Iran fires on US drone

[dontworrybehappy]

[eric]

[Professor]

Don't really get what's odd about this.

We know that Iran has at least a couple operational SU-25s. They were photoed a few months ago doing another training exercise.

It's not unusual to have aircraft loaded with live ammunition during a training exercise. It's "training". Every now and then, you drop/shoot live ammo. Plus, we don't know if they had live bombs or air-to-ground missiles. Just that they had bullets. Not unusual. Especially given the fact that tensions are hightened. Our AF regularly few armed aircraft during training missions in Europe during the Cold War, jsut in case something happened.

Also, it's INCREDIBLY hard to hit a target in the air with guns. The SU-25 likely doesn't have air-to-air combat taretting software or hardware loaded (even if available, given the statements about lack of parts, what are the chances they had them on these 2 planes?). This means that they were shooting with just hand-eye coordination. It's normal attack speed is around 400mph. Max speed of a predator is 135mph. That's a 265mph difference. Ever try to throw a bottle out the window of a car and hit a sign on the interstate? It's almost impossible without several tries. And that's at 70mph. Try it going 3.5x as fast! I'm not at all surprised they couldn't shoot it down. Even if it was flying level and straight, it'd be tough. If the operators of the Predator saw what was happening and took evasive action, you can forget about it. Plus, the predator is a VERY small target to hit. Could you throw a bottle out a car traveling 265mph and hit a rabbit that was running away from you?

[Spider]

dontworry is completely right on this one. They could have scrambled any number of modern fighter aircraft to shoot at this thing...but they didn't. They sent CAS planes instead. Which makes no sense at all.

They could have sent MiG-29's and wasted it effortlessly. But for some reason...maybe because whoever makes these calls had just fired one up...they sent possibly the very least suitable plane they've got for this task.

It would have been a matter of following the path of the tracers, trying to lead the target, like in WW2. Craziness.

[exploited]

I hate to say it, but it seems almost agent provocateur like. I mean Iran has a pretty bad Air Force... but not even the crappiest Air Force in the world would try to shoot down a drone with a bombing platform.

That is the only explanation that makes sense, other than Iran decided to do this to purposefully embarrass themselves.

[dontworrybehappy]

[eric]

[eric]

[Professor]

[Spider]

@Eric

Giving them too much credit how?

Please be specific. Please explain to me how shooting down a drone would be even slightly difficult with a MiG-29. A 4rth generation air superiority fighter, roughly equivalent to an F-15. It would be like swatting a fly.

First, read up on what a CAS plane is, and why an SU-25 literally doesn't have the electronics suite to shoot down airborne targets, and would basically require dead reckoning with cannons.

Then, read up on the aircraft inventory of the Iranian air force in general.

Prof said it better above in any case. Read his post.