PAK FA, T-50: News #1

Djoka wrote:Well they didnt shot down any more of f-117,because afther serbs destroyed one and damaged the other f-117,pentagon grounded the entire fleet of f-117.

No, we did not ground the -117 because of that one loss. We already had the -22 and -35 in the works while the -117s were in combat. The -117 was already scheduled to be retired. I know many would like to believe that fairy tale, but it is no more true than the unicorn.

Highly arrogant post as expected.

havok wrote:Radar detection is 75% data processing system and processes. Keep in mind that it was the Soviet Union who discarded Ufimtsev's work and the Americans picked it up.

Only thing I will keep in mind is that you picked up one leftover Russia did not want for some reason. Russian academy of sciences have been producing top class scientists before US was even founded so keep that in mind when you like to brag with other countries scientist.

havok wrote:We are now at least two generations ahead of Russia in terms of low observable designs and how to counter it

Highly arrogant as I said.
As I do not see any lead in terms of stealth (only mistakes) and certainly not in detection technique(huge lag) I would like you to explain it to me.

havok wrote:We never had any problems being ahead of the Soviets in the first place.

I might count several things or more you will never be able to catch up but than we would go off topic wouldn`t we?

havok wrote:In radar detection, targets usually are generators of clusters of scattered signals, even with LO targets.....

My field of expertise is not radar systems so I will leave this answer to a people with more knowledge but I did understand this simple

explanation of yours which I do not consider end of the radar science nor confirmation of anything.

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:That would further mean that two opposing stealth fighters would never managed to find each other in the battlefield cozz radar waves scattering signals of stealth fighter surfaces and RAM will make them undetected by conventional means.

We know how. But I doubt the same can be said for Russia

You are one very dubious man indeed.
Just as same you found out of IRST/HMS/R-73 existence combo years after it was finished and implemented it 15 years later my guess is that you are about to have another revelation. MIG-35 implements DAS system you guys love to brag about but now PAK-FA besides DAS implements 5 on-board radar system. You can imagine it like as a AEGIS in the sky. and when you count F-35 in, than it does not matter at all cozz that thing can barely fly.

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:It is also interesting to know how in the hell did S-125 search radar managed to find F-117 and direct its fire control radar and managed to guide missiles at F-117 for more than 10min if there is scattering and all and F-117 from bottom up looks like a flat surface which radar waves hit under angle that are all under your point of view deflected by that same angle/surface. Engines does not count as they are placed on the on the to

Sheer luck via the 'spray and pray' method. If whatever Zoltan Dani did worked so well, then why only one -117 was lost?

I hope you do realize you answer on my post up there is totally inappropriate and for a guy that loves to show off with two vector pictures and lots of text to read in a hope that it will prove something you do tend to make yourself look like one hell of a troll.

But never the less It is good to know that besides two vector pictures and some text for show off you like to explain things you don`t know how to explain whit the things that are even more harder to explain like "luck" or will I be wrong If I say "God" or "astrology" or some other weird pseudoscience that comes in handy.

I suggest that you try with the logic in which case you would have to admit you where wrong. I know that might cause some sleep problems but at the end you might feel better.

havok wrote:If whatever Zoltan Dani did worked so well, then why only one -117 was lost?

I suggest you familiarise with the problems involved that preceded F-117 shooting. Than you might loose some of that arrogant attitude and just perhaps realize thing or two. You obviously know very little about the situation back than or air defense systems.

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:Now here you are questioning every statement of the Russian scientists, Russian defense ministers, defense companies and all just because you posted picture of 2 vector hitting flat surface . Nice, you must be proud of yourself.

I only debunk popular misconceptions. I guess you have a hard time with that?

Nice to see you have none problem whats so ever disregarding entire scientific community from which Ufimtsev came and say just the opposite to you.

Pardon me but I will stick with Rogosin "we will shoot them as they come" statement regarding "stealth". Something makes him very confident

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:Good, so that basically means that when Russia makes PAK-DA in numbers as well as PAK-FA they will be able to fly over the US all over, in and out, undetected just as same judging by your opinion B-2 does now in Russia

No reply here?

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:It is also interesting how old Russian analog S-125 search and fire control radar did not managed to reject F-117 signal return, if there ever was one, as clutter ? How did that old Russian radar ever managed to do anything as there was no bistatic radars around to catch reflecting signals from flat bottom surface of the F-117?

