Message posted by Richard on March 09, 2002 at 20:21:53 PST:

In my first post of this thread i mentioned the 'possibilities' of how the -117 was downed.
The EWRS personnel mentioned that they picked up the contact and tracked it, and passed the picture to the SAM sites, as their own fire control radar had no means of picking it up.

They did mention in various publications that hordes of SA3 and SA6 were let loose hoping to get a lucky shot, and some were said to have been under guidance from the EWRS via the Host radar. whether or not this actually happened, we dont know, as these are stories that came from Serbia, just like the Mig 21 and Mig 29 pilot stories of hitting the -117 with guns and IR missiles.
The fact that the -117 was flying the same route nightly was probably the only 'major' factor in why it got hit. Experienced Radar operators are not daft enough to 'not' pick up that trend of occurances.

Going back to the snippit of where you mentioned the radar signature being bounced off to another area and then being picked up, this too was also mentioned, but having a Mig pick up the return instead.
Whether or not a Mig21 or Mig29's radar suite can pick up the radar return pinged out from the EWRS i dont know but it is a possibility.
On that night, there were various SAM batteries, mobile and static around the area that were not already knocked out, and it is known that, that 'only' EWRS left was tracking the -117 at the time...

NATO announced this on TV saying in previous attempts they were unable to destroy it, but slightly damaged it, but not effectively putting it out of working order (obviously).

In my opinion, i still think the Serbians were half between lucky and 'good' that night, they saw the threat, they identified it, and realised its trend, if the missiles fired were not locked, then so be it, it was a lucky shot, but then who do we believe, some pilots say they downed it, some say they hit it, but left it to the SAMs, and then we have the SAM operators who some say they got a lucky shot, some say they tracked and locked the target with their own radars(i dont believe that), and some say they used Electro-Optical means of hitting that -117.

But then we have another probability, the MIGs could of hit their target with either guns or IR missiles, and with the -117 on fire or just even 'slightly damaged', say a hole or small peice of wing missing, this could make the -117 glow up like an F15 on the SAM fire control radar...thus enabling the SAMs to lock on with a controlled launch.

Interesting discussion but we wont know until we have a 'real' story from the person who did down it, and from the pilot of the -117. There are just too many 'probable' stories out in the limelight, mostly propoganda.

In Reply to: Re: A stealth screw-up their goes 40 billion !!! posted by Anonymous on March 09, 2002 at 19:23:44 PST:

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