Turkish offensive in Syria

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14 years 1 month

Posts: 8,850

It seems to be a common tactic for most defense ministries to assign the crash to technical reasons by default before sufficient information is gathered.

.. and then retain that position even after sufficient info is gathered...

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12 years 7 months

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I don't think its logical to automatically blame Russians here. Its the third Turkish helicopter shot down by PKK in the last 12 years an S-70, AH-1 and latest AH-1W; two of them by Igla, other by Strela system. All these Systems are Russian built, so latest "alleged" arms support AFTER Su-24 shooting does not make sense. Like TR1 said, had Russians provided MANPADS it would have more pronounced effects and I don't think providing MANPADs would serve Russian interests in anyway.

I believe there are two more important aspects of this event:

1-Following the S-70 shooting down by MANPAD in early 2000s, ALL Turkish helicopters down to archaic UH-1s were retrofitted to carry flare launchers. Add to that, ALL AH-1, S-70s and some Cougars were even retrofitted with a MAWS system. Also, 2008 Shooting down of an AH-1 was broadly in similar region, so why MAWS was not active, or why it didn't pick up the incoming missile? At the very least, why no automatic flare drops every few seconds? Some unofficial statements claim pre-flight checks were skipped while in a hurry (helicopter was dispatched to support an operation following a PKK attack on Çığlı military base from Iraqi territory, causing 6 deaths). I think our pilots or operational planners are more to blame than Russians or anyone else.

2-This is the first time Turkish Military gave a misleading information in their official statement. They claimed cause of crash was a "Technical Problem". While it may be understandable that no one (on Turkish side) withnessed the crash, it is not acceptable. They should have just said "cause unknown".


well come back. so AH-1W was without self protection suite. its called shoddy procurement. Is all the 240 F-16s have 21st century EW suites or less than 40 has 15 year old EW tech. it is certainly not first time misleading statement from Turkey.

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12 years 7 months

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A lot of SA-18 got lost from Libya inventory when the rebels took over and some of the weapons were even available for sale on internet.

the chance of sunni arabs giving weopons to PKK is very low.

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12 years 7 months

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Really? I doubt if the origin of the missile was in their minds at all. I'm damned sure that what they were thinking of was showing off that they'd shot down the AH-1, & didn't care about anything else.

You're projecting your thinking on to them, & ignoring their viewpoint.

they do care about that. Russia long range fighter radars they constant looking inside turkey and satellites can be decisive for Kurds.

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11 years 6 months

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so AH-1W was without self protection suite. its called shoddy procurement.

http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/53/52448/AH1W_TSK.jpg

Problem is not procurement or obsolete equipment you keep flamebaiting, the problem with equipment is in either a)pilot did not switch them on b)they were malfunctioning. Like I've said, all our AH-1Ws have IRCM and all around MAWS sensors. In fact PKK always had MANPADS, and only 3 helicopters lost to MANPADS in 20+ years of asymetric warfare is not something I would call a "failure" in any part. Sometimes bad things do happen.

it is certainly not first time misleading statement from Turkey.

I am not talking about statements from politicians or defense ministry. I am talking about military's own statement. Especially when it comes to casualties, they have always been honest about the causes.

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13 years 3 months

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They could've just showed the helicopter downing. But the point of the video seems to be showing off in no uncertain terms the missile is Igla - and implies Russian support, which is implicitly accepted by everyone.

So captured weapons from terrorists, if they belong to a certain country of origin, clearly and unambiguously indicate support by that country?

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16 years 6 months

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Manpads are hell on helicopters.

Only if the helicopter lacks a good EW system. In one known incident, a UK AH-64 used its countermeasures to defeat an incoming SA-24.

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7 years 10 months

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Only if the helicopter lacks a good EW system. In one known incident, a UK AH-64 used its countermeasures to defeat an incoming SA-24.

When? I'm unaware of any conflict where the enemy has had an Igla-S. A Verba would definitely be difficult to defeat. Dual band IIR and UV, which means you would need a DIRCM system capable of jamming 3 wavebands simultaneously.

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7 years 10 months

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So captured weapons from terrorists, if they belong to a certain country of origin, clearly and unambiguously indicate support by that country?

That would be bad news for the US given all the US military gear in Northern Iraq captured by ISIS, not to mention the TOW missiles that ended up with Al-Nusra after they were provided to the 'secular' opposition that then became unsecular.

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When? I'm unaware of any conflict where the enemy has had an Igla-S.

It was during operations over Libya. At that time, photographs of locally-deployed SA-24 systems were published, showing for the first time that the weapon had been supplied to Libya.

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most likely the Libyan version is downgraded monkey model and highly doubt Libyan got any training for there use.

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7 years 10 months

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It was during operations over Libya. At that time, photographs of locally-deployed SA-24 systems were published, showing for the first time that the weapon had been supplied to Libya.

What system was used to defeat dual waveband IIR? Given that they tried firing an SA-8 at a Rafale from outside its range, it's realistically more likely they did the same with SA-24, or never even had a lock in the first place. The UK tried training members of the Libyan Army post Gaddafi, and to call them 'complete muppets' would be an injustice to Sesame Street.

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The incoming threat was seen as a valid engagement, and the missile was decoyed by flares. I have seen no details of the type used.