No reply here?

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:Also I must refer to your statement about B-2 accompanied by jammer, I did not know, but Austin posted. Don`t you find strange that plane that can NOT be detected nor tracked or anything and against who thousands of radar systems are of no use need to be protected by jammers and non VLO planes that will be picked out miles away? I mean If you have ultimate weapon, weapon that is non traceable or detectable and as such not destroyable than why in the hell do you need to protect it by detectable and destroyable fighters which stand no chance to survive in such environment?

They are ruses. Ever heard of that? No one said our 'stealth' aircrafts are ultimate weapons. So far only YOU have.

But you DID, when you said: "The B-2 will not be detected, let alone tracked" - basically speaking about ultimate weapon cozz a weapon that can throw out bombs, but not be detected can not be destroyed either Im I right or Im I right?

havok wrote:To sum it up, the argument 'no insect flies at 1000 km/hr' does not fly in the real world. That 'insect' is ALREADY discarded as 'junk' or clutter. The B-2 will not be detected, let alone tracked.

So here you are in one post saying about weapon that will not be "detected, let alone tracked" and just a few post further denying you have ever said that.

havok wrote:No one said our 'stealth' aircrafts are ultimate weapons. So far only YOU have.

I hope you are able to comprehend this contradiction you made in a just few posts distance.

So yet another comment of mine with no reply. That´s third already.

havok wrote:

Viktor wrote:According to you Russians must have been fools for not rejecting radar systems and rebuilding listening device systems like the ones that existed in WW1/2 as they would have more chance of success to detect VLO than by radar system.

They did reject Ufimtsev's work.

Another post and another dubious reply. History repeats itself.

havok wrote:

Djoka wrote:Well they didnt shot down any more of f-117,because afther serbs destroyed one and damaged the other f-117,pentagon grounded the entire fleet of f-117.

No, we did not ground the -117 because of that one loss. We already had the -22 and -35 in the works while the -117s were in combat. The -117 was already scheduled to be retired. I know many would like to believe that fairy tale, but it is no more true than the unicorn.

F-22 is even now overwhelmed with problems and did not enter even one combat situation and here you are talking about F-22 dropping bombs in 1999 while F-35 will be operational only God knows when. F-117 was grounded because its design was compromised. Its wreckage was send to Russia and China right after. Serbs did not miss that opportunity.



I don`t want to go off topic every time you troll this forum so I suggest you to go back to square one if you really want to reply to my post because you did nothing to reply to anything I wrote. Otherwise you will be ignored.

All I see is "we we we we "... someone has a serious case of nationalism.

A nice and updated FAQ on PAK-FA .....Use your friendly English translator has many good details.

PAK FA. Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Austin wrote:Having said that on a serious note do you think USAF or SAC then thought they could penetrate Soviet Airspace using B-2 flying high and could hunt mobile Topol ICBM something they were designed for ? When Gulf War has shown that hunting mobile Scud in an airspace completely dominated by Allies could not hunt a single mobile scud or destroy it before they could fire BM.

Everybody looking for SCUDs in DESERT STORM wasn't a B-2 and they didn't have the sensor fit the B-2 had. Plus, keep in mind that SS-25s would've been far easier to locate. All of the arms control agreements meant that the US knew exactly where they were based, so it wasn't that difficult to keep a lookout for when they left garrison to get a starting point. Plus, they were bigger, and therefore able to show up on SAR better.

Austin wrote:Current Russian Long Range New Generation Radar are the Voronezh-M and DM ( VHF and L band ) do you think B-2 can fly high and can enter Russian Airspace undetected overcoming these new generation LR Radar and other types ?

Dealing solely with Voronezh, then probably, given that they're designed and specialized for BMEW/ABM work. And nobody will ever be totally undetected. One thing the Russians do well is to put craploads of EW sensors of varying wavelengths all over the damn place. Bunches of 55Zh6 TALL RACK and Nebo-M systems will make life hell for the F-22 or F-35, and the severely overlapping coverage in many locations may be problematic for the B-2 as well.

Austin wrote:Kosovo was an example where B-2 was accompained with range of Stand Off Jammers during its mission i read in dozens to take out targets at stand off range ......iirc only in one mission B-2 went alone without its supporting aircraft due to bad weather but for all the rest they had dozens of Jammer package accompaining them.

