Iran capture of US spy drone 'would be significant blow to military'

[vector7]

In other news...on the plane Obama dislikes so much, the F-22 Raptor.

White House aides insisted F-22 be removed from Obama speech venue

Exclusive: White House aides insisted F-22 be removed from Obama speech venue

Wed, 12/02/2009 - 4:08pm



When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to an older F-15 fighter because they didn't want Obama speaking in front of the F-22, a controversial program he fought hard to end.

"White House aides actually made them remove the F-22-said they would not allow POTUS to be pictured with the F-22 in any way, shape, or form," one source close to the unit relayed.

Stephen Lee, a public affairs officer at Elmendorf, confirmed to The Cable that the F-22 was parked in the hangar and then was replaced by an F-15 at the White House's behest.

The airmen there took offense to the Obama aides' demand, sources told The Cable, seeing it as a slight to the folks who are operating the F-22 proudly every day. They also expressed bewilderment that the White House staff would even care so much as to make an issue out of the fact that the F-22 was placed in the hangar with the president.

A White House official, commenting on background basis, told The Cable that yes, there were discussions about which plane or planes would be in the hangar, but that they were not meant as an insult to the pilots and other personnel who work on the F-22. The official couldn't elaborate on why the White House aides felt it necessary to get involved in the matter in the first place.

The official pointed to Obama's speech to the troops that day, where he praised both the 90th Fighter Squadron, known as the "Dicemen," and the 525th Fighter Squadron, the "Bulldogs," both of which operate the F-22.

Even so, the Air Force personnel thought it odd the White House wanted to display the older plane rather than the more advanced plane that, in the eyes of its supporters, represents the latest and greatest in American aviation.

The Obama administration fought hard and successfully to cut off production of the F-22 at 187 planes, a number Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed but that was hundreds less than originally planned and about half of the 381 planes Air Force leadership lobbied hard for in the years preceding Obama's inauguration.

"It's one thing to be against further production; quite another to slight the folks who are flying them in the operational world," one source said, adding that "the F-15 pictured was put into service roughly around the same period when Obama graduated from college. It's vintage.

U.S. pilot scares off Iranians with ‘Top Gun’-worthy stunt



The U.S. Air Force has a message for Iran: Don’t mess with our drones.

In what only can be described as a scene out of Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force chief of staff, describes how F-22 stealth jets scared off Iranian jets from a U.S. drone flying in international airspace.

The Aviationist reports that in March a U.S. MQ-1 drone came close to being intercepted by an Iranian F-4 Phantom combat plane, but the Iranian aircraft stopped short after a warning by an American pilot.

“He [the Raptor pilot] flew under their aircraft [the F-4s] to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there, and then pulled up on their left wing and then called them and said ‘you really ought to go home,’” Gen. Welsh said.

According to The Aviationist, the Iranians came within 16 miles of the drone.

[American Patriot]

LOL... "pulled up to check out the weapons systems" lol

[vector7]

CHINA HAS COPIED THE US RQ-170 STEALTH UAV that was captured by Iran calls it Sharp Sword

Published on Jul 17, 2013
A pair of grainy photos shot at long distance could be the best evidence yet of Beijing's first jet-powered and presumably armed drone warplane.

The images, one of which was cropped and enhanced by Internet users and has been reproduced here, first appeared to the wider English-speaking world on Thursday afternoon on the Secretprojects.co.uk web forum.

The pics follow close behind the equally ambiguous photo debuts of China's two stealth fighter prototypes (in 2010 and 2012) and its homegrown heavy transport plane (this year). A far blurrier and even more ambiguous photo possibly depicting the new drone appeared on a Russian Website in March.

"What's Chinese for, 'Here we go again?'" Aviation Week reporter Bill Sweetman quipped upon seeing the purported killer drone images.

Consensus among China watchers is that the vehicle depicted in the photos is the Lijian, or "Sharp Sword," Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, a collaboration between Chinese aerospace firms Shenyang and Hongdu. Powered by a single jet engine and resting on tricycle landing gear, the Sharp Sword UCAV seems to sport the flying-wing shape shared by several U.S.-made killer drones prototypes.

