It's difficult for me to believe that three F-15s were shot down by friendly fire in two days.
It's much, much easier for me to believe that the American - and world's - military-industrial apparatus will say and do whatever it takes to keep the headlines from reading "$100,000,000 F-15 Strike Eagle Brought Down By $5,000 Drones."
@mhoye Easy to believe IMO, especially given the report it was Kuwaiti SAMs who are likely not as well coordinated as US force would be. Both previous gulf wars had numerous friendly fire incidents, and they had fewer incoming air targets
As far as drones go, at least one of the F-15s was clearly hit be a missile. Could theoretically have been launched from a drone, but it'd have to be a pretty advanced, long range one to do it over Kuwait
@mhoye it's not implausible, in fact it's even likely if the Kuwaiti air-defenses weren't integrated with the US IFF systems. In an environment saturated with targets people get trigger-happy. The Russians shot down a lot of their own planes over Ukraine for the same reason.
@mhoye Or by the F-15's own inherent software flaws.
@mhoye We've already been practicing shooting down our own aircraft in the desert outside El Paso, so I expect we're pretty good at it by now.
@mhoye it sounds like it was a single incident, and given the general chaos - and mismatch between an F-15 and any drone available to Iran - I'd say it's a lot more believable, that a returning flight got tagged as hostile and shot down.
@mhoye
It would be tragicomic, as IIRC Ukrainian troops have instructions how to shoot Shaheds with small arms, provided low enough attitude.
@mhoye
It would be tragicomic, as IIRC Ukrainian infantry trains to shoot Shaheds with small arms (provided low enough attitude).
@mhoye Weapon-wielding Americans are usually so careful
@mhoye
I wish it was hard to believe, but my history of contacts with the Canadian armed forces and their stories tell me it's 100% plausible. Americans are sloppy and friendly fire happens.
I had a buddy come home from a computer networking exercise with the Americans with a friendly fire injury in his unit. Yup, went from "pulling cable for printers" to "shot by an American".
@[email protected] Why go for the lesser embarrasment? Given the levels of communication skills displayed in other areas, I think it's entirely possible three F-15s were shot down accidentally by friendly $5000 drones...