That was just smart mission planning. We had the EW/SEAD assets available, so we used them.

Austin wrote:I recollect one of the argument USAF made in favour of B-2 was it would made the accompaining package like Jammers in dozens that are currently needed for non-LO Bombers redudant and its LO features did not need any supporting package and that it could hunt alone.

And it can do that over denied airspace when required. The thing is, the FRY was nowhere near being "denied airspace".

Austin wrote:The whole idea that Stealth Bomber are golden bullets is highly exaggared.

They are, when employed in the proper roles.

GarryB wrote:Regarding the B-2 there are claims by the Aussies that their long range over the horizon radar they have detected the B-2 at thousands of kms range...

Didn't they hit the contrails (those aren't there in "stealth mode")? Or maybe they were tracking the airflow disturbance behind the airframe, I forget. Either way they weren't getting skin hits.

havok wrote:Some scattered signals off the individual openings will make it to the engine's front face.

Hence the labeling of my explanation as "overly simplified".

Mindstorm wrote:it was conceived to penetrate in plain URSS's air space to go to the "hunt of soviet mobile ICBM launchers".... oh sorry ,but this comical ,harebrained idea ,sold usually around, is so utterly wronged under any POV that even repeat it cause uncontrollable bursts of laughers.

Laugh all you want, but that was one of the intended missions for the ATB whether you choose to believe it or not. You might want to stop and think for a minute how in the hell we were intending to find the damn SS-25 TELs and get weapons on them in the first place? If they're mobile, you can't necessarily plan to hit them with Minutemen or Trident IIs. The idea was to degrade or deny re-attack capability.

Also:

1. Yup, they changed from high to low altitude penetration as it was far safer once craploads of S-300s started appearing. Being ridiculously mobile, they could pop up anywhere. And good luck relying on trackign the SAR emissions; the B-2 has an LPI radar and it isn't always active.

2. 165 B-2s was the requirement when we were still going to buy enough to 1) use them as ALCM shooters also and 2) replace the B-52G/H with the B-2. Then the Cold War ended, and a lot of military programs got cut or reduced, including the B-2. ALso, kill stuff with gravity bombs? Not in the beginning. The weapon of choice would've been the AGM-131, but it also got cancelled when the Cold War ended.

3. We've always done it that way where possible because it's the smart thing to do. That doesn't mean that the B-2 cannot operate without support, thinking so is just asinine. With 20 of the things in existance, if you are able to take extra steps to protect them, you do it. The air defense networks of the FRY and Iraq meant that we could operate whatever support assets we wanted alongside the VLO platforms, so we did. Plus, there is no inherent danger to the B-2. Pretty much all of the strike packages worked the same way, so EW activity for example did not mean it was a stealthy aircraft incoming. Besides, we pretty much saturated the area with jamming, so it's not like they could necessariyl track in on everyone at range and determine precisely where the strike package was headed.

And it really would do people well to recognize that LO or VLO technology DOES NOT make an aircraft invisible or completely undetectable. It just reduces the ranges at which targets can be prosecuted. For a strike aircraft like the B-2, you want to degrade search radar performance enough to produce coverage gaps allowing you to penetrate hostile airspace. That is another reason for low-altitude ingress, radar range performance degrades at lower altitudes.

TR1 wrote:All I see is "we we we we "... someone has a serious case of nationalism.

Do I need to clarify that my use of "we" indicates a former employer and not a nation state?

Not you SOC

Sheer luck via the 'spray and pray' method. If whatever Zoltan Dani did worked so well, then why only one -117 was lost?

According to Air Forces Monthly, they shot down 1 F-117 and 2 damaged, what is not bad for S-125. You have to know, that Serb air defense worked in the worst EW conditions ever in history. NATO will never ever have such overwhelming qualitative and quantitative overpower against enemy as in that war, where NATO use more than 1000 planes against 16 Mig-29 crippled by sanctioned and air defense systems from fifties and sixties.

Fact is, that F-117 and B-2 need Prowler protection against Serbian air defense.