The flying wing platform, also used by the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber, is ideal for radar-evading designs.

Beyond its basic shape and possible radar-evading qualities, not much is known about the apparent new drone. But that doesn't mean the robot's appearance is unexpected. China has already unveiled a rudimentary prop-driven armed drone.

And the latest edition of the Pentagon's annual report (.pdf) on Chinese military capabilities, released earlier this week, predicted a more sophisticated Chinese UCAV would soon make an appearance. "The acquisition and development of longer-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ... and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, will increase China's ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance and strike operations," the report stated.

It's worth noting that China is the last major aerospace power to debut a jet-powered, low-radar-signature killer drone prototype. The U.S. has led the pack, test-flying no fewer than five UCAVs since the late 1990s and even bringing one unarmed variant, the RQ-170, into frontline service. Europe has the Neuron and Taranis models in development and Russia is working on a version of the MiG Skat.

As drone developers all over the world have discovered, airframes are often the easiest part of the system to create. What's hard are the software, datalinks, control systems and payloads that transform what are in essence large model airplanes into effective robotic weapons. And it's with these key subsystems that China will likely have the most trouble.

The Pentagon China report specifically lists "solid-state electronics and micro processors [and] guidance and control systems" as technologies Beijing finds it easier to buy or steal from the U.S., Europe and Russia than to develop on its own. U.S. experts worried that China might gain access to some American drone technology via an RQ-170 that crashed in Iran in 2011.

So far the Sharp Sword has apparently only been spotted taxiing along a runway on ground tests. It's not clear when its developers might attempt a first flight. Even less clear is whether, and how soon, the Chinese killer drone might enter frontline use.

Source: Wired Magazine

[vector7]

Companion Thread: Why is Iran building a mock US aircraft carrier?

Iran Arms Stolen U.S. Drone ‘to Attack the U.S. Warships’

Iranians claim to have modified downed U.S. drone to carry weapons


Iran showcases model of downed U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone / AP

BY: Adam Kredo
May 12, 2014 11:33 am

The Iranian military says that it has fully reverse engineered a downed U.S. drone and armed it with missiles “to attack the U.S. warships in any possible battle.”

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made the announcement on Sunday as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei toured an IRGC military compound to view the new drones, according to reports in Iran’s state-run media.

Iran also revealed over the weekend the existence of new ballistic missiles and an air defense system that can reportedly destroy multiple targets at once.

The unveiling of the new drone has been met with particular fanfare by the IRGC, which announced more than two years ago that it had successfully downed an RQ-170 drone built by Lockheed Martin.

Since capturing the U.S. surveillance plane, Iranian engineers have been working on decrypting the drone’s computers and reverse engineering a similar unmanned vehicle.

Iran claims to have now weaponized its own version of the RQ-170 “with bombing capability to attack the U.S. warships in any possible battle,” according to the Fars News Agency.

An exhibition of the drone’s abilities took top billing during the IRGC exhibition attended by Khamenei, according to Fars.

“The highly-advanced radar-evading U.S. RQ-170 drone downed by the IRGC more than two years ago and its indigenized model developed by Iranian experts through reverse engineering were among the most important sections of the exhibition,” Fars reported.

Iran claims to have been using intelligence gained after downing the U.S. drone to assemble a new line of homemade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will be used to fight the United States.

While the U.S. version of the RQ-170 is used just for reconnaissance missions, “the IRGC Aerospace experts have equipped the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with bombing capabilities, enabling it to operate as a bomber aircraft against the U.S. warships in any possible showdown between the two countries,” Fars reported.

The technology Iran gleaned from back-engineering the U.S. drone has set it about “35 years ahead” where it would have been otherwise, according to Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force.

Additionally, the IRGC also displayed new ballistic missile technology reportedly capable of deploying multiple warheads at once.

The new ballistic missiles also were unveiled over the weekend during the IRGC’s military exhibition. Iran has referred to the missiles as “military hi-tech owned only by a handful of the world states.”

The ballistic missile, named Zelzal, reportedly can carry “ thirty 17-kg bombs” and “destroy a wide range of targets” such as airport runways and military installations, according to Fars.

