Gate wrote

Are there any publicly known incidents of NATO violations of Russian air space over the last ten years?

Those days have long since gone. There is no need or requirement to violate Russian airspace. Intelligence collection is collected from international airspace. As stated before the aircraft can legally approach all the way up to the 12nm to conduct their missions.

If NATO ever expands to include Ukraine, they will be responsible for defending thier own airspace surely? So we could see a situation where a Ukraine Su-27 intercepts a Russian Tu-95, and then the next day a Russian Su-27 could intercept a Ukraine Tu-95 (if they still use them). Crazy situation.

If Ukraine joins NATO then of course they will police their own airspace. Ukraine today will have standing Quick Reaction Alert aircraft to police their own airspace as it is. Ever since the events of 9/11 governments worldwide have re-assessed their policy and procedures in such an event.

All Ukrainian Tu-95s are in museums/scrapped or have been returned to Russia. Ukraine decided that it no longer required any strategic capability and disbanded their strategic forces.

Not the old S-300 saga in Iran again? Up until 2007, when I retired from the forces, the S-300 didn’t exist in any threat list for Iran. Think about it? Coalition forces have been operating in the region for decades. Iran doesn’t even use Tin Shield or any S-300 associated radars. The Iranians have to train with it and operate it. It isn’t something that they can just keep for a rainy day and wheel out. Think about all the intel collection assets there are in the Gulf and how focused they would be in trawling the EM spectrum? The Iranians may have trained on S-300 systems in Russia, but it needs to be in Iran to be effective. It is no use shipping it in from Russia after the Israeli’s strike at their nuclear facilities.

Iran may have obtained bit and pieces of the system from sources other than Russia. The break-up of the Soviet Union allowed various Russian systems to be bought by the west. Iran only had to look north to certain central asian republics to get their hands on bits of the system for evaluation. That doesn’t mean that they have any functioning system, nor integrated into any operational capability. Iran has since the early 1990s sought to obtain the system, but various deals have always fallen through with Russia. If you look on ACIG certain elements on there claim that Tehran is ringed with S-300s. A real fantasy claim.

The U.S. over the years has sought to block any attempt by Russia to sell Iran S-300s. If Russia has chosen to supply S-300 and not announce it via the U.N. Arms register then the U.S. would take great delight in revealing that un-announced sale. Although SAMs don’t have to be announced the Russians have gone out of their way to detail SAM system sales to keep everything above board. Over the years the Russians have bent over backwards to comply with the register.

The last from Iran in early 2008 was that the deal was still on. The Russians were still denying it.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080201/98169377.html

It isn’t something that you can hide. The U.S. would take great delight in outing a backdoor un-announced sale from Russia or even China. If and when Iran receives fully operational S-300s then it will be all above board and fully announced as per the Tor sale.

The suspicion about a F-15 downing comes from this image (note the english writing)

which was shown on news reports about the Mig-29 downing. The implication is that they showed the F-15 wreckage by mistake. Both the Mig-29 and alleged F-15 shoot down are suppose to have happened at roughly the same time and later the footage of the F-15 was taken off.

And for the record….Nato did exagerate wildly it’s claims.

The suspicion was based solely on that one image taken from a video. Although the video was shown the ‘believers of NATO losses’ only chose to show that one image. As both F-15 pilots closed on the two MiG-29s they combat jettisoned their external tanks. A Reuters news team found at least one of the combat jettisoned tanks and produced a near 4 minute video.

Unfortunately the footage ran around the world as being wreckage from a MiG-29. It wasn’t until first light the following day that the same Reuters team filmed the first of the MiG-29s that came down in Bosnia. The English stencil is simply “ANNUAL INSP C/W” (Annual Inspection) (C/W stands for Complied With). The video is near four minutes long and shows close ups of the tank fins, vent/feed pipes and manufacturers welded plate stating ‘600 US gallons’.

Combat-jettisoned fuel tanks were found even inside Serbia during the conflict. Everytime they were found they came with the claim that the NATO aircraft had been shot down.