Btw someone earlier brought up why the T-50s slats do not extend all the way down the wing, and how the dogtooth hurts the RCS:

http://www.thewordofmatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/yf-23-920-24.jpg

Zoltan Dani (and his crew) claim to this day that they did pick up a "large stealth target" on one occasion flying near the Serbo-Croatian border (East Slavonia). They say they that they could track it once they knew what to look for and that it was a similar signal to the F-117 but the aircraft was much larger. They fired at it and claim to have scored a hit. One later theory (after the war) is that they hit a B-2 towed decoy.

Everybody looking for SCUDs in DESERT STORM wasn't a B-2 and they didn't have the sensor fit the B-2 had.

I agree perfectly with your assertion SOC....but not in the way you intend.

The area coverage and data processing ability of the sensor suit of the entire B2's fleet don't match, by a very large margin, even only those of one of the several E-8 J-STARs that was committed to the Scud hunting roles in Gulf War , for not say the fleets of SAR equipped F-15E, "Lantirn" equipped F-18s and F-16s and several Uk's SAS, US's Commandos and Israeli Shaldag special forces squad used purposely as ground scout and target designators .....all of that in a very limited kill-box area of South West Iraq.

Wanting to provide a rough ratio between the area coverage and data processing capabilities between the sensors of entire B-2's fleet and those of the aircraft and ground forces operating in this limited area of Iraq hunting for Scud's TEL we would obtain probably something on the range of several hundreds to one.

That was just smart mission planning. We had the EW/SEAD assets available, so we used them.

Obviously not.
When, in 1991,USAF was sure to be capable to avoid completely the potential (...and reduced thanks to low-observability) area of detection of its F-117 by part of Iraqi air defense,thanks to pre-mission-computable flight's routes accounting for the well- known position of each enemy FIXED SA-2 and SA-3 battery and the altitude limits of the mobile export SA-6 batteries [/b], mandatorily employed F-117 Nighthawk's squadrons in STRICT SOLITARY missions just to preserve theirs security.

In Kosovo War the solitary initiative of the commander of a single battery of SA-3 represented the unexpected variable contributing to the departure from this well established CONOPs for stealth bombers.

The "home-made" modifications executed by this Serbian SAM battery's commander -Col. Zoltan Dani- ,a true passionate of its work ,that had procured for himself a rich, restricted technical literature about latest evolutions in SAM's design and theirs tactically employment in a modern environment, had rendered its export and largely downgraded battery of antediluvian SA-3 (that was ,anyhow, the unique SAM system in the theatre with the ceiling to engage NATO aircraft flying at medium-to-high altitude) a battery much more similar to a relatively modern SAM of its times, capable to:
- Travel off road at increased speed
- Shorten the deployment/un-deployment cycle to dozen of minutes instead of an hour
- Increase of several times the original 24 W/MHz jamming signal rejection of SNR-125 radar
- Increase range of detection and tracking of “low observable” targets (anyhow very far from the laughable metropolitan legends circulating on this subject)
- Reduce significantly time of reaction of the battery
- Increase fuse’s sensibility for better missile's Pk in near-misses detonations

Z. Dani’s battery so modified ( in spite of ,obviously, showing performances and operative parameters anyhow dozens of times inferior to true up-to-date SAM systems of the time and being capable to engage only a single target for battery) ,also thanks to the good proficiency of its crew , became quickly a true killer battery ,unique of its kind ,on the top list of the most “wanted” Serbian SAM batteries by part of NATO’s J-Stars and SEAD/DEAD groups.
It was capable to down one F-117 (and heavily damage another ), down an F-16 , damage two A-10s without suffering a single life or equipment loss in the entire Air-Missile NATO Campaign !

Among the effects that the achievements of this SINGLE well manned battery of a largely downgraded export version of an antediluvian SAM system ,modified with totally “home-made” measures to achieve a scarce surrogate of a part of the capabilities in possession of modern SAM systems of the time, was to FORCE NATO planners to commit escort EA-6B Prowler jamming aircraft F-16s (for HARM delivery ) and F-15s to provide air coverage from eventual enemy interceptors for this “high-observable” strike group.

From Lessons of Kosovo: More B-2 Bombers? by Chris Hellman, Weekly Defense Monitor, Volume 3, Issue No. 24

Stealth technology did not bring about the anticipated reduction in support aircraft needed for combat operations.
After the March 27 crash of an F-117A "Stealth" fighter, both the F-117As and B-2s begin flying with escorts of Navy EA-6B radar jamming aircraft.