Iran’s ongoing development of ballistic missiles has drawn concern in Washington, D.C., as they can be armed to carry a nuclear payload.

Iran’s ballistic missile program has continued under the interim nuclear deal, which does not cover such activities.

The Zelzal ballistic missiles were showcased alongside what the IRGC described as a new air defense system that can destroy four targets simultaneously from a range of about 30 miles.

“The Third of Khordad air defense system can trace and target fighter jets, bombers and cruise missiles up to 25,000 meters (almost 75,000) high,” Fars reported. “All its components have been placed in a vehicle and its radar, tracing, and missile-launching systems have been improved.”

[American Patriot]

That thing won't have a chance against the US Navy.

Don't folks realize that everything we've designed, we know the faults, the weaknesses and can take out our own shit if necessary? LOL

[Ryan Ruck]

Okay, so we're supposed to believe they can successfully reverse engineer a stealth drone yet they can't reverse engineer their F-14 Tomcat fleet to keep them flying.

[vector7]

Iran Claims Video Shows Reverse-Engineered US Drone Can Fly






LEE FERRAN
Updated 33 mins ago

The Iranian military today released video of what it claimed was the successful maiden voyage of an advanced stealth drone the Islamic nation copied from an American unmanned aircraft that crashed in Iran three years ago -- but U.S. officials are unimpressed.

The footage, broadcast on Iranian state television, shows an aircraft with a similar shape to the U.S. Air Force's RQ-170 taking off and flying at relatively low altitude before an edited portion of the video purports to show it landing back on the runway.

Two days ago a top Iranian military commander told local reporters the drone had made a successful flight and that footage would be released shortly.

"We had promised to fly the final model of [the] RQ-170 in the second half of the current [Iranian] year and this happened," Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said Monday, according to the Iranian news outlet Fars.

The Associated Press reported Hajizadeh taunted the U.S. further today, saying, "The mini-stroke Americans suffered will be complete by watching this footage."

Hajizadeh claimed that while the U.S. only uses the drone for surveillance missions, Iran will use it for bombing runs as well.

Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren told reporters today there is "no way it matches American technology."

Another U.S. official told ABC News the U.S. government can't confirm "Tehran's claims, [but] given the Iranians' history of propaganda, it wouldn't be surprising if the plane's purported capabilities are exaggerated, especially since they are being so open about them."

Retired Marine Col. Steve Ganyard, who consults for ABC News, also expressed doubts about the video, saying it may have shown a smaller replica of the RQ-170 that previous Iranian reports said had been built months ago.

Iran got its hands on the original American-made drone back in December 2011 when it crash landed in Iranian territory while on a mission for the CIA. At the time, Iranian officials claimed the drone was in Iranian airspace and the military had been able to bring the drone down through an electronic attack - both claims U.S. military officials denied.

Shortly after the drone went down, Iranian officials made a show of their new prize with a nearly hour-long state broadcast in which the large drone was put on display, flanked by pro-Iranian banners.

President Obama revealed days later that the U.S. had asked Iran for the drone back, but hadn't received a response.

Though Iran promised to reverse engineer the aircraft for their own use and Iranian press called the incident a "major embarrassment for Washington," then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters it was unclear what technological value the drone could still have, depending on its condition.

"I don't know the condition of those parts - I don't know exactly what state they're in - so it's a little difficult to tell what they are going to be able to derive from what they have been able to get," he said days after the original incident.

Representatives for the CIA, the Air Force and drone-maker Lockheed Martin did not immediately return requests for comment on this report.

[vector7]

Friday, October 28, 2011
Russian radar sniffers has delivered to Iran highly-advanced Avtobaza truck-mounted systems, Game Changer

Moscow has sold Iran the highly-advanced Avtobaza truck-mounted systems which are capable of jamming aircraft radar and the electronic guidance instruments of attacking missiles. The detectors, called 1L222 Avtobaza, passively collect electromagnetic radiation from surrounding airspace and identify its sources. Those include side-looking airborne radars used in combat aircraft, targeting radars of air-to-surface weapons, and radars used to guide aircraft flying at extremely low altitudes.

