Iranian military claims to have shot down an RQ-170

[NUS]

Over the wire tonight the US confirmed they lost one but they also believe at the altitude it was lost at there cannot be many big pieces of the wreckage to make much sense of it to the Iranians.

US DoD reactions:

1) We didnt lost the drone.
2) Ok, we might have lost something, but in Afganistan.
3) Ok, we lost it in Iran, but it crashed and have no use.
4) Ok, it landed safe, but... What now?

Now i wont be sirprised if Iranians (or someone else who might be behind them) hijaked control over drone in Afganistan and send it to Iran.

[snapper]

'Wandered'! Great use of innocent vocabulary.

[Doktor]

US DoD reactions:

1) We didnt lost the drone.
2) Ok, we might have lost something, but in Afganistan.
3) Ok, we lost it in Iran, but it crashed and have no use.
4) Ok, it landed safe, but... What now?

Now i wont be sirprised if Iranians (or someone else who might be behind them) hijaked control over drone in Afganistan and send it to Iran.

It would have been interesting if you said those who hijacked it instead of rerouting it to Iran, first to shoot at coalition forces or Afghan civilians to make total havoc. Like this is just another boring CT.

[Dreadnought]

Nus: Originally Posted by Dreadnought
Over the wire tonight the US confirmed they lost one but they also believe at the altitude it was lost at there cannot be many big pieces of the wreckage to make much sense of it to the Iranians.
US DoD reactions:

1) We didnt lost the drone.
2) Ok, we might have lost something, but in Afganistan.
3) Ok, we lost it in Iran, but it crashed and have no use.
4) Ok, it landed safe, but... What now?

Now i wont be sirprised if Iranians (or someone else who might be behind them) hijaked control over drone in Afganistan and send it to Iran.

To me a picture is worth 1000 words UNphotoshopped. I have yet to see 1000 words.

Further, I can easily understand something going wrong with the drone. Its a drone.

I can also show you Russian missles that failed in their jobs during the Georgian campaign. However there was nobody behind those failures, only the Russian Technology behind them. And yet those pictures are readily out there.

For all you know they could be glueing it back together (what they have) to take pictures. But yet noting so far to confirm it didnt go to pieces.

If it was hijacked, why would this be the first one and not an armed one instead. They claim their drones have excellent range. If they do, then they should be able to hijack (if they could) one much closer.

Remember it was "shot down".

[Tanker]

Someone said it earlier...pictures or it didn't happen. Regardless of what the DoD says. Iran can crow and strutt all day long but until they prove they have it or knocked it down they "ain't got chit". This is typical of Iran. They claim to have a navy larger than the US then they throw pictures of 200 speedboats out onto the internet firing Estes Rockets...

[Dreadnought]

Someone said it earlier...pictures or it didn't happen. Regardless of what the DoD says. Iran can crow and strutt all day long but until they prove they have it or knocked it down they "ain't got chit". This is typical of Iran. They claim to have a navy larger than the US then they throw pictures of 200 speedboats out onto the internet firing Estes Rockets...

*We havent seen the Iranian navy's "Battle Group" to patrol off our shores yet either liked they promised months ago. They must be be doing the dog paddle if its taken this long.

[Tanker]

*We havent seen the Iranian navy's "Battle Group" to patrol off our shores yet either liked they promised months ago. They must be be doing the dog paddle if its taken this long.

LOL...yeah I forgot about that one! I made jokes about it in an Iranian forum that went over like a lead balloon. I made it clear that the REAL navies in the world no longer use coaling stations and that the ship would last long sitting off Miami as the party boats would have come out to pick up the crew who would probably never return.

Which that comment is funny in itself because 3 days after I posted that in the Iranian Forum the Navy Commander made it perfectly clear that the crew chosen to man the ship would be hardcore Republican Gits

[gunnut]

According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.

"This is a big prize in terms of technology," a senior U.S. military source told Fox News.

.....

Military sources confirmed that the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, which is so advanced that the U.S. Air Force has not distributed even a photo of it. However, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Is this like when Oberleutnant Armin Faber landed his Fw 190 A-3 on a British airfield by mistake in 1942?

[mustavaris]

Well, Iranians are not incompetent fools even though they have rather extravagant propaganda section. When they armed and trained Hezbollah, the Israelis were given a real fight and they did not win the EW/ELINT war either. The Iranians have been working on their indigenous UAVs and this has given them access to best technology out there... And they do have their own comparable project (sofreh mahi) although how advanced that is, is another question altogether.

[Mihais]

They may be more competent and efficient than the Arabs.If this is good enough is yet to be seen.They're also not ashamed to recruit foreign experts.The possibility they receive intel from other nations cannot be discounted as well.

