The Serbs Speak!

[bigfngun]

Stupid Americans, they are so easily dealt with!

Take it for what it's worth.

 

 

Serb Discusses 1999 Downing of Stealth

 

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

.c The Associated Press

 

SKORENOVAC, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Col. Zoltan Dani was behind one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by the U.S. Air Force: the 1999 shooting down of an F-117A stealth fighter.

 

Now, for the first time since that night six years ago, the former Serbian commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery has consented to speak publicly to Western media about the circumstances surrounding the unprecedented downing of a U.S. stealth plane.

 

The hit on the radar-evading plane on March 27, 1999, during the 78-day NATO campaign over Serbia, triggered doubts not only about the F-117s, but also about the entire concept of stealth technology on which the U.S. Air Force has based its newest generation of warplanes.

 

Military analysts debated how the planes would fare in a war against a militarily sophisticated opponent if an obsolescent air defense such as Serbia's could manage to track and destroy them.

 

In an interview this week with The Associated Press, Dani said the F-117 was detected and shot down during a moonless night - just three days into the war - by a Soviet-made SA-3 Goa surface-to-air missile.

 

``We used a little innovation to update our 1960s-vintage SAMs to detect the Nighthawk,'' Dani said. He declined to discuss specifics, saying the exact nature of the modification to the warhead's guidance system remains a military secret.

 

It involved ``electromagnetic waves,'' was all that Dani - who now owns a small bakery in this sleepy village just north of Belgrade - would divulge.

 

The F-117 was developed in great secrecy in the 1970s. It entered service in 1983 but was not revealed officially until 1988. It saw its first combat in the 1989 invasion of Panama and was a star of the 1991 Gulf War.

 

``Long before the 1999 war, I took keen interest in the stealth fighter and on how it could be detected,'' said Dani, who has been hailed in Serbia as a war hero. ``And I concluded that there are no invisible aircraft, but only less visible.''

 

The F-117 was one of only two allied aircraft shot down in the war. The other was an F-16 fighter, which the U.S. Air Force said was also hit by an SA-3. Both pilots bailed out and were rescued by NATO helicopters.

 

Dani said his anti-aircraft missile regiment, tasked with the anti-aircraft defense of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, downed the F-16.

 

Several other NATO warplanes were damaged by missile hits but managed to struggle back to bases in neighboring Bosnia, Macedonia or Croatia. At least one is said to have ditched into the Adriatic Sea as it attempted to regain its base in Italy.

 

Despite NATO's near-total air supremacy, the alliance never succeeded in knocking out Dani's batteries.

 

The Serb SAMs remained a potent threat throughout the conflict, forcing attacking warplanes to altitudes above 15,000 feet, where they were safe from surface-to-air missiles but far less effective in a ground attack role.

 

NATO won the war in June 1999, after President Slobodan Milosevic decided to withdraw his largely intact army from Kosovo, following the destruction of numerous government buildings, bridges and other infrastructure targets throughout Serbia.

 

``The Americans entered the war a bit overconfident,'' Dani said. ``They thought they could crush us without real resistance.''

 

``At times, they acted like amateurs,'' Dani said, listing some ways the Serbs managed to breach NATO communications security, including eavesdropping on pilots' conversations with AWACS surveillance planes.

 

``I personally listened to their pilots' conversations, learning about their routes and bombing plans,'' Dani said.

 

Dani said that his unit has had annual reunions on every March 27 since 1999 when a cake in the shape of the F-117 is served. 

 

 

 

10/26/05 08:58 EDT

   

 

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.  All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

[UN-Interested Observer]

Nothing like the Serbians, renowned for their professionalism giving tips...

 

That said, the RAM of the plane was designed to absorb best the shorter waves of weapon guiding radars, no? This was why they were detectable (less than average) by large ground-based arrays, but difficult to shoot down. Or did I confuse the issue?

 

If the shooter is suggesting they altered the wavelength, and it seems he is, that is kind of interesting.

[tankerwanabe]

Is there a chance that the Russians did create some new radar that they loaned the Serbs for trials?

[UN-Interested Observer]

Their air defence system was in fact noted as having been upgraded, with Russian help, to a level above what Iraq had assembled by 1990.

[UN-Interested Observer]

Agreed, aiui when they first tested the shape the radar operator could not see anything until a bird landed on it. Or that might be a perpetuated myth, I can't know.

 

But the theoretical cylinder has a theoretical infinitely small surface area which will reflect back to the radar receiver. Take from that what you will, but I take it to mean that the reflected energy equation is much more complicated than basic geometry can explain (nor I with it).

[larrikin]

The fact that they knew exactly when it would be exactly where probabaly helped. Spies in mission control for highly planned missions and access to mobile phones do wonders for that sort of thing.

[Yama]

no shit sherlock, how else would you do it?  Recruit Harry Potter?  Or maybe psychically guided missiles?

239463[/snapback]

 

SA-3 has optical backup mode. It has been speculated that F-117 was shot down that way.