This deal, announced in Moscow Tuesday, Oct. 25, substantially boosts Russian military assistance to the Islamic Republic.

debkafile’s military sources: These radar jammers are a component of Russia's most sophisticated anti-aircraft and electronic warfare system for the early warning of approaching assault planes and missiles.

Avtobaza is only part of the complete system. Its job is to transmit incoming information via optic fibers to separate electronic command centers and central air defense commands which then act to foil air or missile attacks.

Arguing that the weapon is purely defensive, Moscow claimed its sale to Iran does not violate the UN Security Council weapons embargo against Iran.

However, the US and Israel are reported to suspect a Russian stratagem whereby the Avotbaza jammers are only the first part of the deal, to be followed by the delivery to Iran of the full ELINT-electronic signals intelligence system. The full system would enable Iran to identity and react to any aerial or missile movements – not only over its territory but in the skies of the entire Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.

debkafile’s military sources describe the Avrobaza system as able to simultaneously detect and electronically jam 60 targets within a 150-kilometer radius at angles ranging 360 degrees on 20 minutes notice.

Western suspicions were alerted by the way the Russians announced the transaction.

It was made by Konstantin Biryulin, head of a department in the Russian Defense Ministry, a departure from the usual practice of announcing these transactions through spokesmen of Russia arms export industry agencies outside the government ministry.

debkafile’s sources in Moscow take this to mean that the Kremlin will henceforth treat arms sales to Iran as a strategic matter for senior security echelons to handle. They expect such deals with Syria to be upgraded in the same way.

In his statement, Biryulin stressed, “Russia has sent a set of mobile radar jammers to Iran and is negotiating future deliveries.” He did not say how many jammers were in the contract or what other weapons were under negotiation with Tehran.

American and Israeli notice was also piqued by another of Biryulin’s remarks:
“We are not talking about jets, submarines or even S-300 (missile) systems," he said. "We are talking about providing security for the Iranian state.”

Our Moscow sources take this also as the Kremlin's notice that this time it will not surrender to US and Israeli pressure for calling off the Avtobaza deal in the same way as it revoked its contract with Iran for supplying S-300 missiles. From now on, Russia is undertaking responsibility for providing Iran with the defensive hardware it needs for its national security.

Implied in this undertaking is another message: Russia will not stand for American or any other Western attacks on Iran or Syria like the NATO operation which overthrew Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.

Kvant 1L222 Avtobaza ELINT System

Rosoboronexport Description (Cite):

The Avtobaza ELINT system is designed to detect airborne side-looking radars, air-toground fire-control radars and low-altitude flight control radars, as well as to provide intelligence data for the 1L125M APUR.

Composition

• equipment vehicle based on the Ural-43203 chassis with the K1.4320 van
• ED2x16-T230P-1VAS electric power generator in the K1.4320 van on the Ural 4310 chassis

The ELINT system displays on the TV screen acquired targets with data on their direction finding, angular coordinates (azimuth and elevation), radiation signal parameters (carrier frequency, duration, pulse repetition frequency) and radar type classification (sidelooking, fire control, low-altitude flight control radar). The APUR automated jamming control system is fed with target data (frequency band number according to frequency assignment of jamming systems, type of emitting radars and their angular coordinates) via cable at a range of up to 100 metres.

---

Lantan/Almaz-Antey Valeria E ELINT and Emitter Locating System



Russian sources have reported the development of the Valeria E which appears to be Russian designed and built replacement for the Czechoslovak KRTP-86/91 Tamara series of emitter locating systems. To date no imagery of the antenna system and vehicles has been published.

The system is intended to detect, track and identify airborne emitters, including radars and support jamming aircraft, from VHF through to the Ku/Ka bands. A cylindral wideband phased array antenna is employed.