From Captain Hwang’s account:

“About this time, both Boomer (TJ note; Boomer is Captain McMurray) and I got good ID on the target in our own cockpit and, with threat hot towards us inside 30 nm, decided to blow off the AWACS/clearance-to-engage restriction and go for it! Target was now inside 30 nm, and I directed Boomer to target the single group. I broke lock and went back to search in 40-nm scope and 120 sweep. The target check turns towards northwest (about 14L aspect) and descends to high teens. Boomer and I checked about 30¡ left to northeast for cutoff. This check turn slung me aft in the formation, so I stroke it up to full AB to get more line abreast. I called “Combat 1, arm hot” and saw Boomer’s wing tanks come off with bright flames under the wing. Pretty impressive! I was well over the Mach when I punched my tanks off, and the jet jumped up abruptly (you can see it in the HUD). Took a quick look back to see if my stabs were still intact,…. “

TJ

Niksi,

The following transcript is taken from media group PBS ‘Public Broadcasting Service. The transcript is a direct copy of the briefing from June 9, 1999. A snapshot taken of the original brief.

If you say that NATO was producing double inflated MiG-29 inventory kill claims then why does this media group have the following?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/nato_briefing6-9a.html

http://www.pbs.org/

‘NATO DAILY BREIFING

June 9, 1999

….

Major General Jertz

Yesterday I mentioned that during our strike on Batajnica Airfield, NATO hit 3 MiG 29 aircraft which of course now you can add to the summary of Jamie’s numbers. Subsequently there was battle damage analysis indicating that all three MiG 29s were really destroyed, leaving the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with only 2 out of 16 most modern fixed wing assets. Once again, I am happy to say that all manned NATO aircraft returned safely. ‘

Next you’ll be telling me that all the briefing video copies have all been over-dubbed!

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=539

May 12, 1999

….

‘Maj. Gen. Wald: Yes, they would.

This is a MiG-21 at an airfield in Batajnica, and you’ll see this is actually not at the airfield itself, it’s off of it on a road. You’ll see underneath it as it comes in, this is actually an F-15E with an AGM-130 optical bomb. You’ll see the netting over it. They tried to camouflage it, as it comes in, unsuccessfully.

This is a MiG-29. This is the 11th one out of 14 that have been destroyed. This is cluster bombs at Nis airfield. Once again, they try to move them around as best they can, but without much success here. You can see that actually does start burning and blowing up. So the majority of his front-line fighters — that was actually an F-16, excuse me.

Q: So 11 out of 14 MiG-29s have been destroyed?

Maj. Gen. Wald: We think it’s 11. There may be one that’s just damaged out of that 14, but we think there’s 11 destroyed. ‘

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/kosovo050599.htm

May 5, 1999

‘They also sent a MiG-29 fighter – the most sophisticated in their air fleet – against NATO warplanes early yesterday for the first time in weeks, and it was downed near the Bosnian border by a single missile from a U.S. F-16, defense officials said. They said the F-16 had been flying protective cover for NATO attack jets.

It was the sixth Soviet-built Yugoslav fighter shot down by NATO since the the air offensive began March 24. NATO says it has now destroyed well over half of Yugoslavia’s initial inventory of 15 top-of-the-line MiG-29s in dogfights and repeated attacks on military airfields. ‘

So Niksi,

How is this great cover up being conducted? Is NATO secretly trawling all over the world to edit/dub transcripts and video press conferences? All done in order to thwart the Niksi claims of double the inventory MiG-29 claims by NATO?

Perhaps you should go to Snopes and present all your evidence for this great NATO worldwide cover up?

http://www.snopes.com/

Niksi,
Remember to collate all your evidence before you post on the Urban Legend site. Remember in your defence to back up your claims with “After the war when everything was fixed and corrected” Remember Niksi that all the video briefings will exist in many media archives. Up to you to provide all the evidence of the double the inventory MiG-29 claims. Remember you are the one making the claim of what you allegedly heard. No doubt you’ll claim that they have all been edited and dubbed over?!

TJ

Niksi,

Read the title of the forum that you are posting to ‘Modern Military Aviation’. Keep the subject matter to Military Aviation concerning operations during Allied Force. You are the one that is attempting to bring politics into the discussion. Rant, whinge and moan all you like reference your political agenda, but don’t direct them at me in your replies.

