Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Wow, just found this. Illicit smuggling by politicians!

Dictators tend to become easily over confident by virtue of their absolute powers in their own country. But once they become over confident, their downfall won't be far away.


http://ig.ft.com/sites/2015/isis-oil/

[don]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Guest Column From George Abert, Formerly Of Air Force Intelligence

November 26, 2015 | Categories: Guest Contributions


Why did Turkey shoot down a Russian Air Force jet?

Turkey is so militarily inferior to Russia that it is unlikely Turkey would commit an act of war against Russia without encouragement from Washington. We might think that Turkey would feel shielded by NATO, but it is doubtful that many European members of NATO would risk nuclear annihiliation by going to war with Russia in order to save Turkey from the consequences of such a reckless and irresponsible act as shooting down a Russian military aircraft and lying about it. Turkey has issued no apology and no believable explanation. Unless Erdogan has lost his mind, Washington is behind the shootdown, and the reason is Washington’s desperation to decode the new Russian technology that gives Russian forces total control over a battlefield, whether on land, sea, or air.

When the Russians deployed their forces to Syria they also deployed some new stealth technology. So far as I know they’ve only used this technology in Syria twice, once during their first sortie and one other time when some Israeli Air Force jets entered what they knew was Russian operational airspace.

As noted, the first use of this stealth technology was during the first Russian sortie. In accordance with protocols agreed to beforehand with Israel and the US, the Russians informed the US of their intent to launch a sortie. They did so an hour prior to the launch. When they did they also employed a new stealth technology. The technology effectively blinded both the US and Israel. None of the radars worked and most, if not all, satellite coverage was lost or compromised as well. But there’s more.

About a week after Putin’s UN General Assembly address the Israelis launched a sortie into Syria which flew into airspace that was under Russian operational control. Russian air controllers warned the Israelis that they had violated Russian controlled airspace. When the Israelis ignored the Russian air controllers, the stealth technology was employed a second time. The Israeli aircraft are equipped with two radars, one for fire acquisition and the other for fire control. Both are advanced and employ frequency-skipping technology to avoid being jammed. Both radars were effectively jammed. These aircraft have multiple telemetry data-links to their base. These were shut down. The only communications channel left was the high-frequency AM band normally used by civilian air traffic controllers. After the stealth technology was turned on and it was clear to the Russians that the Israelis knew they had been shut down, the Russian air traffic controllers used this AM band to tell the Israelis to scram. The Israelis complied.

Whatever this technology is, it’s a game changer and I’m certain that breaking this technology has been given an extremely high priority.
So why did Turkey shoot down the Russian jet?

I suspect somebody wants the Russians to start using this stealth technology more often, often enough for its weaknesses to be exposed. Shooting down that Russian jet might just get the Russians motivated to do that.

If I’m correct I bet every Raven and ELINT specialist in the business has been deployed to that theater of operations to hack this one! One can only imagine how many resources are being amassed.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Guest Column From George Abert, Formerly Of Air Force Intelligence

November 26, 2015 | Categories: Guest Contributions




Turkey is so militarily inferior to Russia that it is unlikely Turkey would commit an act of war against Russia without encouragement from Washington.

---

Unless Erdogan has lost his mind, Washington is behind the shootdown, and the reason is Washington’s desperation to decode the new Russian technology that gives Russian forces total control over a battlefield, whether on land, sea, or air.

---

If I’m correct I bet every Raven and ELINT specialist in the business has been deployed to that theater of operations to hack this one! One can only imagine how many resources are being amassed.

Incorrect.

Qualitatively and Quantitatively Turkey is in a reasonably good military position in opposition to Russia and its ability to project non-nuclear force directed at Turkey.

I'm pretty sure Turkey is sitting at #2 behind the U.S. In terms of NATO land force man power, tanks, artillery, and mobility(mix of NATO high standard and older generation platforms) and tactical aviation(large modern, well trained NATO standard western inventory).

Russia has more modern and last generation gear of generally lower quality over comparable NATO equipment, but has considerably bigger sovereignty defense requirements as a result of hostile/unfriendly neighbours as well as a very aggressive foreign policy(Russia has instigated high tempo Cold War era global presence patrol flights).