Cited Capabilities (Rusarmy.com):

• Automatic detection and measurement of emitter coordinates (range, azimuth, angle of elevation, altitude and velocity vector);
• Determining emitter and platform kinematic parameters (air-space, ground and surface);
• Recognition of the type and class of targets from their emissions, classification of objectives in terms of threats and priorities for their destruction;
• Locating opposing ground based emitters;
• MASINT/ELINT collection tasks;
• Threat warning and raid warning;
• Enemy Electronic OrBat analysis;
• Threat detection, tracking and cueing for fighter GCI and medium and long range SAM systems under conditions of jamming, and attack by anti-radiation missiles, cruise missiles, and low observable PGMs.

The Valeria E comprises at least four networked subsystems, one central processing and C3 cabin, and three antenna/receiver units. While each system provides a circular coverage footprint within which range, azimuth and elevation can be measured, it is intended that multiple systems be deployed with overlapping coverage. Elevated terrain is recommended to improve coverage. The networked components are typically sited at 10 to 35 km apart.

Основные характеристики: Principal characteristics:
Диапазон, ГГц Frequency coverage [GHz]	0,15-18; (0,15-48) 0.15 to 18 / 0.15 to 48
Диапазон прослушивания УКВ связи, МГц VHF band coverage [MHz]	100-500
Зона обзора (относительно ЦП): Coverage footprint:
по дальности, км in range [km]	0-500
по азимуту, град. in azimuth [deg]	круговая 0-360
по высоте, км in altitude [km]	30-40
Рубежи обнаружения целей по собственным излучениям (БРЛС) и ПАП, км: Emitter coverage [km]:
на высоте, м: at emitter altitude of [m]
10	30
50	50
100	60-70
10000	450-500
по целям AN/APY-1 AN/APY-1 detection range	800-850 (до 1000 при наличии прямой видимости) 800-850 (up to 1000 LOS permitting)
Точность определения местоположения по сигналам БРЛС: Emitter locating accuracy:
по дальности, км in range [km]	0,5-0,7
по азимуту, угл. мин. in azimuth [min of arc]	1-4
по высоте (усредненная по трассе) на участке, м: in altitude (averaged over track) [m]
0- 250 км	500-800
0- 500 км	2000-2500
Количество одновременно сопровождаемых целей Number of tracked targets	До 200
Выдаваемая информация generated outputs	трассы, параметры траекторий движения и типы целей и ПАП tracks, kinematic parameters, type of emitter and mode
Потребляемая мощность, кВт: Power consumption [kW]
ЦП, кВт	не более 16
ВП, кВт	не более 15
Среднее время наработки на отказ, ч MTBF [hr]	2000
Дежурная смена для мобильного варианта, чел. Crew complement of mobile variant	5
Количество транспортных единиц (мобильный/перевозимый вариант) Number of vehicles (mobile/transportable variant)	6/5

debka.com

Fear of Iran Makes US Abort Covert Plan to Retrieve Spy Drone

FARS News Agency
December 8, 2011



TEHRAN (FNA)- US special forces intended to conduct a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy a very precious stealth drone that was downed by Iran on Sunday, but ultimately gave up the plan for their fear of Iran's tough response, Washington officials revealed on Thursday.

Iran announced on Sunday that its defense forces had downed the aircraft through a sophisticated cyberattack. The drone is the first such loss by the US. Initially, officials in Washington didn't believe Iran had detected and downed the drone, but they later admitted that they had lost it. White House officials first alleged that the drone was not anything special and belonged to the ISAF forces in Afghanistan, but later admitted that the unmanned surveillance plane was a stealth aircraft being used for top secret missions by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The US officials are now trying to convince the world that the aircraft and its systems are not among those technologies which shouldn't have been exposed to Iran, but the western media reported today that the aircraft is so important for the US that they have worked out three operations to retrieve or destroy it.

