A comrade of mine...

was on the muslim's side during the conflict in Bosnia. He said that they shot the F-117 with a weapon sold from the Russians that locks only onto the radar signature of the F-117.

I've talked to him myself and I consider him to be an honest and crediable source.

Any thoughts?

Intresting. Is this a shoulder fired rocket system. mobile platform or stationary unit?

Interesting stuff. Thank for the info PW

The U.S. isn't going to let the media leak out much in the way of what actual stealth technology aircraft get shot down. Likely the only times they will admit it is when they can't deny it in light of other media-found facts.

they didnt use any special weapons to shoot it down. they had to go through a hell of a lot to get a shot at the thing though. if you are organized enough, you can shoot down stealth.

the f-117 reflects radar, but pretty much only reflects it to its sides. so the only way to see it on radar is to turn on your radar right when it is flying perpendicular to your line of sight towards the plane. in bosnia they had a scout watch the runway and then radio to a line of radar stations that had to try to guess when the plane would reach them. once one station picked up the plane, they then had to radio to another station with the location, speed and direction. that station then had to get the SAMs ready and hope thier calculations were right.

this isnt something that they could do very often, because they had to guess the target that the f-117 was going after and have all these other things go right. i doubt they used any special equipment, or they would have shot down more than one.

A few different factors lead to the downing of the F117 Nighthawk.. The first mistake was that the pilots took the same route from previous bombing missions - it also has been reported - though never confirmed that I have ever seen - that someone who had access to top secret NATO information may have leaked the time of the scheduled raid to the Russians who passed it on (again, this has never been proven factually) The second problem occured when the radar jamming planes did not get to the area in time to be able to assist in any fashion. Now, the Serbs determined a couple of main routes they felt that NATO aircraft would take to some high value targets and set up what is known as a "sam-bush" It was not intended to specifically target any type of aircraft, just whatever flew into the box. What they then did was turned on their radar just quickly enough for a snap-shot and basically filled that box with SAMS. The SAMS were not being fired with any kind of lock. Simply fired into the box when a planed enterered it. As the F117 is slower it was an even better target that other strike aircraft. The F117 that was downed was hit by shrapnel from one of the dozens of sams launched at it. The main fault placed for the downing was on the planners of the raid for sending them into an area using a route they had previously used and the serbians being smart enough to set up a sam-bush there.

Well, just remember: the F-117 is a "low observable" weapon system, not a "non-observable" weapon system.

If you get close enough to a radar emitter, it will detect you no matter how good your stealth is. The idea with stealth is to create artificial gaps in radar coverage using LO techniques and then exploit them....

When I first heard about the shootdown, I figured it had to be a lucky Gomer with an SA-7 at really close range or sumfin. When I later was show a document on how the Serbs did it, I was pretty impressed with their ingenuity. But then again, if I was getting the shyte bombed outta me every day I would be pretty damn creative too....

Originally posted by Pyros But then again, if I was getting the shyte bombed outta me every day I would be pretty damn creative too....

Very true, very true. How ever, where is the confirmation, who is the pilot? Downed pilots make a huge splash inthe media world, no matter what most of the time. remember that recon plane, shot down this year?

Very long wavelength radar in the 10-100m range reflects off the whole airframe, not just individual components. Russian P14 and P15 radar units use this band.
While Abrams & co. are right with their "sam-bush" explanation, I do believe that some sort of countermeasure does exist. Also, bear in mind that a stealth plane is designed to evade search radar, not be invisible to tracking radar. If even a B-2 flies close enough to a radar array it will be picked up. A powerful radar "searchlight" can lock onto stealth aircraft and light it up for passive radar guided missiles. Thus, even a humble shoulder-fired weapon can become your worst nightmare.

I am sorry I do not remember wether it was a shoulder fired missile or do not, but I do specificly remember him laughing at the F-117 and it's "Stealth". I did not go into detail as the war brought up many bad memories for him.

As for the F-117 being downed by sam shrapnel, I don't buy it. That sam would have to of been pretty close upon explosion to fatally damage the plane. The sam box is also not realistic for me... the pilot would have seen the lock and evaded. Besides the probability of that happening is in my opinion very slim.

I would never believe a media source or a government over a first person account. Firing missiles into the air hoping there is a plane there doesn't work

Na Zdrowie!

