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 LethalShade wrote:
I recall there was a video of him, bruised and unconscious. He was presumed dead, though.

That's presumably the dead one.

 d-usa wrote:
Aren't pilots usually armed with a handgun in case they have to eject in enemy territory? Or is this movie fiction?

If they are armed then seem to be fair game for shooing up until the point that they surrender.

You've already been answered like six times, but yeah. The Navy hands out Sig P228s, when available (they very often weren't). Some guys did the personally owned thing, even after Big Navy started coming down on people like a ton of bricks for it. Plenty of guys just went without entirely. Nobody can shoot for gak (I didn't learn to shoot properly until I stopped flying), so having a 9mm pistol in a world where everyone's rocking rifles wouldn't have really mattered anyway. I'd sure as hell want one if I were flying over Syria, though. SERE's yet to implement some sort of "how to handle being burned alive in a cage" section.

The prohibition on shooting aviators under a canopy doesn't matter with regard to whether or not they're armed. If they've punched out, they are theoretically inviolate until they hit the ground regardless of what they're carrying.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 LethalShade wrote:
I recall there was a video of him, bruised and unconscious. He was presumed dead, though.

That's presumably the dead one.

I Thought he was shot before landing.

A pistol is not a militarily useful weapon anyway.

Russia has deployed s400 capable warship to defend its interests.

400km range at longest it seems or 250 miles roughly.

That's a wide defense envelope.

I'm not sure, but military pilots usually armed with survival 3-barrel gun to protect from animals and tohunt.

 LethalShade wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 LethalShade wrote:
I recall there was a video of him, bruised and unconscious. He was presumed dead, though.

That's presumably the dead one.

I Thought he was shot before landing.

That is the rumor.

But having seen the video of the guys shooting at him, I very seriously doubt anyone hit him. They were very very far away, and they did not appear to be aiming even a bit. Having sen the pictures of the body, there did not appear to be bullet holes, the injuries looked like those caused by a bad exit on the eject.

 Tyran wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Again, they would need to forward base those Migs and Sus, AND the logistics of maintaining them and all the support assets needed for an air to air campaign. From a C2 perspective alone Turkey has a much easier time, plus their assets are protected by a sophisticated and established IADS.

The Russians have had trouble maintaining air to ground sortie rates. They are not good at force projection against third world targets that don't fire back much. Attempting to take on a country with AWACs and other C2 assets coupled with the IADS Turkey has won't be easy. They had a hard time doing it in Georgia and that did not require near the logistic capability fighting the Turks will.

Plus that whole - hard to force project when all your assets are slags of now radioactive material.
Turkey is a NATO country. There is no Russia/Turkey air war. There could however be an escalated Russia / US nuke war.

Not necessarily, Russia could shot down all the Turkish planes over Syria and NATO would do nothing about it as NATO only protects against attacks on the members' territories.

You're going to hang the fate of the world on your interpretation of a legality?

Too many posts to read.

Was the Russian jet in Turkish air space?

Was the Russian jet warned to leave Turkish air space?

If yes to both questions then it is reasonable that it was shot down....though there are other methods I suspect of getting it to leave.

However...

It is well known that Russia constantly pushes the envelope of countries' air space and other spaces as well.

Someone finally stood up to them it would seem.

I don't know anything about the pilot situation.

The Turks warned the yet 10 times. When they shot it down it was in their airspace for a minute, but it has been repeatedly entering and exiting their airspace. The Turks had one of their own jets shot down recently by the Syrians, and have been amped up against the Russians for a while now (due to Ukraine notably), so they were looking for an excuse, but it was their right to do so. =P

It wasn't even a minute. Seventeen seconds at the most, the jet was shot down above Syria.

 thenoobbomb wrote:
It wasn't even a minute. Seventeen seconds at the most, the jet was shot down above Syria.

Just breaching the airspace is enough. BOOM.

So its not unreasonable to think that the missile (since nobody gunfights anymore) was fired at the Russian jet while it was in Turkish airspace and the jet and missile finally connected in Syrian airspace.....?

The Turks were obviously looking to shoot the thing down to create the current situation. That or they were wanting to make a show of force, and their was their excuse. What their end goal was, if the was one besides the force, is yet to be seen. Possibly their intent was the cause more of a verge between NATO and Russia and sour any negotiations?

Meanwhile the Greeks are on the Russian side with this. Not that that's surprising. Not that the Greeks can do much at all in the state their in right now either.

 TheMeanDM wrote:
So its not unreasonable to think that the missile (since nobody gunfights anymore) was fired at the Russian jet while it was in Turkish airspace and the jet and missile finally connected in Syrian airspace.....?

Could be.

Turks claim the F16 engaged/fired at the Russian plane when it was in Turkish airspace. Most of the wreckage landed in Syria though the Turks claim some did land in Turkey.

Russia denies the planes (yes, there were two, only one was shot down) never entered into Turkish airspace.

Some Fencers rely on hand held GPS to augment the inertial system.



(Alleged) Letter Turks sent to UN:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Too many posts to read.

Was the Russian jet in Turkish air space?

Was the Russian jet warned to leave Turkish air space?

If yes to both questions

Both were answered in this thread. Why even participate?

 LethalShade wrote:
(Am I correct ? It's quite different from my own idiom for this kind of situation "Bonnet blanc, blanc bonnet", and they're not meaning the exact same thing anyway)

You are correct.

The point I've been driving at is that all of Russia's complaints are tantamount to "you're doing exactly what we're doing" and then proclaiming Turkey to be evil. It'd be hilarious if the reasoning being displayed wasn't so pathetically hollow.