I don’t like urban myths nor I need to read Venik’s page (as I haven’t for a long time). That (number of destroyed MiGs) is something what I noted back then in 1999. I was following the CNN and listening what Jamie Shea was saying. Now if you wanna say that I am lying ask the CNN for the tapes when they were covering the war and please prove me wrong. Maybe you’ve got your sources after the war when everything was fixed and corrected. Similar things were happening with numbers of destroyed tanks and APC’s. Those numbers presented by NATO officials were ridiculously high and when the KFOR has entered Kosovo all they found was that only 13 tanks and APC’s were destroyed during the time of entire war.
The NATO spent 78 days in playing the cat and mouse game. The political ghostwriters needed some aircraft and tank kills in order to justify all that tax payers money. It wasn’t nice for them to say everyday: “Today we have hit the hospital”, “Now we have hit the market”, “Yesterday we have hit the national TV headquarters”, “Tomorrow we are gonna hit that factory and then destroy that bridge”… Doesn’t sound nice, does it. And this is what they’ve been doing very successfully. And for those reasons they had to put some numbers of MiG’s destroyed or APC’s hit…

Niksi,

In the same way as Sveto believes he saw a video of an F-15 wreck you are falling into the same trap with what you thought you heard/saw. You yourself are simply generating an urban myth by stating that NATO was releasing double MiG-29 kill info which was being relayed on the likes of CNN. It wasn’t! Not really thinking are you? The worlds press at the NATO briefings and every man and his dog following day in and day out. All that info and not one journalist raised that question? Remember that you are claiming that Jamie Shea and his staff were actively quoting those figures that you believe in during the daily press conferences. In reality not a single MiG-29 kill figure exceeded what was in the inventory, and certainly did not go into double the inventory.

‘Maybe you’ve got your sources after the war when everything was fixed and corrected’. Niksi, not that old one to justify your poor recollection of events! E-mail Venik and ask him when he trawled through the transcripts seeking the claims of kills for the MiG-29s? Venik followed the briefs with a fine tooth-comb. Do you honestly think that even he would miss such a claim of up to 32 MiG-29s being destroyed? I’m afraid that you attempts don’t really wash, but nice try! ‘Everything was fixed’! 🙂 No doubt you also believe that the west secretly opened up the aircraft production lines to replace all the scores of aircraft lost?

In relation to destroyed Yugoslav APCs etc. You can say the same about Yugoslav military claims regarding manned NATO aircraft. The Yugoslav populace was fed daily and simply ludicrous propaganda in relation to claimed NATO losses. Included in that was the Yugoslav military themselves who fell into the trap of claimed kills. The Yugoslav propaganda machine went into overdrive on the subject of NATO losses during 1999:

I can just imagine someone briefing Yugoslav Government minister, Radmila Visic, for her press briefings. They certainly had a very vivid imagination and Mrs Visic certainly fell for it hook line and sinker.

“Belgrade, 01/06/1999 (MPA):

The Deputy Secretary of Information of the Serb government, Radmila Visic, claimed that Yugoslavia has shot down more than 190 NATO aircrafts since March 24, when the Alliance launched air raids against the country, in her interview at the Macedonian Press Agency. Mrs Visic accused NATO of concealing the actual number of its losses during the two-month war in Yugoslavia and reassured that when the hostilities are over, the Alliance will be forced to inform first of all the mothers of the dead pilots, who still don’t know the truth. “Of course Americans and the rest of the NATO allies do not admit that they lost 190 aircrafts and they will not admit it in any of their briefings. However, even in the Internet, in NATO’s web-site there are data that confirm this number and verify the claims of the Yugoslav army”, said Mrs. Visic. “I am certain that when this is all over, then the international public opinion and especially the American one will face the Vietnam syndrome and then the mothers of the pilots of the shot down planes will be informed that their sons where killed in the raids against Yugoslavia”, she stressed. When asked about why the Yugoslav authorities do not present photos or videos that confirm their allegations of having downed 190 planes, the Serb minister noted that even NATO itself has admitted that Yugoslavia has a remarkable strategy. “It is part of our tactics, not to show them. I, like a good soldier, will not give more information on this….”

This disinformation campaign was revealed to the Yugoslav public after the conflict. Bojan Bugaric (Senior Advisor on International Affairs to President Milosevice) revealed in book “INAT: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict” by Scott Taylor. He describes an interview with Bojan Bugarcic on 25th November 1999.

The relevant passage follows on pp 123-124:
“He [Bugarcic] said that, throughout the war, a tremendous, an extremely effective, propaganda campaign had been mounted by the Serbian military. The aim was to keep the populace believing their forces were mounting a spirited defence. “Using the state broadcaster, unofficial ‘Russian intelligence’ web pages and Army communiqués, the deception had been so successful that many people were fooled. My 22-year-old translator, Vlada Kopric, was one example. While he vehemently denounced the government-controlled RTS media network as spouting ‘pure lies,’ his explorations on the Internet had led him to the bogus Russian intelligence site. As a result, up until my November interview with Bugarcic, Vlada had truly believed that the Serbian military had successfully shot down 78 NATO aircraft. “He was devestated when he learned the truth.”

