"U.S. F-15 Is Hit By Islamic State Anti-Aircraft ..." Topic

…Batteries On A Mission In Iraq. Pilot Forced To Land In Turkey.

"Islamic State of Iraq and Levant has been operating anti-aircraft batteries stolen from the Iraqi military.

Officials said the U.S. military has determined that ISIL deployed an unspecified number of anti-aircraft artillery to counter Western air strikes in northern Iraq.

Western diplomatic sources said ISIL struck at least one U.S. aircraft. They said an F-15 fighter-jet was hit by ISIL fire in late August that damaged the hydraulic system and forced the aircraft to land in neighboring Turkey…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

It was bound to happen … ISIL has alot equipment, much of which they took from the Syrians and Iraqis. Very Glad the F-15 and pilot landed safely and Turkey allowed it to do so … Not too sure of the Turks leanings anymore … or the status of any US/NATO bases still there …

Turkey is still an official US 'ally' and, like Saudi Arabia, a lucrative importer of American arms. Given their increasingly Islamist leanings it's probably not a good idea, but if the US stops arms sales to Turkey other countries like Russia and China will happily fill the vacuum.

Time for SEAD

The term "ally" it appears in that region has different meanings to different states at different times, for various reasons, etc. … Behind the US, Turkey has the 2d largest army in NATO … The Saudis of course don't belong to NATO, but IIRC, they just bought 450 Leo A4 MBTs from Germany … But as noted neither seem to be in any hurry to help stop the spread of ISIS, besides providing rethoric … And I hope SEAD was used, before the CAS went in … but nothing is 100%, regardless …

Too bad we retired all the F4G Wild Weasels, but I think it's time to let a couple B1s or similar orbit around and stonk every single site that hits them with radar.

It looks like you could hang 3 HARMs on each one of the underbelly hardpoints on a B1 (weightwise, I don't know about volumewise), though I think one or two pylons are getting used by laser-target designators and other non-explosive systems.

Currently USA used EA-18G, EA-6B and F-16C/D for SEAD. Hence US has plenty of SEAD capability.

Also SEAD does require opponent to use radars. It's generally useless versus optically guided systems (including Mk I eyeball) or infrared systems. As such NATO tactics are usually medium-to-high altitude to avoid these systems (mainly AAA and MANPADS).

Bare in mind ISIL/ISIS shouldn't have anything in its arsenal that can be used reliably at medium-high altitude. The Iraqis never had any such systems in service, whilst the Syrian did but these were mainly SAMs and mainly obsolete at that.

There's been no reports of medium range systems being used by jihadis in Syria – it's all been MANPADS and AAA and the Syrians are limiting casualties by using medium-high altitude (also limiting SyAF effectiveness due to lack of guided weapons).

I can forsee three possible explanations:

1. ISIL/ISIS got lucky. AAA is not reliable in hitting at medium to high altitude.

2. F-15 was flying at lower than standard altitude recommended by current tactics.

That's possible as there might be some confusion as to ISIL/ISIS capabilities, especially after over a decade of fighting much lower capability opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3. ISIL/ISIS actually used a captured Syrian SAM ala SA-8 or SA-9 and then got lucky as well.

This one is possible but we've had no reports of medium-high altitude SAMs being used in Syria.

As I said, nothing is 100% and in warfare as in life … happens …

It's tough to give good CAS when the cloud ceiling is lower than the AAA max range… Either you drop JDAMs and Paveways in blind (assuming somebody on the ground has a target designator), or you fly low enough to put eyes on target.

Good to hear the pilot made it back safely, and hats off to the designers/builders of the rugged bird.