I don’t know who Zampini is. I saved the short description from there originally, probably 8-9 years ago.

As to whether you believe Russ/Ukr. sources, it depends on the source and your personal inclinations….this one seems credible enough to be taken into consideration. There’s a date, chronological order of the event. And last but not least, the clash took place without a doubt as confirmed by the Israelis.

On the other hand,

Am I suppose to take Israeli or Western sources at face value?

Sprichter’s F-18 is still, AFAIK listed as shot down by a SAM when there’s very little doubt it was an air-air kill.

From memory, at least 1 x RAF Tornado was likely an air-air kill during the 1991 Gulf war.

I’ll have to check my files for the details (they’re a mess 🙂 )

Just a single problem about that report is. It is no claim from the Syrians.
Can you give the link of that report to track the source.

I originally saved the report years ago from the Diego Zampini database (no longer available online). The original source is suppose to be the Sy-AF and Soviet instructors who were there at the time.

I’m pretty sure it’s listed on the Acig.org database (I’ll have to check).

There’s a description of the same incident in Russian (has a few more details) here:

http://www.airwar.ru/history/locwar/bv/mig25isr/mig25isr.html

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Annoying for us aviation fans but………… Good. I should hope that they do. Selective misinformation about one’s onw aircraft and their capabilities and vulnerabilities is a vital part of any military organisation’s PR arm’s role.

Why build a very strong reputation about your main air arm and then allow any kind of undermining of that reputation. The Israeli generals would be nuts to admit to any losses which they didn’t absolutely have to. The complexity of course comes from how to square this with providing honest information to decision-makers to avoid sinking good money after bad on a product from a manufacturer without making sure that follow on orders resolve the issue and/or training the next tranche of personnel (even) better.

I agree.

It’s part of the psychological warfare with the aim of demoralising your opponent and giving an air of invincibility to your side.

‘RSK MIG’ needs the money, so a Mig-29K order is good news from that perspective. I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon hear of an order for further Mig-29 SMTs or Mig-35s

Some news…

Russian Air Force Bombers Try Automated Targeting System for First Time

Russian air force bombers will try out an automated targeting system for the first time in the Zapad-2009 operational and strategic exercises, Lenta.RU is reporting referring to ITAR-TASS.

As the defense ministry press service chief, Colonel Aleksandr Drobyshevskiy, announced, the crews of the Russian airplanes “will make combat use of aircraft weapons systems at a range in Byelorussia according to the plan and scenario of the maneuvers.”

According to Drobyshevskiy, Su-24M and Tu-22M3 bombers equipped with a specialized digital subsystem developed by the Gefest and T company will make precision strikes against targets at the Byelorussian range. The automated targeting system will be used for accuracy of the munitions hits by decision of the overall force commander in a real time scale with automated retargeting in the air.

“Execution of such a mission has not been performed previously, which is a feature of the usage of this system within the framework of the Zapad-2009 exercises,” he emphasized.

Source: 25.09.09, Avia.RU

Anyone know what this might be?

Probably more becausethe Kirov’s and Slava’s are the only ships in the Russian Navy Inventory with an Area Air Defense Capability, and the ships currently announced to be under construction do not have the ability to replace that capability.

It would be interesting to see whether they’ll have a naval variant of the S-400.

I’m sure the peacetime USN, relaxing at normal states of peacetime readiness was soooo shocked that a couple of old fighter bombers in international waters flew by. The same stunt in a time of tension or war would have a very different outcome…. would like to see a 30 year old SU24 with next to no modern EW get near a USN battlegroup then.

For that matter an RN, FN or Dutch BG either….

In that particular occassion the USN was caught off-guard.

The carrier was refueling and there were no fighters on stand-by. If it wasn’t important, they wouldn’t be trying to cover up the incident.

Pentagon Disinformation on Kitty Hawk Incident

About six weeks after an American aircraft carrier was surprised and embarrassed in the Sea of Japan by low-level overflights of Russian fighter-bombers, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon misled reporters and rewrote history.

He told the press that US interceptors were put into the air and kept the Russian plains a “suitable distance” from the USS Kitty Hawk.

read further here:
http://www.888webtoday.com/beezley182.html

picture of the Kitty Hawk from “the suitable distance” that was later emailed by the Russians

And BTW, the Su-24 was a MR version (electronic reconnaissance)

I think Gulf War 1 is roughly comparable to the Georgia War of 2008 in terms of technology fielded by the combatants. The Iraqi air-defence was relatively modern for the time, similar to the Georgian air-defence in 2008.

Allied losses: 52 fixed aircraft + 23 helicopters….what happened there :confused:

So are we to assume that western airforces are crap ? :rolleyes:

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On Afghanistan…

The Russians fought an opponent that enjoyed support and supplies from the US, China and whole Islamic world and had a safe heaven in Pakistan…..yet the Mujahadeen were never able to win any major engagement, the Russians withdrew in good order and left a pro-Russian government behind that was in charge of the country until the fall of the USSR.

If the Taliban were receiving open support from Russia and China today, I can only begin to imagine the carnage and whining that would follow….

Another point worth mentioning is that Russia didn’t use a single Warsaw Pact soldier in Afghanistan, unlike the US which is constantly begging other countries for more troops…..pretty uninspiring from a so called hyper power if it can’t fight it’s own battles against a rag tag enemy.

Apolagies for posting a Chechen vidio but the second one is not any better or more immpressive, both videos look like something from WW2 and are a far cry from Russias claims of a high tech military.

Does the same description apply to the A-10, which the SU-25 is roughly comparable to?

And whilst the ground invasion may not have been “Huge” it was rather significant, certainly not a small scale attack by any standards. It was an Army sized operation and not a few brigades playing recce as you seem to like to hope people will think.

Both armies were roughly the same in size. In fact the Georgians had more artillery and tanks…..so even you should be able to draw a conclussion that air support played an important role. The Georgians said so themselves.

As for the snark about watching too many movies; I put it down to you being bitter that I pointed out that Russia lost more planes in just 5 days then NATO did in three months, I can’t see why else you’d make such a childlike remark.

Don’t try to project your own feelings onto me.

It’s better if you compare the number of anti-radar missiles Nato launched (reports vary from 730 up to a 1000) compared to the number of radars / SAMs it destroyed (single digit number). You’ll find that the effectivness was pretty low…….and I’m not even going to mention the unbeliavably low number of army hardware that was destroyed.

I believe it was the SINEVA

http://www.lenta.ru/news/2009/07/13/sineva/

Russia test launches second Sineva ballistic missile in two days
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090714/155525416.html

You realise off course that there was pretty heavy ground fighting going on??

Nato aircraft were unable (not from a lack of trying) to prevent Yugoslav ground units from completely removing the KLA from Kosovo.

To quote Sens: their effectivness was close to zero…..they were too busy bombing decoys, hay stacks and refugee columns