In the end the Yugoslav propaganda campaign has spun entirely out of control with its claims. The Yugoslavs released an audio claiming that it was proof that NATO was hiding its losses from the conflict. The audio was even played at the NATO press briefings by journalists who wanted them to make a comment on this damming evidence. Obviously the NATO General was very confused as it didn’t fit into anything from the current conflict.

I recognised the audio immediately from the callsigns used. The audio produced by the journalist hoping for a scoop was from 1994! Bosnian-Serb man-portable SAM shoot down of the Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS.1, serial XZ498, on 16th April 1994 which was flown by Lieutenant Nick Richardson. “Vixen 23” is relayed through his wingman “Vixen 24” to the on-scene ABCCC, and two A-10s already in the area, are dispatched to act as RESCAP. The claims were even fooling the Russian media and military with Foreign Military Review magazine – the official publication of Russian Defense Ministry claiming that B-52s and B-2s had been shot down inside Serbia! Even after the conflict certain Yugoslav Government ministers were still completely hoodwinked at what they had been told and briefed during the conflict.

Cedomir Mirkovic, Yugoslav Minister for International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation, stated the following in the interview. He was interviewed after the conflict at the opening of the 1999 conflict exhibits at the Yugoslav Aeronautical Museum during 2000.

Mirkovic stated ‘ “It is truly amazing how many aircraft and drones were downed with the relatively modest and primitive equipment” of the Yugoslav army, Minister for Science and Development Cedomir Mirkovic said Friday. …. Mirkovic refuted Western claims that Yugoslav air defense downed only the two planes. “We shall prove we have more,” he said, without elaborating. During the bombing, the then-chief of the Yugoslav army, Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, claimed 61 NATO aircraft had been downed. ”

BDA is an imprecise science and historically has given innacurate results. Both sides gave inflated claims. NATO in relation to armour destroyed in Kosovo and Yugoslavia in relation to manned NATO aircraft shot down. NATO was hampered by political decisions to reduce combat losses and particularly over Kosovo. NATO was hampered over Kosovo by the decision to keep operations above 15,000ft with very few exceptions to operate lower. In the end not a single NATO airman/aircrew was killed in combat, captured or taken POW.

The operating height restrictions frustrated the hell out of the Serbs, but it had the effect of providing exceptionally bad BDA on attacked ground targets. The operating height also led to some mistakes with civilian convoys being struck in error. Any army worth its salt under the same circumstances would have had the same result. All the Serbs had to do was place out decoys and disperse and hide their armour. The Yugoslav air defences were spoofed and jammed resulting in their claims of aircraft shot down or hit being incorrect. More armour was destroyed in Kosovo than just the small number of tanks that is readily spouted in such debates.

The Yugoslavs returned to the arms control treaty/inspections within months of the end of the conflict. The last time that they exchanged information was January 1999 when they pulled out due to the on-going Kosovo crisis. Apart from the Dayton Accord they also rejoined the Vienna Document and in late 1999 revealed that they had lost 18 MBT, 136 ACV, and 13 pieces of
artillery. They also revealed that they had lost 50 fixed wing combat aircraft and 11 combat helicopters. The Vienna Document is ratified by some 20 nations and involves on-site verification inspections. UAV footage during the Technical Agreement withdrawal caught some of the damaged AFVs being pulled out on low-loaders. It was highlighted at the time after the Serb
withdrawal that they had cleaned up where they could damaged vehicles. Inspection teams found areas where heavy equipment had been used to drag out equipment onto roadways. Probably as much an effort for spares recovery as to deny NATO on-site BDA.

TJ

Niksi,
Thanks for the reply, but your attempts to drag the discussion away from its original format have been noted. Please feel free to rant away on your own in regards to the politics of the conflict.

Niksi wrote

Anyway, my question was if it had been cut before the end (meaning – to cut off the last sentence that according to Major Peric could compromise Captain Hwang).

Lt Col Peric would have got the revelation from the following e-mail from Captain Hwang.

A copy of it here

http://www.iamfritz.com/Fritzfx/miltales.html

“Claw Gets His Kill”

“Not that neither Boomer nor I would’ve felt bad if they morted.”

