"Turkey Downs 2 x Syrian Su-24s" Topic

Looks like things are heating up in Syria again, between the Turks and Syrians.

It's not clear to me what was used to shoot down the 2 x Syrian Su-24s, but they were knocked out of the sky following the Syrian shoot-down of a Turkish drone (also not clear to me what shot that down). Another source says 3 x Turkish drones were downed, in the region of Idlib.

Apparently, all four of the "pilots" got out safely (that means 2 x pilots and 2 x navigators/weapons crewmen).

Would love additional details if anyone has anything else to share, e.g. if they were shot down by aircraft, SAMs, flak guns, etc..

link

I would guess SAMs; and I guess there was no kill-switch that was hypothesized to exist on another post.

My money is on Turkish air defence and in particular units equipped with upgraded MIM-23 Hawk missiles.

I don't know how much of the Turkish air force is combat capable given they gutted huge numbers of fighter pilots after the last coup and even deactivated a number of fighter units (143, 153, 162 and 191 fighter squadrons – all equipped with F-16). 10 F-16 squadrons continue to exist, with a pool of 233 operational F-16s out of 270 delivered (rest were lost in accidents over the last 30 years). But I am not sure how many of those squadrons have full pilot compliments given over half the pilot pool was sacked (330 pilots).

I've also heard there are spare parts issues here affecting the F-16s as well.

Only 1 F-4 squadron still exists (111 Squadron and that's ground attack dedicated) and the re-equipment of the whole 7th wing (171 and 172 squadrons) was completely derailed when the F-35 deal was cancelled and it now has no aircraft!

Idlib is a mess at the moment. Turks has provided heavy weaponry and SAMs to "their" rebels, SAA wants to "solve" Idlib problem their own way, most of rebel forces are either allied or coordinating their activities with Al-Nusra and wnat-it-is-called now, Russia is supporting SAA, while Iran wants to discuss smth with Turkey without Russia or Syria.
And there's a lot of people in between, so Turkey is draining them through EC border as an argument to support their policies…

News from airspotter group Scramble is that it was F-16s that intercepted the Su-24s. One managed to get away. Big loss for SyAAF given they don't have many Fencers left.

RE: the 2 x SyAAF Su-24 shootdown. Did the Turkish F-16s even leave their own airspace?

There is nothing official but this seems to be likely to me:

This fellow Hakan KILIÇ is Turkish but his series of tweets is a good one on the shootdown. As he reports it, the Su-24s were shot down by an F-16C using the AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM missile. The SU-24s were tracked by a Turkish Air force E-7T Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft. The E-7T apparently also passed the radar data to the F-16C via encrypted datalink, allowing the latter to fire without using its own radar. The relevant string begins here.

link
n.b. in Turkish

I figured the fighter jets interception to be more likely, but wasn't sure.

Shoulder-fired SAMs can be pretty good against low-flying aircraft, and I saw a photo of a burning Su-24 going down just over some trees, from behind.

Shoulder-fired SAMs frequently only damage the aircraft, so larger weapons do seem more likely.

Thanks for the info.

I guess I should have actually read the linked article before speculating. I do recall hearing at some point that most modern era jets are not shot down with air-to-air but from SAMs. SAMs come in all shapes and sizes and most of them can out perform the most advanced fighters in terms of speed and altitude; that is why they are so dangerous. In Vietnam conflict, most of our jets were shot down by SAMs.

Disagree with the US losses over Vietnam.

Most were shot down by AAA.

Sending in easily detectable and relatively unmaneuverable dedicated (and defenseless) attack planes like the SU-24 without air cover is sheer suicide with sadly predictable results. Not much of a contest here. What's the most advanced counter-air fighter in the Syrian air force? Obsolete Sukhoi 22's? And to think Syria had what was considered to be one of the top air forces in the ME before Israel shot it down in a day under Bashar's dad Hafez al Assad, a former air force officer.

In 'Nam, at least Phantoms escorted and provided air cover for Thuds.

BattlerBritain, you are correct, AAA had the most, but air-to-air was only 9%. The larger point being the greatest threat was from the ground.

"According to the Vietnamese, 31% were shot down by S-75 missiles (1,046 aircraft, or 6 missiles per one kill); 60% were shot down by anti-aircraft guns; and 9% were shot down by MiG fighter."

I was surprised to read that AAA had so many kills considering that max altitude on most was under 10,000 feet with a few systems up to 20k; whereas SAMs can exceed most aircraft altitude limitations. I've seen stats for SAMs well over 100,000 feet, high Mach and high g-force more than an airplane. Fighter pilots I've spoken with seem to fear SAMs more than AAA.

USAFPilot:
Good research and a quick update.

I've been playing Downtown lately as well as CY6 and some scenarios from 'Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club'. Highly recommended .

15mm and 28mm Fanatik,

Syria's most advanced counter air fighter is the MiG-29 and those are in a basic late 1980s/early 1990s export configuration (9.12B – same monkey model as provided to Iraq). No idea how many were delivered or operational – I've seen numbers quoted as few as 20 delivered to 80.

Lots of speculation of orders of new airframes and upgrades but most are not confirmed and are probably unlikely (as are rumours of Mig-31 and Su-27SKs).

4 have been quoted as probable kills by Israeli F-15s – 2 in 1989 and 2 in 2001.

Current serviceability of Syrian MiG-29S is unknown.

SyAAF has prioritised ground attack. Most recent confirmed Syrian acquisitions were about 12 upgraded Su-24s (2 which now seem to have been shot down). I've also read of a large order for retired Egyptian MiG-21s which are easy to maintain and suitable for primitive ground attack sorties against badly armed opponents.

Su-22 fleet is badly attrited. There might have been 50 operational in 2012 but this has been slashed through combat including US raids.

Same for MiG-23 fleet. The Syrians actually obtained the most advanced export version of the MiG-23 (MLD) and topped it up with ex-Belarussian aircraft. MiG-23MLD's shot down Jordanian UAVs as late as 2017.

Again serviceability is unknown. Older MiG-23MS are retired. Apparently some of the air defenece MiG-23MF/ML/MLDs have been used in a ground attack role alongside MiG-23BN!

MiG-25 is out of service with many aircraft stored in open in Google imagery.

Many attacks in Vietnam were carried out at low to medium altitudes.

Firing SAMs at them caused them to break, or dive when targeted, bringing them down in to the AAAs range. Combined arms works.

Prior to introduction of upgraded Su-24MK2s to SyAAF most of their ground attacks were primitive WW2 style bomb and rocketing runs. AAA took out quite a few machines as did MANPADS (Chinese FN-6s supplied from Sudan via Saudi Arabia).