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Such cope. Of course a shahed drone flew right into a helicopter “by chance”…
It’s very unlikely the drone hit the Apache on purpose. Why ? Because these drones are not guided remotely by an operator once they are launched. They are akin to cruise missiles. There is experimentation in Russia for drones with anti-air missiles but that’s very much an exception.
So the most likely scenarios are :
- The Apache tried to down the drone and either collided or was hit by debris of the drone.
- The Apache was very unlucky and got hit by the drone cruising to its programmed destination.
Either way, it is very unlikely the Iranian drone was remotely guided to hit the Apache.
Furthermore this was in the middle of the night making it difficult for an Apache to avoid collision. They were using NVG to navigate at that time of the day in this region. Also the pilots managed to ditch in the Detroit of Ormuz without getting very injured, since there isn’t an ejection seat on Apache that means their helicopter was not heavily damaged by the drone hit. If the military payload had really exploded on hit, the Apache would have been much more damaged and would be unlikely to protect the pilots and let them ditch in the sea and escape.
The rescue mission was done by an unmanned sea drone which indicates that the US army wasn’t confident in sending airplanes or other helicopters to the rescue zone. So it is possible that there was risks for Iranian anti-air to shoot down an air rescue mission.
So no, it’s most likely not cope. If you look on the shaheed drone specs, it is not designed to destroy aircraft and are akin to “dumb and slow cruise missiles”.
I’m no expert in weaponry but if anyone is interested I based this comment on this video :
(Only in french as far as i can tell, sorry)
It’s from Ate Chuet, a retired french army jet pilot that did missions in this area and has experience shooting down shaheed drones.
This is a great write up, thank you.
Yep. To attempt to tl:dr;
Shaheds are more like cheap, slow, cruise missiles, tomahawks.
They’re meant for attacking stationary or very nearly stationary targets, on the ground.
Not interception of in flight aircraft.
Its… possible that this was essentially an ATC vectoring failure … because there is no monolithic ATC in an active war zone.
What if it happened somewhere Iranians could guess there could be US helicopters around and they sent dozens of drones? After all those helicopters fly at somehow predictable altitudes.
It happened in the Detroit of Ormuz so both side expected enemy presence there.
But honestly why would the Iranians use such an inadequate type of weapons to shoot down an apache ?
It would be like using a machinegun to kill a fly. Or using an artillery barrage to shoot a plane.
The video I used as a source mentionned the crash of an Ukrainian MIG in the conflict with Russia that got damaged by the “frag” projected by the Shaheed drone he had destroyed. So there is precedent of airplanes going down while attempting to intercept and destroy slow moving drones.
The same thing could happen to an Apache attempting a drone intercept in pitch black night.
The shaheed drone are supposed to be cheap alternatives to cruise missiles and fatigue your enemy in forcing him to use expensive equipment to intercept or accept casualties on the ground. They are not an effective anti-air weapon.
The points you raise being even more questions than answers.
This is the fog of war. Nothing is certain, all I can tell is what people with experience on that kind of mission and weaponry think is likely or unlikely.
At the very least, it seems a purposeful hit by the Iranian drone is one of the least likely scenarios according to publicly available informations.
Was it a confirmed direct hit? Might have been that the Apache was on drone defense duty and the Shahed shrapnel after interception got an lucky/unlucky hit - that’s actually much more likely than succeeding in hitting an Apache with an Shahed on purpose. Shaheds are pretty bad at hitting fast moving targets - they mainly get preprogrammed paths to follow. There are remote control variants in Russia to enable live tracking of faster targets, but even then an Apache has a huge maneuverability advantage, and Shaheds are slow in comparison to most anti-air missiles.
Its an even worse look for the US if shrapnel was enough to down the thing…
Iran will just build catapults to throw rocks at their helis from now on if thats enough lmao
Trebuchets maybe
No it’s not. Nothing is invincible. Doesn’t matter how much armour you put on a helicopter or a jet, there will be weak spots (rotors, intakes, etc).
Loosing a single helicopter in a fluke is not a bad look. If it happens frequently that’s a different story.
I find it unlikely a shahed drone can intentionally hit a moving helicopter. They’re more meant for things like military bases
With drones everywhere an accident is going to happen once in a while. Pilots can make mistakes, equipment fails, or sometimes shit just happens. It’s not that crazy.
A drone hitting a helicopter by chance is so astronomically unlikely its not even worth considering. If it was there then it was trying to hit the helicopter. Its not like a road where there is a shared path, its the fucking air where there are practically infinite paths for a drone to take.
You’re making it sound like they are in completely arbitrary positions around the region, but if they are both in the vicinity of targets, like the helicopter is meant to defend, and the drone is meant to attack, then the chances go up significantly.
We are in another middle east quagmire, harming civilians, and committing war crimes under the orders of a Republican child rapist felon – maybe by chance
Is it 2003 again?!