The RQ-170 has special coatings and a batwing shape designed to help it penetrate other nations' air defenses undetected. The existence of the aircraft, which is made by Lockheed Martin, has been known since 2009, when a model was photographed at the main US airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan. US officials unveiled on Thursday that they considered various options for retrieving the RQ-170 Sentinel drone. US officials considered both sending in a team of American commandos based in Afghanistan as well as using allied agents inside Iran to hunt down the downed aircraft. Another option would have had a team sneak in to blow up the drone. A third option would have been to destroy the highly sophisticated aircraft with an airstrike. However, the officials worried that any option for retrieving or destroying the drone would have risked a tough reaction by Iran. "No one warmed up to the option of recovering it or destroying it because of the potential it could become a larger incident," the US official said according to Wall Street Journal. If an assault team entered the country to recover or destroy the drone, the official said, the US "could be accused of an act of war" by the Iranian government. Meantime, the US media are trying to convince the world that the drone has been badly damaged and is not of much use to Tehran, but Iran on Thursday evening released the first images along with thorough explanations about its systems, specifications and the way it was downed by military forces in Eastern Iran. The images and the footages aired by the Iranian state-run TV showed that the stealth aircraft is almost intact and without any major damage.

The Thursday evening images, footage and explanations are available on FNA website (the footage is, of course, only available on our Persian website). Iranian officials had earlier informed the media that the craft sustained only minor damage. US intelligence and military officials declined to comment on the specific mission the drone was flying when it was brought down by Iran. George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to comment on the discussions over options to recover the drone. US officials claimed that analyzing the materials that contribute to the craft's stealth qualities wouldn't tell Iranian scientists how to manufacture the necessary coatings, but Iran does not need this information as it manufactured a radar evading spy drone with both surveillance and bombing capabilities almost two years ago. Iran successfully tested a home-made radar-evading UAV with bombing capabilities in June 2009. A year before that, the country's Defense Industries launched production lines of two well-known home-made fighter jets, namely Saeqeh (Thunderbolt) and Azarakhsh (Lightening). Iran started construction of a plant in the northern province of Mazandaran in March 2009 to mass produce various types of UAVs for a wide variety of missions. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced in October, 2010 that the country's first home-made long-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) named 'Karrar' has a flight range of 1,000km. "Karrar's flying radius reaches 1000km," Vahidi said on the sidelines of a ceremony to unveil Karrar, and added, "In addition to Karrar, Iran possesses other UAVs with a flying range of 1,000 km." "The jet drone enjoys abundant capabilities, including its far range and operational depth," he said, adding that Iranian experts have increased the flying altitude of the UAV. Vahidi also reiterated that Iranian drones can perform different missions and are capable of recording events and transmitting them to their military headquarters. Iran in early February, 2010 inaugurated the production line of two home-made UAVs with bombing and reconnaissance capabilities. The two hi-tech drones named 'Ra'd' (Thunder) and 'Nazir' (Harbinger) are capable of conducting long-range reconnaissance, patrolling, assault and bombing missions with high precision.

Ra'd which is a UAV of choice for assault and bombing missions has the capability to destroy the specified targets with high pinpoint precision. Iran has recently made good progress in the air industry and has succeeded in gaining the technical know-how for producing stealth aircraft and drones.

Another point regarding the RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone of the CIA which was downed in Iran late last week is that the US media are trying to convince the world that the aircraft has crashed after the CIA lost its control, aside from the fact that a crashed drone cannot be so intact as it was displayed on the Iranian TV, the US officials should remind the history of their lost drones over the Iranian airspace in the last 7 years. In January, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told "Payam Engelab" (Message of the Revolution) monthly, an internal publication of the IRGC, that Iranian military forces had shot down several spy planes of foreign forces, adding that two of these planes had been shot down over the Persian Gulf. "We have, thus far, shot down a large number of their highly advanced spy planes". After shooting down these planes the IRGC aerospace unit has copied and produced them in large numbers through reverse engineering, the commander added. The next day, Deputy Head of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Major General Gholam Ali Rashid confirmed earlier reports claiming that several US drones have been shot down by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) air defense units, and said that the planes had been targeted outside Iranian airspace. "Of course, I should say that the drones have been shot down by an air defense response of the IRGC Air Force outside Iran's airspace, that is outside our FIR (Iran's Flight Information Region), in the Persian Gulf," Rashid told FNA on Sunday. A flight information region (FIR) is an aviation term used to describe airspace with specific dimensions, in which a flight information service and an alerting service are provided. It is the largest regular division of airspace in use in the world today. Rashid further added that these pilotless planes are currently kept and controlled by the IRGC.

