Two oil tankers hit in Gulf of Oman

[Ken_gone_flying]

US Navy drone shot down by Iranian missile over Strait of Hormuz in 'unprovoked attack,' central command says

U.S. military officials returned fire -- verbally -- hours after Iran blasted a Navy high-altitude drone out of the sky over the Strait of Hormuz, with U.S. Central Command leaders on Thursday slamming the "unprovoked" strike and Tehran's subsequent "false" justifications for it.

www.foxnews.com

 

[azguy]

This is heating up. Iran splashed a Global Hawk/BAMS-D.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/20/middleeast/iran-drone-claim-hnk-intl/index.html

 

[RedFive]

 

[Griz882]

 

[kejo]

They could have splashed any number of manned aircraft but chose a drone. A big, expensive one, but I don't see much coming out of this. If this was an autonomous action by the IRGC, maybe our next move should be "hey Iran, if you want us to play ball with you, reign in these jabrones." Not likely.

 

[wink]

They could have splashed any number of manned aircraft but chose a drone. ...

Really? You guys make a habit of flying in the engagement zone of a hostile weapon with an adversary such as Iran in times like these?

 

[kejo]

Really? You guys make a habit of flying in the engagement zone of a hostile weapon with an adversary such as Iran in times like these?

Every time we do a Strait transit, yeah, pretty much. Times are hell, man.

 

[Swanee]

Best part? We learned a good amount and we didn't lose a pilot/aircrew.

This is the reason we have big wing, expensive and very capable UAVs/RPAs/Drones/whatever.

 

[wink]

Every time we do a Strait transit, yeah, pretty much. Times are hell, man.

Duh, of course. My bad. I wasn't ever on a small boy in the straits and in my day the CV didn't venture that far north, nor did we fly up in the strait. Even during the reflagging in the Tanker Wars, we kept a distance. I suppose the LAMPs bubbas were hanging it out. Eventually, Preying Mantis, so yeah, as far as I recall, TACAIR almost never got lit up.

 

[Brett327]

Really? You guys make a habit of flying in the engagement zone of a hostile weapon with an adversary such as Iran in times like these?

There are SA-5 and (in theory) SA-20 MEZ covering most of the AG. You don’t have much choice if you want to do flight ops there.

 

[HAL Pilot]

During the tanker wars in 1988, we flew P-3s within Iran MEZ every flight. Didn’t have a choice.

 

[Deleted member 67144 scul]

They could have splashed any number of manned aircraft but chose a drone. A big, expensive one, but I don't see much coming out of this. If this was an autonomous action by the IRGC, maybe our next move should be "hey Iran, if you want us to play ball with you, reign in these jabrones." Not likely.

Question about radar and identification: how would the Iranians know what kind of aircraft they were about to fire at assuming they hadn't visually identified and confirmed it was a Global Hawk (or other unmanned aircraft)?

Edit: Thanks for the replies. I figured they did their homework to ensure they weren't firing at a manned aircraft (not that it absolves them from the hostile act of downing one of our aircraft in any way).

 

[Hair Warrior]

Question about radar and identification: how would the Iranians know what kind of aircraft they were about to fire at assuming they hadn't visually identified and confirmed it was a Global Hawk (or other unmanned aircraft)?

Ask your local intel officer when you’re in a SCIF.

 

[Jim123]

Probably a lot of the same ways we do... for a better answer than that you'd have to ask them.

(But seriously, you'll have work your way up until you're in a position to have the access to read up on what we know about it- anybody who knows isn't going to talk about it on here. )

 

[Hair Warrior]

Iran says it refrained from shooting down U.S. plane with 35 on board - Tasnim news

m.jpost.com

^ more big talk from Iranian military