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14 years 1 month

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The shot down helo was AH-1W #10608

[ATTACH=CONFIG]246006[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]246007[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]246008[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246009[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]246010[/ATTACH]

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12 years 3 months

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all our AH-1Ws have IRCM and all around MAWS sensors
(Andraxxus)

As we can see this is confirmed in that case

http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=246007&d=1463700624

Since the IGLA seemed to have not been impaired by the protective suite, we can lean toward the a faulty procedure (pilots, ground crew or given order).

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15 years 8 months

Posts: 516

Problem is not procurement or obsolete equipment you keep flamebaiting, the problem with equipment is in either a)pilot did not switch them on b)they were malfunctioning. Like I've said, all our AH-1Ws have IRCM and all around MAWS sensors. In fact PKK always had MANPADS, and only 3 helicopters lost to MANPADS in 20+ years of asymetric warfare is not something I would call a "failure" in any part. Sometimes bad things do happen.

Welcome from its holidays of this forum, at least from the threads that I have accompanied at the last times.The absence from your posts has been noted by several members, especially for those like myself that had used to enjoy such big headache to comment your well-elaborated posts.

After a quick search on the internet I have found out this article which shows the severity of the problem from MANPADS that has been highly spread in Syria after all those years of civil war.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/G-Issue-briefs/SAS-IB9-MANPADS-and-Syria.pdf

I my humble opinion these last posts from you were well prepared on this complex issue, but I thought that you were too rigorous with the crew that were killed in action from AH 1W.

About such possible failure from MAWS equipment of the AH 1W I would point these aspects:

First about what I was able to observe in the video, in my opinion it had been fighting in the nearby position of the launch point of MANPADS against AH 1W. Probably it were artillery explosions, and that could have been affected the detection of the MAWS due to strong IR emissions of this combats in the moment of the MANPADS was fired against the AH 1W. I think that algorithms from MAWS system should be capable to differentiate an explosion from artillery against the launching MANPADS, however in combat conditions those things do not always behave as it were expected.

Second about what I guess its should be more important , although a lot of information today has been available from MANPADS (SA 16, SA 18 and SA 24) , still these has been often described in the West as just improved versions of older MANPADS like SA 7 and SA 14. Just to draw a comparison between MANPADS and MiG's it is like to mention that the MiG 29SMT should be an improved version of the MiG 21PF, without to mention the initial versions of MiG 29 or even the MiG 23 and MiG 21BIS.

In fact all MANPADS: SA 7, SA 14, SA 16, SA 18 and SA 24 has been keeping many similarities due to the concept for which it has been designed since the first SA 7, however its capabilities are incomparably distinct.

So the break point in this evolution from soviet MANPADS it were with SA 18 that had been entered in service from the former Soviet Union in 1983, while the SA 16 were a temporary solution until the introduction of the SA 18.

The SA 18 were high priority program for the Soviet Union, once this would have the mission to counter the new AH 64A Apache as well as the A 10 Thunderbolt II from US that has started the operation in the decade of 80.

Indeed the SA 18 could be described an equivalent in capabilities of the FIM 92A Stinger from the 80's, then about it had been demonstrated in Afghanistan War in the 80s, while against infrared counter measures such as flares and active IRCM, both counter measures it were not very effective against FIM 92 Stinger. Although the tactical soviet aircraft's had not been equipped with MAWS, only with the exception of Su 24M.

In summary, the MAWS can be useful to warn about the approaching missiles, in this case the pilot could take evasive actions , and the MAWS could perform the automatic launch of the flares more fast than the crew of the aircraft, however the flares are not a guarantee that the aircraft will not hit by an advanced MANPAD as the Stinger and SA 18 from the 80's.

This is the reason for the emergence of the DIRCMS system to complement the MAWS system or even to replace those.

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8 years 2 months

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Only if the helicopter lacks a good EW system. In one known incident, a UK AH-64 used its countermeasures to defeat an incoming SA-24.

Got something to back your claim ?

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 8,850

As we can see this is confirmed in that case
Since the IGLA seemed to have not been impaired by the protective suite, we can lean toward the a faulty procedure (pilots, ground crew or given order).

Why not simply accept the fact that these systems, too, have their limit in efficiency and that their presence does not automatically preclude operating with impunity?

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9 years 10 months

Posts: 612

Why not simply accept the fact that these systems, too, have their limit in efficiency and that their presence does not automatically preclude operating with impunity?

Well, that's a given, but it would be nice to know some more details on the installed systems and their capabilities and limitations (e.g. weather conditions and so on). Like, e.g. perhaps it brings many false alarms so the pilot kept it off.

If they were on and functioning properly, I'd expect the MAWS system to be capable of detecting the incoming missile and launch flares. Since flares were not launched, it's easy to assume that the system was not working for whatever reason (be it maintenance, pilot negligence, etc.).

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7 years 10 months

Posts: 330

The incoming threat was seen as a valid engagement, and the missile was decoyed by flares. I have seen no details of the type used.

Can't have been a valid engagement with dual waveband IIR then, because flares simply wouldn't work. Whilst there may have been photos of SA-24s in the region, there's no way of knowing whether the missile fired in that specific instance was an SA-24 or SA-18, or even an SA-7. They would both generate the same alert, a MAWS warning.