeting and destroying them.
Once again, the sole purpose of drones was to serve as target practice until the advent of cruise missiles.
Once again, the sole purpose of drones was to serve as target practice until the advent of cruise missiles.
Generally well said, except that their original purpose was for reconnaisance over enemy territory where to do so with a pilot would probably cost lives. Drones are certainly not aircraft for air-to-air operations.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
No, their original purpose was primarily to serve as targets.
http://www.vectorsite.net/twuav_01.html
http://www.vectorsite.net/twuav_01.html
Ah, you are correct - something similar was developed in 1916 - recon drones arrived in 1959. Cruise missiles followed very shortly during the Great War.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Xanikk999
History junkie
You sure know how to use hyperbole don't you? Spying is hardly considered an act of war.
Wrong.
In the old days during the cold war, Soviet Bears flew down the eastern seaboard to Cuba and back, monitoring American communications and radars, etc. And there were also the ubiquitous Soviet fishing trawlers; ostensibly fishing vessels but in fact KGB electronic eavesdropping vessels. In those days coastal waters only had a three mile limit and you could actually see the Ruskies right off the beach. It was considered kosher because the more our countries knew about each other, the safer the world was. It's the paranoid countries like North Korea, Iran, Commie China and so forth, who just don't get it.
I remember during the Gemini and Apollo launchs at Cape Canaveral in the 60's - the Networks would show the astronauts arriving, the crowds watching, the Soviet trawler just off the coast...
From what I heard, the Revolutionary Guard is a reliable and upstanding outfit that we should totally trust at face value, like the OP!
Patroklos
Deity
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Most UAVs including the Predator are not stealth. It is not meant to operate and survive in a near peer environment.
That being said, some of the smaller tactical UAVs are hard to detect based on their very small size and carbon fiber construction, but that's true of anything that size.
That being said, some of the smaller tactical UAVs are hard to detect based on their very small size and carbon fiber construction, but that's true of anything that size.
MSNBC wants to propagate the hostility?
Well, maybe not 'wrong'. If Iran had assets off of the coast of the US, people'd crap their pants. Right now, the big fear is that they can reach Israel
RedRalph
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That's what I thought. Then why is Patroklos saying there's no chance this is true?
Probably because it's so stupid to provoke the US like that - especially when a large number of their allies are already screaming in their ears to declare war on Iran - that even the Iranians have more sense than to try it.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
I wouldn't call Israel and a handful of Sunni-dominated Muslim countries a large number of allies. You make sound like GWB didn't label Iran an "axis of evil" and that the US has been the voice of reason in this matter, instead of the primary instigator in increasing tensions for decades now ever since they made hostages of our embassy staff. That Saddam Hussein wasn't our stooge and that we didn't actively support his efforts to destroy Iran.
I think history is going to show that the US military and the CIA have conducted numerous covert operations inside Iran. That we have even supported terrorist activity and have played a major role in fomenting dissention and rebellion against the sovereign government. So it wouldn't surprise me in the least if drones and other surveillance aircraft have been repeatedly violating Iranian airspace, and that Iran has been trying to shoot them down whenever it occurs. This is particularly true ever since the US has been claiming that Iran is providing military aid to Shiite groups within Iraq since the occupation of that country.
After all, any sovereign country would react the same way to overt hostilities which were intended to overthrow their government, especially the US. I was really hoping that Obama would be the voice of reason in this matter, but it seems that he is really just continuing the previous administration's policies and actions while doing little to actually resolve the issues.
Patroklos
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My opinion is not based off of the impossibility of them doing it, but on the phrasing and lack of certain things in the article. It just doesn't make sense the way its put forward.
That and Iran's similar claims like the missiles and that glorified target drone they reported a bit back. It really is like Baghdad Airport with these people.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
A semi-official news agency?
What are they? A bit official? Mostly official? Or exactly 50% official?
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
State sponsored, but not quite state preferred? Their propaganda isnt quite up to snuff?
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