Relations between the U.S. And Turkey have slowly soured even since Turkey shut down US plans to invade Iraq from Turkey.

Same with Israel. Turkish/Israeli relations(particularly military) were quietly very strong, but have since dramatically soured in recent years.

Whenever and wherever combat operations are being conducted around the world by major peer or near players, their peer opponents will be working hard to overtly/covertly hoover up the entire emissions spectrum.

The author sounds alarmist and lacking in credibility throwing around "stealth technology" where it seems entirely out of context with generally accepted usage of the term. I think he means some form of ECM/jamming/electronic attack.

But he offers zero system detail, substantiation, or attribution.

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

The decision to shoot down the Russian plane has nothing to do with Turkey, the US, NATO or even Putin.

Someone is just pissed off by the Russian planes for bombing where his scion runs his oil smuggling business.

"No one touches my boy!"

[makimanos]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Czar vs Sultan. Is there a big picture or only near sighting? Maybe this is the turning point for Kurdistan.

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

edited.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Meh.......

A few things I've read:

The Russians had been providing Turkey with 12 hours notice for many/most bombing sorties, but reportedly didn't in this case.

There are reports of Russis requesting and receiving specific hotline frequency to be used for communication/deconfliction outside of the common and internationally recognized 121.5 guard frequency as the SU24s reportedly were unable to use.

The Syrians also possess SU24s in inventory and have used them often in this conflict.

The Turks have had large numbers of F16s on standing Combat Air Patrol(CAP) for quite some time, reportedly up to 12 up in the air concurrently along the border, which would be well known to the Russians, of which Turkey has a long record of consistently acting aggressively over decades, even with fellow NATO member Greece.

It doesn't mean Turkey is right, but it adds some needed perspective.

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Russia claims that flight paths over Syria are given to the U.S. which sounds reasonable as the U.S. has the greatest number of warplanes over Syria, is the de facto leader of NATO and Turkey is suppose to be an obedient vassal state of the U.S., at least before Obama.

I did not read about flight paths being given to Turkey. Shooting down a foreign plane without a declaration of war is not a trivial matter, unless it's the case of a rogue pilot, the order must have been given down from the highest authority.

If it were a rogue pilot or pilot error, Turkey should have gotten the pilot arrested right away which I think they probably should consider right now to push the blame to the pilot.

In my opinion, the shoot down is an act of war, but the aggressor cannot admit it officially because they are the weaker party military wise, and are not confident that NATO will back them up.

Meh.......

A few things I've read:

The Russians had been providing Turkey with 12 hours notice for many/most bombing sorties, but reportedly didn't in this case.

There are reports of Russis requesting and receiving specific hotline frequency to be used for communication/deconfliction outside of the common and internationally recognized 121.5 guard frequency as the SU24s reportedly were unable to use.

The Syrians also possess SU24s in inventory and have used them often in this conflict.

The Turks have had large numbers of F16s on standing Combat Air Patrol(CAP) for quite some time, reportedly up to 12 up in the air concurrently along the border, which would be well known to the Russians, of which Turkey has a long record of consistently acting aggressively over decades, even with fellow NATO member Greece.

It doesn't mean Turkey is right, but it adds some needed perspective.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Russia claims that flight paths over Syria are given to the U.S. which sounds reasonable as the U.S. has the greatest number of warplanes over Syria, is the de facto leader of NATO and Turkey is suppose to be an obedient vassal state of the U.S., at least before Obama.

I did not read about flight paths being given to Turkey. Shooting down a foreign plane without a declaration of war is not a trivial matter, unless it's the case of a rogue pilot, the order must have been given down from the highest authority.

If it were a rogue pilot or pilot error, Turkey should have gotten the pilot arrested right away which I think they probably should consider right now to push the blame to the pilot.

In my opinion, the shoot down is an act of war, but the aggressor cannot admit it officially because they are the weaker party military wise, and are not confident that NATO will back them up.

Before calling it an act of war you might want to have a read of what has been happening over the last 15 years.