Kill or be killed is an expression commonly used. I’ve seen interviews with pilots from other conflicts who revealed that they openly wanted to kill the aircrew in the target they were firing on. To them it was personal. Others revealed that they only wanted to damage the aircraft to allow the aircrew to bail out. That is a personal morale decision and based on many circumstances.

During Allied Force certain political ghostwriters ammened the original Serbian post-combat reports with embellishments. Not only did they give air-to-air combat kills to some of the Serb MiG-29 pilots, but they also in the case of Nikolic’s ejection stated that the NATO pilots attempted to kill him as he came down in his parachute. To the political ghostwriters is was deemed as acceptable war propaganda to embelish such stories for wartime public consumption.

Again, I see that you like urban myths as with the ‘double the inventory MiG claims’! In relation to the Grdelica bridge.

Niksi wrote

April 12, 1999, an F-15 hits a train full of passengers near Grdelica while it was passing the bridge. 50 people died on the spot. Soon after Jamie Shea called that as collateral damage and has played the video of the missile to show that everything happened so fast and that the pilot didn’t have time to react to disengage the missile. In reality, the video on that press conference was fast-forwarded 6 times.

Firstly the bridge was a legitimate target in conflict, regardless of the train. Bridges were targeted all over Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavs even attempted to divert their destruction by having civilians demonstrate and hold nightly vigils. The bridges were still struck as they were legitimate targets. The aim points for the AGM-130 were the bridge supports, not the train.

The problem lay in the initial presentation of the data-link video due to the format it was received in. It was presented in BDA format as would have been analysed by screeners. The fact remains that this F-15E could have been anything from fifteen up to forty miles away from the bridge. Open source material from Boeing states that some two-three miles from the target the seeker activates and the feed kicks-in relaying the video data back to the WSO’s screen. All that the WSO can see is the target that is locked-up by the AGM-130. The aim points for the AGM-130 were the bridge supports, not the train..

It all depends how the AGM-130s were deployed by the WSO. The AGM-130 is normally employed in an “indirect attack” mode, where the bomb is released at a pre-planned position and then guided to the target using data link information. In the “direct attack” mode, the AGM-130 target detector is locked on the target prior to release and the bomb guides itself to impact. The video/TV data is transmitted by the AXQ-14 datalink to the F-15E’s WSO screen.

If the WSO was manually guiding the munition, then some two to three miles from the target the guidance system places the seeker head view into his/her screen and then he/she can guide AGM-130 and lock onto a point on the designated target. If you study the video the first AGM-130’s point of aim was the first part of the bridge (looks like he/she was aiming for the first support). The second point of aim for the second AGM-130 was on the other side of the bridge. It all depends on how the weapon was employed and in which mode. Questions arise such as was the first missile manually guided and the other pre-programmed?

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia examined all the data and found the attack to have been proportionate. Unfortunate for the loss of life, but deemed not to have been a violation of the rules of conflict.

TJ

Bager1968 wrote

Heck, the Brits also use a beefed up transport helo as their “armed scout/recon helicopter”, and have Apaches as well.

The days of the armed Lynx in British Army/Royal Marines service are over. The TOW ATGMs were withdrawn from use in 2005. The Apache took over the role completely. The closest you’ll get is a door mounted machine gun on the Lynx these days.

http://www2.army.mod.uk/aac/equipment/lynx.htm

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.2394

It’s obvious that the NATO new that. I never said they didn’t. Those Fulcrums were not the pocket knives. It was just that they’ve been playing their propaganda all the time (Jamie Shea, Rudolp Scharping and company).
And I was just saying what I noted back then. You don’t have to trust me anyway.

And yet again I stress that it is a falsehood. The claims that I presented are exactly the claims made at the time in the press briefings. Think about it? The journalists had already been briefed on the 16 MiG-29s in the inventory. Do you not think that the worlds press can’t count and wouldn’t have questioned more kills than were in the inventory? Yet again I’ll stress that the claims that I listed are the claims made in the press briefings at the time. The claims NEVER exceeded the actual number of MiG-29 that Yugoslavia had.

Not even Venik can come up with any figures of NATO claims to exceed the 16 in the inventory. Although due to a misquote the silly chap still believes that 11 MiG-29s survived the conflict!

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/countingmigs.htm

The reality is that the ‘double the inventory MiG-29’ claims are a myth. They only exist in what yourself, or Stormeagle, perceived or wanted them to be.