How do weapon systems seperated by a half century usually stack up? F4 is a perfectly serviceable airplane, but the F-22 is the bleeding edge of the industry.Originally Posted by travis911
What's the parameters of the exercise? what was allowed and what wasn't? without the necessarily information, the statement, as it is, is worthless. A guy armed with a glock can kill a guy armed with a PKM if they are playing hide and seek inside a building.
Actually, everything stacks up well against the F-22 (since it's sitting on the ground most of the time and unable to fly with oxy problems).
So if Syria shot down the plane when does NATO invade?
I believe already discussed...http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...close-to-Syria
Worked F-4's for a little while and they are BAD muthas! They kinda suck to work as they are VERY labor intensive BUT they are fun yet too.
F-4 is tested aircraft, F-22? i think under experiment until F-4 retires.
SharF-4E 2020 Terminators , Modernizated by IAI with modern radar systems ,new HUD and Avionics and new air-to ground missiles....
Sharp photo! Can't see many F22S flying let alone fighting 50 years from now.
f-4e: Mitico!
The syrian shoot it down ..FUUUUUUUUU
With the relative difference in military power where Turkey possesses FAR superior numerical and qualitative superiority over Syria, I would think a highly centralized command driven Syrian state would be insane to seek further heightened tensions between Syria and Turkey unless it was an accident or there was a half decent reason to engage.
A couple things:
1.) Syrian Air Defense could have violated their normal rules of engagement by over aggressive engagement of the Turkish F4
a.)Accidentally, why risk angering a bordering nation that is far superior militarily and acting as a Syrian refugee blowoff valve? Occasional/minimal airspace violations in light of the circumstances would be understandable...especially for a nation involuntarily harboring so many Syrian refugees.
b.)Intentionally, since Turkey is acting as a staging ground for MIT/MB/CIA/??? cross border intelligence and paramilitary FID/UW operations to shape regime change in Syria.
it sounds like the F4 was engaged well off the coast but possibly just inside Syria's 12 mile limit...which would likely mean Surface to Air Missile(SAM) rather than shorter ranged air defense artillery(AAA).
Turkey operates a couple version of the F4...both upgraded F4 combat aircraft as well as RF4 dedicated reconnaissance aircraft.
While the F4 is an older airframe, if well flown by a capable aircrew(Turkish aircrew train to a fairly high NATO standard of training) and using appropriate tactics, would be a tough nut for air defense to crack if the F4/RF4 was conducting a presence patrol or a more aggressive recce flight cutting Syrian airspace corners.
Turkish Air Force pilots and aircraft would also be relatively capable of mitigating the threat posed by most Syrian earlier generation SAMs from it's NATO relationship as well as it's prior relationship with Israel.
More recently introduced and highly mobile SAM systems in Syria's possession include SA10,SA11,SA15,and SA22.
A well flown F4/RF4 could still operate on the fuzzy edges of these more modern systems, but maybe the aircrew pushed there luck too far......or maybe due to the clandestine James Bond stuff being staged out of Turkey into Syria might have resulted in an INTENTIONAL ambush by Syrian Air Defense via it's late model SAM systems clandestinely moved to cover previous flight paths of Turkish aircraft.
Since Syria seems to be quite happy to announce the shoot down to the world.......I would lean towards this engagement being a message from the Syrian government to Turkey regarding it's direct involvement in Syrian domestic affairs and/or allowing 3rd party nations to conduct operations against Syria via Turkey....with the possibility that the violation of Syrian air space could possibly have been negligible.
Back in 2001 Israel and Syria engaged in a little known dogfight.....very little came out from either israel or Syria...this has quickly resulted in a release from Syria....
If I was Assad, and just to my north Turkey/US/whoever are plotting my demise via tangible support for the rebellion as well as aggressively recruiting border crossers for intelligence operations..I'd consider sending a message as well.
Just speculation on my part.
In any case, it would be interesting to read the After Action Report(AAR) on this engagement, an understanding of the activity of Syria's late model SAM systems, as well as Turkey/US/NATO intelligence on Syria's late model SAMs.
Quantity and quality is only half the equation. Leadership and support is the second half. History is full of examples of those who forgot the second half. Recep may think he is a leader himself but he does not have an army to lead. Furthermore, the Turkish people are also against a war http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/13...conflict-.html. Syria understands this too.
At the end of the day, Recep is a paper tiger who likes to swallow when push comes to shove. And his foreign minister Gavatoglu is only good for polishing balls, mostly of foreign origin...
All that clandestine sh*t we are involved in is understandably forcing the cornered Assad regime to show some teeth. AKP clowns decided very early to interfere in the internal matters of Syria hoping that the rebels would be successful. Dumb a$$es can not even understand that it took a NATO fleet of the coast of Libya and a bombing campaign to take down Gaddafi the clown. We are going to topple Assad whose military is still intact and who is still fully backed by Russia and China with a bunch of rebels? Besides why do some people believe that taking Assad down is good idea while all they have to replace this regime is a pathetic and divided opposition? As bad as it sounds, having a corrupt dictator is sometimes better in this region. At least, you have some sort of stability and predictability.
I hope those pilots survived, because if not, they died for nothing...
I would agree with the part about efforts against Assad.
Keep him weak, but keep him in power.
I could easily imagine Syria run by a "democratic" Muslim Brotherhood government would be far more of a potential problem that a Syria run by the Assad clan.......for Turkey, for the US, for regional allies.
The 1980's saw Iran and Iraq bleeding each other white which was of benefit to other players.
Syria eating itself and focused almost exclusively inwards under some semblance of known entity authoritarian control could be of benefit to some players.
A weaker devil you know than a devil you don't and all that.
The Assad regime imploding, even in a controlled fashion with an endstate amenable to the US, would surely be a negative in the sense it could be a catalyst for civil insurrection risk that could come from states friendly to the US(Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE).
Damned if you do, damned if you don't in the sense keeping Assad around is a bit like keeping North Korea around.....it can't last forever....it's just kicking the can down the road for the next government to deal with.
A democratic, wasted and desperate Syria, much like what will come down in Egypt will always seek to blame Jews or other outside forces on the misery and start aggressive wars to relieve internal social pressures. It is slowly but surely happening in Egypt. Libya has some oil so there is some way to placate the masses but Egypt and Syria "liberated" would inevitably (as Egypt will) slide into some kind of regional confrontation.
Helping the above happen and enabling it is extremely shortsighted. There are simply too many desperate people without prospects out there in the Middle East it is bound to boil over if unleashed under some mistaken premise of eliminating an opponent. Lets face it, revolutions will not bring them jobs and solve the existential problem of overpopulation and masses of youth without a future that will steadily become more angry as revolutions inevitably falter.
I largely agree.
Although I suspect one significant way to bring Egypt to heel would be via Uganda/Ethiopia and Nile headwaters if things got serious enough.
I wonder if Turkey would be able to heel Syria via the same means with the Euphrates?
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