Navy gets a kill…F/A-18

wanttaja said:
"Basic lesson in aircraft identification: One engine, ours. Two engines, German."
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Paramedic crew bring an old homeless guy to the ER, he's a bit rough. Mumbles something about deserving to be treated better, as he fought in WWII. ER doc decides to send him to VA.
An hour later the ambulance brings him back to the ER with a note that read "Right war. Wrong side."
 
Warlock said:
So not even on a potential attack profile…might as well be another Airbus…
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Maybe, but not necessarily.

What we don't know is if it was actively tanking or flying that profile when it was shot down. I have seen tankers 'practice' stuff during down time including low level runs.

BUT, what can be implied is that the Cruiser should have been very aware that the aircraft was up and should have known exactly where it was regardless of its IFF status.

So many questions and 95% of them are for the ship rather than the brown shoes....
 
The fog of war…

As reported- “Additionally, the Houthis have come out and attempted to take credit for downing the American fighter jet, carried out with eight cruise missiles and 17 drones which led to the failure of the hostile attack on Yemeni territory.”

They claim a “cover-up” of their ability to shoot down an F-18. Plausible deniability?
 
wsquare said:
The fog of war…

As reported- “Additionally, the Houthis have come out and attempted to take credit for downing the American fighter jet, carried out with eight cruise missiles and 17 drones which led to the failure of the hostile attack on Yemeni territory.”

They claim a “cover-up” of their ability to shoot down an F-18. Plausible deniability?
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Not at all surprised Houthis would make such a claim.....sounds exactly like something the Iranian Public Affairs team would come up with.

But as a counter, I highlight the comment I made earlier that this is literally the very first and only case of fratricide in 40 years of the AEGIS weapon system's operational history.

That would be a hard sell to use AEGIS as a cover up.
 
Just because… pure speculation.

Given how many exercise torpedos get shot out of surface vessel torpedo tubes onto the pier, in port…

They knew who and what it was, they goofed on making sure their missiles were “safe” during a practice engagement.

Hey fast movers, safe ejections normal AFTER being shot? Any chance they were warned??

Just playing the odds here.

Tools

Who has actually looked DOWN THE BARREL of a five inch gun, DURING a live fire exercise, while manning a radar scope on the bridge. Sporty! Wasn’t scared, reckoned it wasn’t gonna hurt long.

Heard a stream of profanity that as far as we know is still hanging in space over lake socal pacific to this day…

EDIT: To be clear, it was OUR gun pointing at us. Yes, there are interlocks, safeguards, LOTS of things to prevent that… yet there we were, staring straight down that puppy!
 
. Edit because I should have listened to my first instinct. Too late now, but oh well.
 
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Mikey52 said:
Will the investigation take 2-3 years?
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And I'm guessing will either not be publicly released or heavily redacted to protect the classified information of the AEGIS system.
AvNavCom said:
Was going to keep my mouth shut, but the speculation is getting a bit wild. Nothing cleared for release, so I'll keep it vague. Two aircraft. Two missiles. Both from the cruiser (Houthis not involved). No warning, just good SA and threat training. Routine flight profile for normal recovery (not tanking). One crew gets out and we lose the bird. The other bird is just a miss and recovers. Flight crews didn't do a damned thing wrong. 100% on the boat shoes. We'll see what the investigation says about what actually went wrong.
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I'm curious as Tools pointed out, did the crew get hit then eject, or was warned and ejected prior to the impact. Did the missile even impact?
 
midwestpa24 said:
I'm curious as Tools pointed out, did the crew get hit then eject, or was warned and ejected prior to the impact. Did the missile even impact?
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Out before impact based on their own good SA and training. That's all I'll say on the matter, and only that much to try to reduce some of the speculation.
 
AvNavCom said:
Out before impact based on their own good SA and training. That's all I'll say on the matter, and only that much to try to reduce some of the speculation.
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Someone has outed the same information to the media now.

www.foxnews.com

Second US Navy fighter jet narrowly avoided being shot down in 'friendly fire' incident: source

An F/A-18 Super Hornet – flying a few miles behind the Hornet that was shot down in a "friendly fire" incident over the Red Sea – took evasive maneuvers after a second surface-to-air missile was fired from the cruiser USS Gettysburg, a source with knowledge of the incident tells Fox News.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com

"It was a tanker crew returning to land on the carrier about 10 miles out. They recognized the missile was guiding and punched out about three seconds before the missile hit the jet," the source said.
 
Mikey52 said:
Will the investigation take 2-3 years?
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No, it will be done MUCH sooner than that and the lessons learned will be implemented immediately.

That said, unless you have a need to know, you won't ever see the investigation results. I probably won't see them myself since I don't work in that specific realm (AEGIS) anymore.
 
AvNavCom said:
Out before impact based on their own good SA and training. That's all I'll say on the matter, and only that much to try to reduce some of the speculation.
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I suspect that was the case, but as a black shoe, it only raises more questions in my mind.

I concur with the comment that based on what has been released, this sounds 100% inside the lifelines of the ship.
 
AvNavCom said:
Out before impact based on their own good SA and training. That's all I'll say on the matter, and only that much to try to reduce some of the speculation.
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So why didn’t the second crew, the one that was missed, eject preemptively?
 
Fearless Tower said:
I suspect that was the case, but as a black shoe, it only raises more questions in my mind.