 

if they improved an early 60ies system to the point where it can RELIABLY detect a low observable aircraft or even a stealth aircraft, you can bet that there would have been LOTS of interest from soviet arms users (if not the whole world) and plenty of money being thrown to aquire it

239463[/snapback]

 

As the guy said, stealth planes are not invisible to radar, they just don't show up as easily. I've read that detection range for F-117 is around 25 to 30km, presumably with surveilance radar. It would likely be less with fire control radar.

 

sounds to me that it was still in all probability a random hit from AAA or a set of missiles thrown up in a pattern in anticipation of a raid of which one got a whiff of IR and went for the goal

239463[/snapback]

 

SA-3 is not IR guided. IMO, Serbs just detected the F-117 one night and decided to set up couple of batteries to that route to see if they could get lucky, and they did. The article is pretty useless. Only thing of interest mentioned is the claim that they listened NATO communications.

[Guest commander]

SA-3 has optical backup mode. It has been speculated that F-117 was shot down that way.

As the guy said, stealth planes are not invisible to radar, they just don't show up as easily. I've read that detection range for F-117 is around 25 to 30km, presumably with surveilance radar. It would likely be less with fire control radar.

SA-3 is not IR guided. IMO, Serbs just detected the F-117 one night and decided to set up couple of batteries to that route to see if they could get lucky, and they did. The article is pretty useless. Only thing of interest mentioned is the claim that they listened NATO communications.

239537[/snapback]

 

Listning to NATO comms is not that amazing really is it as a lot of stuff will be on low level uncrypted sets. British have a traing DVD showing bad voice procedure allowing a group of the FWF (former waring faction) to set up an ambush on the patrol, and it is based on fact.

[DKTanker]

SA-3 has optical backup mode. It has been speculated that F-117 was shot down that way.

 

239537[/snapback]

 

A quibble perhaps, but would point out that visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

[iceHawk]

They tracked the flight path of the plane with a obsolete vintage russian metric wave radar. The thing aint stealth on that but they can only pin point it to within a klick or two. Hence the EM statement. Than the thing was blown out of the sky by an optically guided SA-3. The repeated predictable flighpath didnt help either.

[Manic Moran]

What happened to the Mobile 'Phone Signal theory that I saw in the papers a few years ago?

 

NTM

[Jeff]

"one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by the U.S. Air Force"

 

"triggered doubts not only about the F-117s, but also about the entire concept of stealth technology on which the U.S. Air Force has based its newest generation of warplanes."

 

My that's a tad hyperbolic.

 

"I concluded that there are no invisible aircraft, but only less visible."

 

The fact that we termed them "Low Observable" from day one might have been a clue.

 

As has been stated, having an "allied" officer as a spy giving them our mission plans didn't hurt.

 

Either way, they got the job done once, well done.

[George Newbill]

As a player in that game (EW) I can tell you that the F-117A is first generation stealth technology and can be detected. Obviously.

 

The aircraft itself is, beleive it or not, 1970s tech. The new stuff is several orders of magnatude better.

 

Just as the US Navy is better than all commers so is the USAF. Perfect? No. Invincable? No. But a whole lot better. Notice that it was not Serbia bombing DC.

 

As far as the "Electricromagnetic" part of the Serb statement That could be true or it could be a straight up lie to protect the Serb's AA technology, either way the USAF does not fly "no fly zones" patrols over Serbia. So....

[swerve]

haven't heard anything really  tangible on the subject except this company who has deved a whole sensor suite on it

 

http://www.roke.co.uk/sensors/stealth/celldar.asp

 

what i don't get is that wouldnt it it be possible to extend "stealth" tech to encompas that EM band as well?

 

Multistatic radar is much harder to hide from.

[Josh]

haven't heard anything really  tangible on the subject except this company who has deved a whole sensor suite on it

 

http://www.roke.co.uk/sensors/stealth/celldar.asp

 

what i don't get is that wouldnt it it be possible to extend "stealth" tech to encompas that EM band as well?

239809[/snapback]

 

I believe the complication isn't specifically frequency, in fact I believe lower freqs of old sets were found to be far more effective than modern sets (aren't cells in the UHF band?). The issue with cell towers is that they are emitting every which way and that low RCS a/c are generally only low RCS from certain aspects, and I believe this is especially the case for a/c that use blocky structures like the F-117 vice the smooth curves of the B-2 that was designed much later using much more detailed computer modeling (and much more powerful computers).

[FlyingCanOpener]

Either way, they got the job done once, well done.

239728[/snapback]

 

it ain't a capability until you can do it twice!

[elytorian]

Multistatic radar is much harder to hide from.

239820[/snapback]

And Multistatic Radar would be hard to hide

[swerve]

And Multistatic Radar would be hard to hide 

 

The receivers are very easy to hide, & it takes a lot of bombs to knock out all the transmitters in several mobile phone networks. And you can only do it if you don't give a damn about collateral damage.

[Matt Urbanski]

Of course, the fact that aside from the F-117 all they managed to shoot down in the whole war was a single F-16 would never suggest that this was simply luck. Never.

[DavT]

The receivers are very easy to hide, & it takes a lot of bombs to knock out all the transmitters in several mobile phone networks. And you can only do it if you don't give a damn about collateral damage.