Specifically, between supposed NATO allies Greece and Turkey:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...pace-nato.html

That's 6 lost tactical aircraft and aircrew in 15 years, between supposed allies.

Turkey and Russia are being practically civil in comparison.

And that doesn't include MANY examples over the years around the world since WWII
of intentional and unintentional shoot downs of both innocent/accidental and aggressive incursions.

Pakistan shot down some Soviet aircraft along the AFPAK frontier and it didn't lead to WWIII.

-----

As far as who "approved the shoot down", it comes down to warnings and rules of engagement(ROE). Warnings to Russian pilots and ROE brief/parameters for Turkish pilots.

If Russian pilots were flying high and slow, like a typical US close air support profile in Afghan/Iraq with low anti air threat, keep fuel burn and airframe fatigue low, and loiter time high, it would be far easier to manage "time and space" and avoid passing into Turkish air space. pilot workload would have been easier.

Ask our pilots GRG55 and BiscayneSunrise.

They weren't flying low/fast in the weeds and accidentally turned up the wrong valley system.

-----

Does Russia have nuclear power as well as greater total military power?

Of course, but if you exclude nuclear power Russia doesn't come close to the regional/massed(and modern) military power that Turkey possesses in the immediate area of operations.

Russia's deployment of the S400 system is par for the course for Russian doctrine, and is their long term traditional weakness in air dominance capability.

Russia doesn't have heaps of modern aircraft to project power with, most of their inventory is quite old, bar small numbers of new airframes.

Russia has had a bad string of military air crashes as it's military struggles to meet the demands of Putin's more aggressive posture and global air patrols, using an old fleet, flown by pilots with limited flight hours compared to NATO peers, and now kinetic operations in former Syria.

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

I'm must admit that I'm not familiar with aviation, neither am I an expert in the military strengths of Russia vs Turkey.

What I know, and the vast majority of the people of the world including the author of the commentary who is an Indian journalist, is that Russia is generous enough to put in resources to resolve the situation in Syria, go after ISIS, while the countries responsible for the situation in Syria (the small minority of the people in the world) are just throwing in more weapons to watch and probably enjoy what I call a gladiator show, while civilians in Syria suffer and some business minded politicians profit off "blood oil".

I empathize with the situation of the Turkmen, but if Turkey is really interested to save their "relatives", given the military resources they possess as you have described, they should move in their tanks and secure whatever land their relatives are living on the border, and establish a safe zone, just like what Russia had done in Crimea and East Ukraine.

With the great mess that Syria is in, I'm sure no one will complain about Turkey wanting to save the Turkmen from ISIS and Assad. Of course, this proposition assumes that ISIS is not allied with the Turkmen and Turkey in the first place.

Before calling it an act of war you might want to have a read of what has been happening over the last 15 years.

Specifically, between supposed NATO allies Greece and Turkey:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...pace-nato.html

That's 6 lost tactical aircraft and aircrew in 15 years, between supposed allies.

Turkey and Russia are being practically civil in comparison.

And that doesn't include MANY examples over the years around the world since WWII
of intentional and unintentional shoot downs of both innocent/accidental and aggressive incursions.

Pakistan shot down some Soviet aircraft along the AFPAK frontier and it didn't lead to WWIII.

-----

As far as who "approved the shoot down", it comes down to warnings and rules of engagement(ROE). Warnings to Russian pilots and ROE brief/parameters for Turkish pilots.

If Russian pilots were flying high and slow, like a typical US close air support profile in Afghan/Iraq with low anti air threat, keep fuel burn and airframe fatigue low, and loiter time high, it would be far easier to manage "time and space" and avoid passing into Turkish air space. pilot workload would have been easier.

Ask our pilots GRG55 and BiscayneSunrise.

They weren't flying low/fast in the weeds and accidentally turned up the wrong valley system.

-----

Does Russia have nuclear power as well as greater total military power?

Of course, but if you exclude nuclear power Russia doesn't come close to the regional/massed(and modern) military power that Turkey possesses in the immediate area of operations.

Russia's deployment of the S400 system is par for the course for Russian doctrine, and is their long term traditional weakness in air dominance capability.