A few days later, a senior Iranian military official confirmed reports on the shooting down of several enemy drones over the Persian Gulf, and said Iran has targeted a large number of these pilotless planes during the last 7 years. "We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years," the senior military official told FNA Monday on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. He also confirmed that the planes had been targeted outside Iranian airspace, and noted, "The move shows that we are careful in a bid to stop violation of Iran's airspace by alien aggressive drones."






Obama refused to retrieve UAV lost over Iran

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Heard on Fox News today ... Obama refused to allow the U.S. to retrieve or destroy lost RQ-170 believed to have glided to ground intact leaving its intel and technology intact for reverse engineering - because 'he was afraid of provoking Iran'.

The stealth RQ-170 was years and hundreds of millions of dollars in the making.


Meanwhile, speculation is running rampant that the US RQ-170 surveillance drone was brought down by this piece of equipment supplied to Iran by Russia - the Avtobaza truck-mounted mobile radar jamming system:



Business Insider reports:

[...] While most weapons deliveries to Iran are blocked, a jamming system like the Avtobaza is allowed because it's a passively defensive machine "designed to jam side-looking and fire control radars on aircraft and manipulate the guidance and control systems of incoming enemy missiles."

Possibly what NATO regulators didn't plan on was the jammer's potential as a communications link allowing UAVs to be controlled remotely.


Whether that's how it was used Sunday is another matter.

Whatever the case, thanks to Barack Obama, the score in the battle to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons to hand out to fellow Islamic terrorists is now Iran - 1, U.S. - 0.

US Army Eyes Ukraine Conflict for Intel on Russian Military Technology

22 comments



Ukrainian government soldiers sit on top of their armored vehicle driving on a road stretching away from the town of Artemivsk, Ukraine, towards Debaltseve, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Apr 01, 2015 | by Brendan McGarry

The U.S. Army is working to glean intelligence on Russian military technology from the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, American generals said.

The Moscow-backed rebels are waging a hybrid war that includes the use of soft power such as disinformation and cyberattacks to hard power such as truck-mounted Grad rocket launchers, according to Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe.

U.S. Army leaders have found that American-supplied counter-mortar radar systems are helping Ukrainian forces detect incoming motor fire by calculating the point of origin of the enemy round, Hodges said. Washington reportedly supplied Kiev with 20 of the systems as part of an aid package valued at $118 million.

"Certainly, we're taking advantage of the opportunity to study what's being done in Crimea in Eastern Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have employed the counter-fire radar," he said on Tuesday in Huntsville, Alabama, during a conference organized by the Association of the United States Army.

"The lightweight counter-mortar radar, turns out, that it is a much better piece of equipment than we realized," Hodges said. "None of us have ever -- maybe one or two exceptions -- have ever been under a massive Russian artillery [attack] the way the Ukrainians have, and so we have learned a lot in the way that they have responded to that."

On the other hand, the conflict has exposed the potential for Russian electronic warfare technology to pierce U.S. and allied battlefield communications networks, Hodges and other U.S. generals said.

Rostec, a Russian-owned arms and technology company, last year claimed it used "complex radio-electronic" frequencies to hack into an MQ-5B Hunter drone that was flying over Crimea and belonged to the Army's 66th military intelligence brigade based in Germany.

"When you think of access denial, you think of Chinese Silkworm missiles and things like that," Hodges said, referring to sophisticated enemy air defenses, known in military parlance as anti-access, area-denial, or A2/AD environments.

"But actually to be able to project combat power into the Port of Riga [in Latvia], or Port of Bremerhaven or Ramstein [in Germany], there is so much reliance on network, and the Russians have demonstrated so much capability in Ukraine in their electronic warfare capabilities that makes it not almost impossible but extremely difficult to operate networks, especially if they're unsecured," he said.

The Army has spent billions of dollars trying to upgrade its battlefield communications networks through acquisition programs such as the Joint Tactical Radio System, or JTRS; Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T; and Nett Warrior. Some of these efforts have been canceled or restructured due to under-performing technology or changing requirements.