The Air Force decided to retire its fleet of radar-jamming EF-111 "Ravens" in 1991 primarily because it envisioned a fleet of stealthy F-117As, B-2s and F-22 fighters operating without the jamming support needed by conventional aircraft.

The Pentagon's reversal on the need for radar-jammers left the Navy's fleet of fleet of 91 EA-6B "Prowlers," -- 30 of which were used to support air operations in Kosovo -- overburdened by the unexpected new requirements to escort F-117As and B-2s. As a result, the Navy has stated it will need at least 50 additional jammer aircraft.

Maj. Gen. Dennis G. Haines, Air Combat Command's director of combat operations, acknowledged the significance of the Air Force's lack of a jamming capability. At a conference on June 24, the General said, "stealth reduces the signature of an aircraft but it does not make it invisible. We have really neglected [electronic warfare]."

This ability to operate autonomously has long been a big selling point used by B-2 supporters. Repeatedly the Air Force stated how the B-2 dramatically cut operational costs by reducing support requirements. In a now famous chart, two B-2s with a combined crew of four armed with smart munitions were shown to be capable of performing the same mission that would normally require 55 aircraft of all types and over 100 aircrew.

Yet in practice, the B-2 did not operate alone during Operation Allied Force.
Flying out of Whiteman AFB in pairs, B-2s required mid-air refuelings for each leg of the 30 hour round trip mission.
Over the target area, B-2s were escorted by F-15s which provided air cover, F-16s to provide fire suppression against enemy anti-aircraft systems, as well as support from airborne air traffic controllers and systems which monitored enemy communications, as well as their "Prowler" escort. In all, often more than a dozen aircraft supported B-2 missions.

And it can do that over denied airspace when required.

I think that after having seen after what circumstances the jamming ,SEAD and DCA escort package became a requirement for B-2s strike groups in THIS operational environment i am sure that also you will agree that this hypothesis appear completely out of line.

1. Yup, they changed from high to low altitude penetration as it was far safer once craploads of S-300s started appearing.

SOC with me is not necessary to hide behind a finger.

S-300's introduction was indeed the main catalyzing factor for changing main mission flight's profile of B-2 Spirit to low altitude terrain following profile and the simple reason for that was that all modeled projections of intrusion missions in URSS's airspace ,accounting for the REAL range of detection and tracking of B-2 by part of Soviet IAD's elements of the times ,shown that it was NOT SURVIVABLE traveling at high altitude.
After that, it was opted to completely discontinue the program at only 21 airframes completed, also in reason of the fact that its true mission – deliver from relative close range high precision tactical nuclear bombs to stop the quickly shifting Soviet front’s advancement in Europe , a mission that was not possible to carry-on with stand-off cruise missiles – had effectively vanished after URSS’s collapse.

B-2 fleet was NEVER intended do go to the hunt of Soviet mobile ICBM launchers (a task for which, taking also into account the immense landmass , time to the selected enemy sector from NORAD, presence of inflatable/self-propelled decoys, redeploying underground tunnels and ,even the area coverage and processing capability of the whole NATO’s ISR fleet would result totally insufficient even to track a single TEL) ; the info-war operative responsible for the conceiving and spreading of this shoddy notion should truly receive a price for the phantasy and the…courage .

Russian radars will now be being designed to not reject insect sized targets that fly more than 50km/h because such an insect is clearly not an insect and is certainly not noise.

GarryB ,luckily, no known insect is even only near to the size of the real radar returns of such aircraft.
Now THAT would represent a true danger for the world .

antediluvian SA-3

Mindstorm,

I won't stand for this ...insulting descriptions of what is probably the most successful Soviet PVO system ever. It can still hold it's ground and is still being sold today in it's S-125 2M (and similar) version.

At least SOC is not being called SOM anymore

I wanted to reply to SOC but couldnt have argued better than Mindstorm , Good Post Mindstorm and Good Post All of them.

I read the reason why the F-117 was partially damaged or slightly is becase the Firecontrol Radar could not guide the SA-3 close enough for the Proximity Fuse and Warhead to do enough damage , The F-117 stealth was still working good enough in the band where SA-3 FC radar had problems tracking and guiding accurately to the target.