240097[/snapback]

 

How about just taking out the power grid? Don't even have to knock out the entire grid if you can hit the branches that supplies the towers outside of cities. You really just need to degrade the system long enough to bomb its command centers, right? Though I suppose you'd have to get past the air defences first for that, but that's why you have cruise missiles. Or how about just jamming common civilian frequencies? IIRC, Multistatic Radars require mapping the local EM patterns. I'd think that throwing a moving, powerful new source of changing signals would confuse it at least somewhat.

[JOE BRENNAN]

How about just taking out the power grid? Don't even have to knock out the entire grid if you can hit the branches that supplies the towers outside of cities. You really just need to degrade the system long enough to bomb its command centers, right? Though I suppose you'd have to get past the air defences first for that, but that's why you have cruise missiles. Or how about just jamming common civilian frequencies? IIRC, Multistatic Radars require mapping the local EM patterns. I'd think that throwing a moving, powerful new source of changing signals would confuse it at least somewhat.

240242[/snapback]

That's also my impression, from the points you mentioned and others multistatic concepts based on "ambient" civilian EM emissions, like Lockheed Martin Silent Sentry concept would be useful in *some* circumstances if cheap and easy. But situations outside the normal operation of the ambient systems* are very easy to envision, so they couldn't be a comprehensive solution to air defense or even a very big part of one, IMO.

 

LO is the key statement. I think we have to suspect lack of familiarity with the topic when any surprise is expressed that conventional systems could down an LO a/c once. And too much complete BS has come out of Serbia (not necessarily by Serb, often by "Slavic Big Brothers" on the web) to take anything seriously without loads of corroboration. And that account seems vague and full of more or less obvious statements, anyway.

 

Joe

 

*remote places, ex-Yugoslavia for example is not uniformly densely populated not that they used such a system; cell coverage in the US is limited as a % of the landmass. The Silent Sentry demonstrator was operating in the NE corridor, not Wyoming. Or as you say all out war when electricity grids are attacked, and outlying free standing cell towers, which are not all that numerous relative to urban ones, albeit they often have backup diesel generators, get knocked down.

Edited October 28, 2005 by JOE BRENNAN

[swerve]

How about just taking out the power grid? Don't even have to knock out the entire grid if you can hit the branches that supplies the towers outside of cities. You really just need to degrade the system long enough to bomb its command centers, right? Though I suppose you'd have to get past the air defences first for that, but that's why you have cruise missiles. Or how about just jamming common civilian frequencies? IIRC, Multistatic Radars require mapping the local EM patterns. I'd think that throwing a moving, powerful new source of changing signals would confuse it at least somewhat.

 

No, because they have backup power supplies. You can knock them out long-term by taking down the power grid & keeping it down, you can't put swathes of the network out of action temporarily that way, particularly in rural areas. You think we'd trust our system to power cables that get snagged by trees blown down in storms? Pshaw!

 

Yes, you could jam. But if your opponents have any sophistication, your jammers might be attacked.

 

BTW, in densely populated areas, knocking out the branches of the power grid that supply rural areas would mean almost as many bombs as hitting the rural phone aerials. And hitting only rural phone aerials, to avoid killing huge numbers of civilians, wouldn't necessarily give you clear routes.

 

I don't know how many control centres you'd need to wreck to put a mobile phone network out of action, but I could probably find out. Also the physically separate back-up centres. But would it switch off the transmitters? Not my end of the business, I'm afraid.

 

Using local phone networks as the emitters for multistatic radar isn't a panacea, of course, but it is a useful additional capacity, & would require any attacker to devote resources to countering it.

[Chris Gould]

i'm sure the U.S. could hack the computer system of either the cell or power grid and shut them down without dropping an bomb.

[iceHawk]

"Pentagon now officially confirmed that the F-117A was tracked by an unidentified ground radar and that two SAMs were fired at the aircraft. First reports suggested that the F-117A might have been tracked by a Czech-made Tamara passive radar - three passive receivers, each mounted a truck. Yugoslavia operates such radars in a somewhat modified form. However, latest information suggest that the F-117A was tracked by an old Soviet radar - a mid-1950s radar operating in 165-190cm wavelength range. According to American aircraft designers and military, long-wave radars present a serious threat to stealth aircraft operated by the US. More info here."

http://www.aeronautics.ru/f117down.htm

http://www.aeronautics.ru/lbandradars.htm

[FlyingCanOpener]

"Pentagon now officially confirmed that the F-117A was tracked by an unidentified ground radar and that two SAMs were fired at the aircraft. First reports suggested that the F-117A might have been tracked by a Czech-made Tamara passive radar - three passive receivers, each mounted a truck. Yugoslavia operates such radars in a somewhat modified form. However, latest information suggest that the F-117A was tracked by an old Soviet radar - a mid-1950s radar operating in 165-190cm wavelength range. According to American aircraft designers and military, long-wave radars present a serious threat to stealth aircraft operated by the US. More info here."

http://www.aeronautics.ru/f117down.htm

http://www.aeronautics.ru/lbandradars.htm

240357[/snapback]

 

Mmm... Nothing like quoting Venik for anything related to Serbia...