I concur with the comment that based on what has been released, this sounds 100% inside the lifelines of the ship.
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I also believe that. Based on the information leaking out, it sounds like both aircraft were in the stack or just leaving inbound to land on the carrier. Hard to imagine there was much the flight crews could have done to cause this incident.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I also believe that. Based on the information leaking out, it sounds like both aircraft were in the stack or just leaving inbound to land on the carrier. Hard to imagine there was much the flight crews could have done to cause this incident.
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IF the details I've seen are true (and none of this is corroborated - I'm honestly surprised that anyone involved would be talking), there were 3 aircraft involved/flying in close company - the tanker which I believe is the one that was hit and two jets returning from a strike.
 
lulz @ suggesting preemptive ejections are part of defensive BFM/missile counter tactics. I <3 POA. Best entertainment for the money, hands down.
 
The more I think about, if the newest Aegis boat can’t positively ID a manned aircraft that originated from a sister ship, and the Aegis’s job was to be in charge of ID’ing airborne threats to the strike group, the folks in Jersey may have a point about trusting .gov on the drones.
 
All of a sudden we see a missile launch visually from the Gettysburg at our 2:30-3:00.

We talked about it on ICS, Like "Yooooo that **** is crazy, I can't believe they're shooting a drone down."

Missile hits it's apex, and it looked exactly like the SFARP sact lecture animations, so congrats to all the top gun people who made them, confirmed that's what it looks like.

Sm-2 rocket motor was lit for the entire time. I saw the missile make a correction to lead pursuit (yes I know what that looks like), and then come back to pure, and I asked blunder "dude, you want to get out?"

He said something, I don't remember what it was, and then I was just watching this thing guide, thinking about the only option being to eject, and I just grabbed the handle and pulled.
 
You could have interjected Bitching Betty’s commentary into the narrative… not sure what she would say but last time I checked she never says pull the handle…
 
Warlock said:
You could have interjected Bitching Betty’s commentary into the narrative… not sure what she would say but last time I checked she never says pull the handle…
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I’ve actually gotten on the RWR “fixed wing…fixed wing…Lock!” :oops: First mission in Iraq and it scared the crap out of me. Then I remembered the preflight brief from our hosts (4th ID) that ATC radar at Balad routinely gives false indications. Wonderful.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
All of a sudden we see a missile launch visually from the Gettysburg at our 2:30-3:00.

We talked about it on ICS, Like "Yooooo that **** is crazy, I can't believe they're shooting a drone down."

Missile hits it's apex, and it looked exactly like the SFARP sact lecture animations, so congrats to all the top gun people who made them, confirmed that's what it looks like.

Sm-2 rocket motor was lit for the entire time. I saw the missile make a correction to lead pursuit (yes I know what that looks like), and then come back to pure, and I asked blunder "dude, you want to get out?"

He said something, I don't remember what it was, and then I was just watching this thing guide, thinking about the only option being to eject, and I just grabbed the handle and pulled.
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Cite?
 
Velocity173 said:
I’ve actually gotten on the RWR “fixed wing…fixed wing…Lock!” :oops: First mission in Iraq and it scared the crap out of me. Then I remembered the preflight brief from our hosts (4th ID) that ATC radar at Balad routinely gives false indications. Wonderful.
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Shortly after the GR-4 got frat’d RTB to Kuwait during the OIF push north, I remember hearing one of the CJs tell AWACS “If that Patriot spikes me again, he’s getting HARM’d”. They had an airborne ADAFCO who relayed to the battery…those dude’s were operating without a higher echelon unit so no correlated air picture. They’d lock a target then interrogate mode 4, get a positive response and break lock.

I was like “dude…the Iragi’s buried their air force and TBM profile is nothing like air breather…WTF are those guys thinking?”
 
AvNavCom said:
If you're going to quote crew statements (which you probably shouldn't be doing), at least give them the courtesy of removing their callsigns.
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This coming from the person who released the same information (not vague) in the article. If you’re DoN, as the unnamed “Navy official” in the article, we’ll you’re in violation of Navy PA reg just as he/she is.

I don’t think @FlightmechH3 is still in the service and the info given while OPSEC, most likely isn’t even classified.
 
TCABM said:
Shortly after the GR-4 got frat’d RTB to Kuwait during the OIF push north, I remember hearing one of the CJs tell AWACS “If that Patriot spikes me again, he’s getting HARM’d”. They had an airborne ADAFCO who relayed to the battery…those dude’s were operating without a higher echelon unit so no correlated air picture. They’d lock a target then interrogate mode 4, get a positive response and break lock.

I was like “dude…the Iragi’s buried their air force and TBM profile is nothing like air breather…WTF are those guys thinking?”
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Yeah I remember in the book Viper Pilot he talks about how worried (ticked off) he was of the Patriots. One of their F-16s flat out took one out with a HARM. Of course 2003 guys had itchy trigger fingers. When I got there in 2004, there was no air threat. I don’t even think the Patriots were still in theater when I got there.
 
Velocity173 said:
…One of their F-16s flat out took one out with a HARM. ….
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I remember hearing about that in either our brief or debrief. I seem to recall the Patriots were only allowed to operate against TBMs and had to have an HEU to radiate shortly after that happened.

I don’t think anyone at the CAOC understood the risks they were accepting letting those dudes roam around autonomously.
 
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