So even though the SA-3 reached close to F-117 and the warhead exploded it was not close enough to cripple the aircraft.

Although they claim that computing power means curved aerodynamic effecient surface was possible without compromising stealth but I feel F-117 had the best All Aspect Stealth of all LO aircraft even though it was just a flying brick.

Austin wrote:I wanted to reply to SOC but couldnt have argued better than Mindstorm , Good Post Mindstorm and Good Post All of them.

I read the reason why the F-117 was partially damaged or slightly is becase the Firecontrol Radar could not guide the SA-3 close enough for the Proximity Fuse and Warhead to do enough damage , The F-117 stealth was still working good enough in the band where SA-3 FC radar had problems tracking and guiding accurately to the target.

So even though the SA-3 reached close to F-117 and the warhead exploded it was not close enough to cripple the aircraft.

Although they claim that computing power means curved aerodynamic effecient surface was possible without compromising stealth but I feel F-117 had the best All Aspect Stealth of all LO aircraft even though it was just a flying brick.

Don't forget, that missiles were old and now they are even older. If proximity fuse work and activate warhead, that FC radar bring missile close enough, in opposite it wouldn't work and warhead will not be activated (target missed). Problem could be also in old warhead, that id didn't explode properly and send enough fragments to the plane. In that case plane was damaged, but not shot down.

Mindstorm wrote:I think that after having seen after what circumstances the jamming ,SEAD and DCA escort package became a requirement for B-2s strike groups in THIS operational environment i am sure that also you will agree that this hypothesis appear completely out of line.

The US constantly evaluates the jamming possibility in every single theater . We have dedicated centers that carry out assessment of electromagnetic threats . Such centers are un matched anywhere in the world.

http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=1557&goback=%2Egmp_3665454%2Egde_3665454_member_202326728

There was no need for any escort jammers for the B2s or F 117s . The F117 got shot down in Kosovo because the Serbs got lucky . We were following the same flight path day in day out and therefore became targets .

If they were lucky then then they need good amount of skills and planning to be that lucky.

Every one needs luck one can argue the second F-117 was lucky to just return home damaged they could have easily fallen down to the SAM and Zoltan Dani shot other aircraft too and damaged few other.

He and his SAM team must have been the most luckiest people in Balkan Conflict , I am sure they must have been the Darling of NATO Aerial Bombardement and getting back alive and hearty is indeed very lucky

Austin wrote:If they were lucky then then they need good amount of skills and planning to be that lucky.

ROFLMAO Your sense of humor is contagious . Is this something quintessential Indian ? If you are lucky what's the f***ing need for skills and planning ?

I see there is another Indian member in this forum who in another thread has described how 2 MIG 29 fought and won against 4 F 16s in some test of manhood fight with ....guess who Pakistan . Guess that guy needs serious medication .


Indians here in the US have made a name for themselves in comedy ... not hard to find out why .

Well what you look at it as plain luck , I look at it as Skills , Persistance , Patience and Planning with a fair bit of luck .....I am sure the air defence folks of iraq were not that lucky nor were other SAM units in Balkans

I am sure Zoltan Dani had a fair bit of creative imagination , skills along with some luck ......I am sure so did the other F-117 guy who came back to base with his bird he was lucky too

Austin wrote:I am sure Zoltan Dani had a fair bit of creative imagination , skills along with some luck

Of course ...coz of which our friend Zoltan Dani managed to shoot just 1 aircraft in his entire lifetime .

Austin stop replying to this tard. Not worth it.

War&Peace wrote:

Austin wrote:I am sure Zoltan Dani had a fair bit of creative imagination , skills along with some luck

Of course ...coz of which our friend Zoltan Dani managed to shoot just 1 aircraft in his entire lifetime .

And NATO managed to blow up 15 decoys. Good job.

The F-117 took one on the nose, admit it.

War&Peace wrote:

Austin wrote:If they were lucky then then they need good amount of skills and planning to be that lucky.

ROFLMAO Your sense of humor is contagious . Is this something quintessential Indian ? If you are lucky what's the f***ing need for skills and planning ?

Why don't you aquatint yourself with the operation of such a complex as old as the S-125, in a very hostile environment with serious enemy air power, and then get back to use about it just being luck?