Despite those significant investments, the Army's tactical communications network remains problematic, incomplete and vulnerable to attack, according to Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center.

"Just to talk air to ground, ground to air, to talk with adjacent units, we have a network that is incomplete and we have a network that is very complex," he said during the same panel at the conference. "Because of that complexity, it's vulnerable -- it's vulnerable to failure, it's vulnerable to enemy actions."

The service's shortcomings in tactical communications aren't limited to Eastern Europe.

In Afghanistan, AH-64E Apache pilots had difficulty receiving live video feeds from the RQ-7 Shadow drone because the helicopter uses a secure communications system called the tactical common data link while the unmanned aerial vehicle uses an older system.

"We couldn't see everybody else's video, so you go old school. You talk to the guy -- you talk to boots on the ground," said Lt. Col. John Davis, commander of 1st Battalion, 229th Aviation Regiment, part of the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade. "Actually, the E is ahead of its time when it comes to having the tactical common data link. Everybody at one point will be at that band on their systems. We're just ahead of it."

Maj. Gen. Dan Hughes, who oversees the service's programs for tactical command, control and communications, and other officials are working on solutions to the network problems, McMaster said.

"In the short term, what we need to do is harden our systems and make sure that they can degrade gracefully -- we can't have single points of failure," McMaster said. "We need really what are ... deterministic networks -- networks that can route communications even if certain nodes are disrupted. ... We also need a degree of redundancy."
Eventually, those technologies will need to be shared with NATO partners, Hodges said.

"If you accept the premise that we're always going to be part of an alliance or a coalition with alliance members, we're going to have to have networks that are interoperable, yet still have to protect your databases and your information, so that's a heck of a challenge for Army Cyber and our G-6 in the joint community, to be able to do that," he said.

McMaster also questioned the notion that a smaller but more technologically savvy Army will be adequate to combat future threats. After growing in size to 570,000 soldiers in 2008 at the height of the war in Iraq, the active component has less than 500,000 troops today and is on pace to shrink to 475,000 soldiers by next fiscal year.

"It has become an element of conventional wisdom that we can be prepared for the future -- future conflict -- by cutting capacity and manpower in the armed forces," he said. "And compensating for those cuts and making the force smaller with greater investments in high technology solutions to the problems of future war."

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at Brendan.McGarry@military.com.

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Video: Iran Hacks Into CENTCOM, Crashes MQ-9 Reaper Drone

by Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/23/2019 - 22:10

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed on Thursday that several American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) flying above Syria and Iraq were remotely commandeered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

"Seven to eight drones that had constant flights over Syria and Iraq were brought under our control and their intel was monitored by us and we could gain their first-hand intel," General Hajizadeh said in the Western Iranian city of Hamedan on Thursday.

Fars News Agency published a three-minute video taken on several different occasions by UAVs. Half of the content shows a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper hacked by IRGC electronic warfare forces, then flown into the ground. The last segment of the video shows an American air strike targeting the crashed UAV.

The footage below shows IRGC’s penetration into United States Central Command, could be seen as evidence that supports General Hajizadeh’s claims.

Iran has a long history of pioneering UAV technology. The country has manufactured UAVs since the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.

Fars News Agency explains that drone technology in the country soared when it downed a US army RQ-170 Sentinel in Eastern Iran in 2011. One quarter later, Iran started production of its RQ-170 stealth aircraft after it reverse engineered the downed UAV. The Iranian RQ-170 conducted its official flight in late 2014.

The original RQ-170 was a stealth UAV manufactured for surveillance operations, while the Iranian version of the RQ-170 is armed with missiles.

In 2013, General Hajizadeh said Iran jumped three decades ahead in UAV technology after it reverse engineered American UAVs.

Fars News Agency said Iran has acquired a vast collection of downed American UAVs, including Scan Eagle, Raptor, M-Q9 surveillance. All drones have since been reverse engineered into new advance drones that are currently being deployed in Iran and in Syria.

The statement from General Hajizadeh and the video published by Fars News Agency came amid reports that the US had accelerated a top-secret program to destroy Iran’s missile program.