Russia doesn't have heaps of modern aircraft to project power with, most of their inventory is quite old, bar small numbers of new airframes.

Russia has had a bad string of military air crashes as it's military struggles to meet the demands of Putin's more aggressive posture and global air patrols, using an old fleet, flown by pilots with limited flight hours compared to NATO peers, and now kinetic operations in former Syria.

[jk]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

I'm must admit that I'm not familiar with aviation, neither am I an expert in the military strengths of Russia vs Turkey.

What I know, and the vast majority of the people of the world including the author of the commentary who is an Indian journalist, is that Russia is generous enough to put in resources to resolve the situation in Syria, go after ISIS, while the countries responsible for the situation in Syria (the small minority of the people in the world) are just throwing in more weapons to watch and probably enjoy what I call a gladiator show, while civilians in Syria suffer and some business minded politicians profit off "blood oil".

I empathize with the situation of the Turkmen, but if Turkey is really interested to save their "relatives", given the military resources they possess as you have described, they should move in their tanks and secure whatever land their relatives are living on the border, and establish a safe zone, just like what Russia has done in Crimea and East Ukraine. With the mess that Syria is in, I'm sure no one will complain about Turkey wanting to save their "relatives" from ISIS and Assad.

wasn't that the argument that hitler used to seize the sudetenland?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

I'm must admit that I'm not familiar with aviation, neither am I an expert in the military strengths of Russia vs Turkey.

What I know, and the vast majority of the people of the world including the author of the commentary who is an Indian journalist, is that Russia is generous enough to put in resources to resolve the situation in Syria, go after ISIS, while the countries responsible for the situation in Syria (the small minority of the people in the world) are just throwing in more weapons to watch and probably enjoy what I call a gladiator show, while civilians in Syria suffer and some business minded politicians profit off "blood oil".

I empathize with the situation of the Turkmen, but if Turkey is really interested to save their "relatives", given the military resources they possess as you have described, they should move in their tanks and secure whatever land their relatives are living on the border, and establish a safe zone, just like what Russia has done in Crimea and East Ukraine. With the mess that Syria is in, I'm sure no one will complain about Turkey wanting to save their "relatives" from ISIS and Assad.

Have a look at Libya.

Topographically/geographically Libya is "easy"(in the relative sense) to secure and control.

Flat terrain, easy to dominate/control(again in the relative sense of things), and most people living along thin coastal/littoral communities.

And even that's not happening. Which is a "bit"(meaning a lot) foreboding for the future of what was once called Syria.

Syria topographically/geographically is an entirely different kettle of fish and not particularly conducive to easy armoured operations.

Even if it were, it's a very, very, very expensive("3 M's": men, material, money) endeavour.

Who will pay for it and why?

[jk]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

And even that's not happening. Which is a "bit"(meaning a lot) foreboding for the future of what was once called Syria.

Syria topographically/geographically is an entirely different kettle of fish and not particularly conducive to easy armoured operations.

Even if it were, it's a very, very, very expensive("3 M's": men, material, money) endeavour.

Who will pay for it and why?

"and why?" is a very good question.

do any of the outside players need the whole thing to achieve their ends? iran needs a syrian conduit to its clients in lebanon and gaza. russia needs its mediterranean port protected. the u.s. needs to preserve the fantasy that it is dominant, or at least very very important, in every global theater. turkey needs to suppress the kurds while profiting from illicit oil trade, and perhaps making a good profit by putting refugees in [concentration?] camps to prevent their on-migration to europe. iraq needs to limit any intrusion into its territory and any seizing of oil production by the islamic state. saudi needs to weaken the shia regimes in the region.

who needs all of syria? and whose needs [among the outside powers] are NOT being served by the current status quo?

[touchring]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

wasn't that the argument that hitler used to seize the sudetenland?

A good question.

Another question. Isn't the EU as it is today don't look that much different from what Hilter wanted to achieve?

[jk]

Re: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet over Syria

Isn't the EU as it is today don't look that much different from what Hilter wanted to achieve?

not quite. it is indeed dominated by germany, but not in the manner nor to the extent that hitler had in mind.