I remember reading an article somewhere that it could be located with a netwoek akin to cell phone towers. With signals going between a network of cell like towers, any interuption of signal would alert the aircrafts location. How this would work at 30,000 ft I have no idea but it would make sense for low level ground attacks.

Moslem?

Bosnian war?

You / he are so full of shyte!

Moslems fighted Serbs with full US (covert) support during Bosnian war..

Al-Qaida was also there fighting at Moslem side..

And was there on CIA orders..

More than 4000 'holy' fighters..

Bosnian Moslems have not ever fired on US troops.. Bosnian Serbs have.. but even they havent shot down any F-117s..

What they did was shot down of RN Harrier and USAF F-16..

Harrier by MANPADS or Triple-A,

F-16 by SA-6s..

(Serbs also stole weapons from US and UN [US peacekeepers at gun point.. their own weapons held at 'checkpoints.. and also weapons directly from these international troops..] and at one point took more than 300 peacekeepers as hostages and put them as human shields against UN/NATO air strikes.. They even attacked and killed SAS troops during that war.. Bosnian civil war..)

Bosnian Moslems just sucked US C**K..

FULCRUM, what the hell are you talking about? I never said his side shot down the F-117. You also forgot to mention the Croations... but then again your the expert since you were there and all.

And where do you get your facts from? A soldier who was actually there? Or by reading about it?

Stop believing the bull# they feed you.

They downed the craft, did they get themselves a souvenir from the wreckage? Was NATO reaction on that incident swift?

NATO immediately set up a strike package to destroy what was left of the downed F-117, but by the time it was airborne, international journalists were crawling all over it. So the NATO commanders decided it would be bad press to blow them up with the downed aircraft.

It can be assumed at this point that the majority of the wreckage is in the TsAGI Institute in Moscow right now.

Why didn't they bomb the crash site, as is SOP? They let classified tech fall into enemy hands... bad.

As I said before, the F-117 can hide from search radar, but not a tracking radar cone - especially if it's locked onto your nice, flat belly at a perpendicular angle.

Originally posted by FULCRUM
Moslem?

Bosnian war?

You / he are so full of shyte!

Moslems fighted Serbs with full US (covert) support during Bosnian war..

Al-Qaida was also there fighting at Moslem side..

And was there on CIA orders..

More than 4000 'holy' fighters..

Bosnian Moslems have not ever fired on US troops.. Bosnian Serbs have.. but even they havent shot down any F-117s..

What they did was shot down of RN Harrier and USAF F-16..

Harrier by MANPADS or Triple-A,

F-16 by SA-6s..

(Serbs also stole weapons from US and UN [US peacekeepers at gun point.. their own weapons held at 'checkpoints.. and also weapons directly from these international troops..] and at one point took more than 300 peacekeepers as hostages and put them as human shields against UN/NATO air strikes.. They even attacked and killed SAS troops during that war.. Bosnian civil war..)

Bosnian Moslems just sucked US C**K..

Did you just called me a c**ksucker??!
I am from Bosnia, you dont wanna mess with me, we have defeated the serbian army ( 50 years of comunist weapon build-up).

Your post is a load of #, I have to say... you probably got that form serbian propaganda site.
FYI, we had embargo FROM US at the begining, so we were not able to buy weapons and defend ourselves against aggresion. Serbs killed 200,000 people, mostly muslim civilians, and nobody cared. Concentration camps, rape camps, Massacre of Srebrenica, horrible 3 years. Only after a huge media campaign in the west, mostly supported by germans, have we managed to convince the PEOPLE to convice the goverment that they should stop the war.

We never got any weapon from russians, as somebody has stated in one of the previous posts. Russians are orthodox christians just like the serbs, Russian were helping Serbia not muslims.

We never shot any f-117, thats for sure, serbs might have done it, but I dont rememebr any talk about it during the war. They did brag about shoting down a plane during the 1999 bombing of serbia, but I dont rememebr anymore which plane it was.

I think others have fully explained this, but the reason he was shot down was complacency... He was cocky, and they took the same path...rather stupid...

Your friend may "laugh" at the stealth, but if so, he is under false delusions.... I bet the Iraqis aren't laughing at the stealth, and they had far better equipment....

To clear things up...

I was refering to the SERBIANS shooting down the F-117, not the Bosnians... and I got my information from a BOSNIAN soldier... I judge him to be a noteworthy source, you can decide for yourself.



[Edited on 31-10-2003 by PolskieWojsko]