posted on Jul, 21 2009 @ 02:32 PM
A few things to remember for those of you bashing the Russian military....EVERY country in that area flies Russian built fighters, SU-27s, MiG-29s,
etc. When your ground defense forces see a plane coming at them, if they try to visually identify them they're going to see the same types of planes
that their own military flies.
Russian SAMs are capable of optically tracking (at least some of them), which is a huge advantage, because tracking by radar lets the target know that
they've been shot at, and they can use countermeasures. If they were using optical tracking, instead of using radar or IR, then they saw the same
planes their own military was flying in the area.
Yes, six planes shot down in such a short time is a pretty harsh blue on blue, but it doesn't mean that Russia has a bad military, it just means that
they have to get more training, and upgrade their systems.