[mustavaris]

Far more competent than Arabs. If you happen to know Arabs and Iranians at personal level, the difference is immense. Not that an Arab couldnīt be competent, many are but the fact is that your typical Iranian seems to be far more ambitious, hard working and has far more modern mindset. I have Iranian friends and in many ways they are more modern than many of the less modern European peoples. One of their greatest advantages is that their enemies seem to be thinking that they are dealing with people who are close to their neighbours in Iraq and Afghanistan as the loud and aggressive spokesmen of the IRI create the smokescreen. Chinese have helped them for years (just look at their weapon systems they have actually produced and fielded), the Russians might help a bit, if the price is right..

[Phoenix10]

More updates...

Downed drone was on CIA mission – CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

By CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr

A U.S. stealth drone that crashed in Iran last week was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission which involved both the intelligence community and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan, two U.S. officials confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

A senior U.S. official with direct access to the assessment about what happened to the drone said it was tasked to fly over western Afghanistan and look for insurgent activity, with no directive to either fly into Iran or spy on Iran from Afghan airspace.

A U.S. satellite quickly pinpointed the downed drone, which apparently sustained significant damage, the senior official said.

"The Iranians have a pile of rubble and are trying to figure what they have and what to do with it," the senior U.S. official said. The drone crashed solely because its guidance system failed, the official said.

Officials confirmed to CNN it was an RQ-170 drone that was lost.

Another U.S. official confirmed that when the drone crashed, the United States briefly considered all potential options for retrieving the aircraft or bombing the wreckage, but those ideas were quickly discarded as impractical.

The officials have direct knowledge of the events, but spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence matters. CIA officials have declined to comment.

Indications of the intelligence community's involvement in the drone incident emerged over the weekend, when NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan issued a statement saying, "The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."

Several coalition officials said at the time they had no direct knowledge of the incident and they were essentially ordered to put out this statement. It's significant that the statement only says "operators" of the UAV, without saying which part of the military or U.S. government might have been operating it, one coalition official said.

U.S. officials are discounting the Iranian claim that they shot the drone down. The United States continues to say the crew of the UAV lost flight control and the drone then entered Iranian airspace.

American officials over the years have been adamant that U.S. assets do not fly over Iranian air space.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is a stealth drone developed by Lockheed Martin for the Air Force to help provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Iranian media reported that the RQ-170 was slightly damaged and in the hands of Iranian forces.

"Armed forces with a dominant control over the country's borders managed to identify and down the invading plane," reported Iran's official news agency, the Islamic Republic News Agency.

An unnamed Iranian military official called it a "clear example of aggression" and added that Iran is "fully ready to counter any aggression," the report said.

In July, Iran's military made a similar claim, saying it downed a U.S. "spy drone" flying near its Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province. But Iran backtracked on the statement a few days later, saying the incident was actually part of a training exercise.

[omon]

oh, wow, it looks like tiny b2, cool

[Stitch]

oh, wow, it looks like tiny b2, cool

Which is, essentially, what it is, except for the huge bombay. TBH, the Iranians haven't really gotten anything all that advanced; realistically, the RQ-170 is five-year old (at least) stealth technology. The "Beast Of Kandahar" has been flying for AT LEAST two years now, and LockMart purposely "scaled back" on the stealth technology involved because they knew it would be flying in "harm's way". From aviationweek.com:

"A number of features suggest that the RQ-170 is a modestly stealthy design, without the Darkstar's or Northrop Grumman's X-47B's extreme emphasis on low radar cross-section (RCS). The leading edges do not appear to be sharp - normally considered essential for avoiding strong RCS glints - and it appears the the main landing gear door's front and rear edges are squared-off rather than being notched or aligned with the wing edges.

In addition, the exhaust is not shielded by the wing, and the wing is curved rather than angular. That suggests the Sentinal has been designed to avoid the use of highly-sensitive technologies. As a single-engine UAV, vehicle losses are a statistical certainty. Ultra-stealthy UAV's - such as the never-completed Lockheed-Boeing Quartz for which DarkStar was originally a demonstrator - were criticized on the grounds that they were "pearls too precious to wear" - because their use would be too restricted by the risk of compromising technology in the event of a loss."

So, the Iranians MAY have captured a last-gen stealthy UAV, but it is, to a degree, a Pyrrhic victory; yes, they "got" a stealthy UAV, but it's at least a generation behind current stealth technology. They probably could've bought the same technology on the black market, if they had wanted to. Don't read too much into Iran's supposed "victory" over the "great Satan".

[Ararat]

Over the wire tonight the US confirmed they lost one but they also believe at the altitude it was lost at there cannot be many big pieces of the wreckage to make much sense of it to the Iranians. All hear say I know and we will probably never know.

Well this sounds like it was shotdown by Iran.....or it broke apart for some reason over Iranian territory.

As far as I know UAVs themselves are not that big a deal.....what is a big deal its the skyball and its black boxes, that even mangled, it can provide insightful info for reverse engineering purposes.