“Military helicopter intercepted Iranian drone”
Heroic, you forgot “heroic”.
“Military helicopter intercepted heroic Iranian drone”
Keep up the good work Iran!
The article is making a big deal about the huge price disparity, which I get. But on the other hand, this is basically true about all missiles. As a rule, missiles are cheaper than the vehicles you destroy with them.
I’m sure you could find a few exceptions, but in general missiles are much cheaper than aircraft, and a “kamikaze drone” is just a guided missile.
You’re right AND The big deal about drones is they are even cheaper and easier to make than missiles.
The point is more that even wars come down to economy.
All other things being equal, (s)he with the biggest economic breath has the biggest chance of winning
Where things get less equal is when you start destroying 25 million dollars of your opponent at the cost of 25 thousand for yourself.
This means, again all other things being equal, and assuming that you can continue making these kills, that your opponent needs an economy a thousand times larger than yours to be able to continue this in a sustainable way
This is in part also why Ukraine has been so successful against Russia, they found ways to cause millions of dollars worth of damage to Russia with relatively tiny budgets. Also, Ukraine’s focus is on crippling the Russian economy while Russia is still using the “let’s murder and terrorize their entire population” strategy from WWII which hasn’t worked out well for them
breaking news: ICBM destroys heaps of bicycles
Yeah, that would probably be a put use of resources.
The math works out in the Drones’ favor I think. $25M/$35K -> a 1:714 ratio of helicopters to drones, on a dollar-to-dollar basis. So… I’d say “by probability” instead.
This is the primary reason the us military budget should go from 1.5 trillion to 0.5 trillion. If we shifted to drone dominance the cost would go way down, we’d have a stronger military, and we could use that extra trillion to pay down debt, fund more healthcare, share profits with US citizens, the list of possible amazing things is huge.
Will we do this? Maybe eventually but not while we have big strong dumbass in charge.
We’ll find a way to do it, but only at the expense of the middle class.
This is the primary reason the us military budget should go from 1.5 trillion to 0.
5 trillion.World needs less weapons, not more, cheaper ones (making human life even cheaper). Find a better list (healthcare is fine, like civilized countries have). Maybe some soft power helping others, oh, wait, mad king…
Will we do this? Maybe eventually but not while we have big strong dumbass billionaire business titans in charge.
If it took Russia so long with far smaller military budget, for USA it would take an existential war, so abundance of funds is sort of a defense social contract. Things cost 5x what they could, but they get designed, produced, procured, maintained and combined into a system.
Unless there’s some political struggle where the old military industry supports one side and the other needs a new military.
We just need an alternate industrial base real quick.
Well done!!!
well drone, in this case
The Apache was deployed because its sensors could detect and shoot down drones. There is no way it was downed by a drone.
It wasn’t designed for a marine environment. This is a complex piece of equipment that most likely failed due to salt corrosion.
The USA has a long history of faking attacks to justify wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1890)#Sinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second_alleged_attackThe Apache could also possibly have been downed by Israel to sabotage the ‘peace talks’.
Yeah right. Wtf are you smoking?
The Israel’s have no assets in that area that could bring down an apache.
It has one of the best sensor packages available, you cant just sneak up on it and shoot it.
How do you make sensors so good? Are you sensing air pressure disturbance, high frequency sound, electromagnetic radiation, … ?
I only ask because I wonder if something like a basic mounted, no internal-targeting, missile would be detected. E.g., if all routing is determined before fire, pre-loaded, and the final payload flies without emitting a signature.
At a cost difference of 1:700, I think you can afford to miss a few shots.
The drone engine is hot and traveling at subsonic speeds. Mostly it’s just the right radar and the right thermal sensors connected to the right software.
A lot of modern platforms have networked capabilities so it’s not just a helicopter and a drone. Everything in the air and ground and at sea tend to work together.
Well, it supposed to work together… I’ve been retire for about a decade. I’m sure they have moved on since i stopped paying attention.
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USCENTCOM has never officially said the copter was hit by a drone.
the closes they came is this.And if you read the article it doesn’t say anything about drones.
The best i can find out is the crash is still under investigation.
I worked for the army for 30 years as a civilian at redstone arsenal where the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command headquarters are. They are responsible for the apache. I never worked on the copters, but brushed shoulder with the people who did. The statements made so far are a classic case of the president wants it to be an attack, so let’s agree without lying.
Also i gave you two links to previous episodes like this. Did you read them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1890)#Sinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second_alleged_attackRemoved by mod
“But there have been officials who stated it to news sources.”
And those statements have been made anonymously and without credible evidence to back up the statements. It’s just spin.
Over my career I saw the truth on the ground verses the stuff that came out the mouths of the “officials” they rarely if ever matched reality. Especially when it was a politician talking.
As for the rest of your statement, there is just so much wrong in it I’m not going to spend hours swatting it all down. I’ve made a valid effort to provide some reality to the news spin. I decline to comment further.
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