There was no need for any escort jammers for the B2s or F 117s . The F117 got shot down in Kosovo because the Serbs got lucky .

Obviously you are entitled of an opinion ,but with equal obviousness, is important that you remember that this was NOT the opinion of USAF Command when them ordered URGENTLY all F-117 and B-2, in strike missions, to be escorted by HARM equipped F-16s, F-15 in DCA and EA-6B jammers (to the point that the 30 deployed initially found themselves quickly overburdened )


About luck , the Commander of the 3 battery of 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade -Col. Zoltan Dani- should have had a truly legendary one, taking into account that its battery:

- Heavily damaged another F-117
- Downed an F-16
- Damaged very heavily one A-10 and lightly another one
- not suffered a single life or material loss in the entire campaign (in spite being the most wanted SAM battery in the theatre and that all JSTAR and SEAD/DEAD squadrons conducted literally hundreds of missions purposely aimed against him).

All of that while all other Air defense batteries, in spite of hundreds of SAMs shots, was uncapable to down any aircraft (but only some BGM-109s).


If you are in search of an explanation for those "very strange" events more serious than the action of an....superhuman selective luck , i can aid you pointing out a thing or two about organization of Air Campaign against those immensely inferior enemies that NATO so much love to attack.

The immensely outdated IADs (Iraqi KARI was the same) of nations attacked by NATO in the latest conflicts was all structured around
1) A bulk of high-altitude FIXED air defense SAM batteries –mostly represented by export and vastly downgraded versions of antediluvian S-75 and S-125 [SA-2 and SA-3 NATO]
2) A layer of middle-altitude MOBILE air defense SAM batteries - mostly composed by 2K12E “Kvadrat” (downgraded export version of first model of 2K12 “Kub” [SA-6 NATO]
3) A most “internal” low-altitude and point defense layer – composed mostly by 9K31E and ZSU-23-4

You will easily realize as the main task for NATO Air Forces, in those conflicts, was merely to acquire the exact position of the fixed high altitude batteries and attack theirs positions with barrages of stand-off cruise missiles and long range PGMs (none of theirs Air defense was effectively capable to engage air munitions) to attempt to destroy or suppress them or at least create the conditions for the strike squadrons to plan their mission flight’s pact to avoid completely the zone of engagement footprint of those fixed SAM.
In general ,for the better protected positions of enemy SAMs in need to be attacked, anyhow, for the presence of a strategically important target, NATO strike groups widely employed stand-off jamming , massive HARM’s delivery and engagement radar target’s oversaturation to eliminate or ,at least enormously diminish, the danger that them posed.

The tactics and measures just mentioned was possible, in particular, for the effect of the interaction of several technical parameters typical of those downgraded export versions of early S-125s.
Them was ,in facts, capable to engage only a single air target for each battery , had a jamming signal density’s rejection threshold of 24 W/MHz at 100 km (for comparison the 1993 modernized export "Pechora-2T” had, at the same conditions, a rejection threshold of 2700 W/MHz !!) , had time of reaction widely surpassing the minute !!!

All the SEAD and strike group of aircraft , at this point can simply fly long the upper altitude limits of engagement of the 2K12E “Kvadrat” for conduct theirs missions in relative safety, in the instance an SA-6’s shot was detected were sufficient few second to literally exit outside theirs engagement reach rendering the SAM’s shot inefficient.

In substance the home-made measures implemented by Col. Z. Dani rendered the unique type of SAM in the theatre with the ceiling to engage any NATO aircraft in theirs mission (S-125), a SAM much more similar (even if, likely ,still several dozen of times inferior ) to an up-to-date SAM system of the time and rendered its position impossible to know in advance for NATO planners.
This was sufficient for “transform” its battery in a true killer, moreover impervious to almost any concerted attempt ,by part of all the NATO’s SEAD/DEAD groups to destroy or incapacitate him.

As you can see now neither NATO aircraft high survivability neither the lethality of Zoltan Dani’s “unique” S-125 battery have anything to do with luck, but simply with the exploitation, by part of NATO aircraft, of strict TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS of the antediluvian SAM systems them confronted and by part of Col. Dani of variation to CONOPS and TECHNICAL MODIFICATIONS aimed at render inefficient or less efficient several technical and tactical solutions used by NATO Air Forces.