Turkey probably sat there waiting for some Russian planes to fly by, but that strikes me as kind of irrelevant. Russia's been violating air spaces on three continents since 2013/2014. It was only a matter of time till someone shot a Russian plane down, yet Russia is somehow completely blameless when this entirely foreseeable outcome finally happens. And rather than simply admit that both sides are probably getting to ornery for their own good, Russia (predictably) ups the ante.

Russia was not "poking" Turkey by intruding in their airspace just to see how far they can go. Russia is engaged in combat operations on behalf of the Syrian government against terrorrists and rebels in Syria, who hide out at the Turkish border. During those combat operations, according to Turkey itself, a jet strayed into Turkish airspace over a tiny less than 2km bit of Turkey that protrudes into Syria. The intrusion lasted 17 seconds, the jet was shot down after it had already left Turkish airspace. As I said before, this kind of intrusion is normally not a reason for shooting down an aircraft.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/11/24/lt-gen-mcinerney-turkey-shooting-down-russian-plane-was-very-bad-mistake

If it were, aircraft would be shot down a lot more (in fact, Turkey itself very regularly intrudes into Syrian and Greek airspaces, and all Western aircraft fighting ISIS should be shot down in that case because they illegally violate Syrian airspace)
Russia on the other hand has released flight paths showing that the jet never entered Turkish airspace at all, and claims that no communication attempts were made by Turkey.
The Syrian government complained that the Turkish action violated Syrian sovereignty.

In 2012 (after the Syrian Air Force shot down a Turkish jet that strayed into Syrian airspace) Erdogan said that such small incursions could never be grounds for shooting down an aircraft. Clearly, there is much more behind this than just Turkey defending its airspace. As a sidenote, the Turkish prime minister criticised Russia for its attacks on Turkmen rebels just the morning of the attack.

Also, the 2nd pilot is safe. He was rescued by Syrian and Russian special forces, and has been taken to Latakia airbase, where he is being treated. His condition is good.

Russia has also announced the deployment of missile cruisers and advanced AA systems to the area with orders to intercept any possible threat to Russian operations.

Hopefully the Russian ships won't accidentally sink. They are a little rusty. Their last action fired cruise missiles into...Iran.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Possibly their intent was the cause more of a verge between NATO and Russia and sour any negotiations?

I doubt that at this particular event is anything more than Turkey tired of all the Russian planes flying nearby, and Russia mad that Turkey won't just let it do as it pleases. The reality is that the Syrian Civil War is a mess, and even with everyone nominally moving to oppose ISIS, Turkey and Russia are both trying to secure other interests and those interests are polar opposites. Turkey doesn't like a Pan-Arabist government on it's southern border and loathes the growing risk of a Kurdish War of Independence. Russia wants to assert itself on the international stage and doesn't want Turkey to grow as a regional power that'll just end up challenging it in the future.

 Frazzled wrote:
Hopefully the Russian ships won't accidentally sink. They are a little rusty. Their last action fired cruise missiles into...Iran.

Nuclear war, here we go. No need to buy Fallout 4 after all, we'll live it

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Russia has also announced the deployment of missile cruisers and advanced AA systems to the area with orders to intercept any possible threat to Russian operations.

SA-21 Growler, meet EA-18G Growler.

Seaward wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Russia has also announced the deployment of missile cruisers and advanced AA systems to the area with orders to intercept any possible threat to Russian operations.

SA-21 Growler, meet EA-18G Growler.

I'm sure shooting down more jets that are fighting terrorists in Syria will be beneficial!

Seaward wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Russia has also announced the deployment of missile cruisers and advanced AA systems to the area with orders to intercept any possible threat to Russian operations.

SA-21 Growler, meet EA-18G Growler.

Does Turkey have Growlers?

 LordofHats wrote:
Does Turkey have Growlers?

No, but we do, and we're operating pretty heavily in that area ourselves.

Seaward wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Does Turkey have Growlers?

No, but we do, and we're operating pretty heavily in that area ourselves.

Somehow, this prospect fills me with a sense that this situation will not be improving anytime soon

 LordofHats wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Does Turkey have Growlers?

No, but we do, and we're operating pretty heavily in that area ourselves.

Somehow, this prospect fills me with a sense that this situation will not be improving anytime soon

Yep, we really don't need to fight each other right now. WWIII can wait 'till we obliterate ISIS. Or else, worst case scenario, we destroy ourselves (Europe + Russia + USA) and ISIS steamrolls what's left to establish its caliphate.

Kilkrazy wrote:A pistol is not a militarily useful weapon anyway.

They said that about knives too, it didn't get the bugs anywhere!

jhe90 wrote:Russia has deployed s400 capable warship to defend its interests.

400km range at longest it seems or 250 miles roughly.

That's a wide defense envelope.

Civilian airliners beware?

Yep, we really don't need to fight each other right now. WWIII can wait 'till we obliterate ISIS. Or else, worst case scenario, we destroy ourselves (Europe + Russia + USA) and ISIS steamrolls what's left to establish its caliphate.

Well to be honest, whether it starts now or later seems increasingly unimportant in my mind.

Assad's government is likely to collapse on its own at this point. It's already lost control of Syria in all but name, and once the threat of ISIS is neutralized or diminished, Assad's government will become marginalized and collapse.

The Kurds are likely to start a War for Independence, and will be opposed by Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, and whatever is left of Iraq and Syria + Islamist groups. This conflict is a massive disaster waiting to happen, arguably even more disastrous than ISIS. ISIS is killing a lot of people and being straight up violent but pretty much everyone is their enemy, so no one is gonna stick their neck out to be on their side in any official capacity. A War of Kurdish Independence on the other hand is gonna tear international relations a giant new butt hole. Turkey would actually best serve its interests to try and shut that down now, while ISIS is still around to distract everyone which I suspect is exactly what they're trying to do