RAF shoots down 'terrorist drone' over US-owned special ops base in Syria
- Reference: 1639754944
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/12/17/raf_shoots_down_drone_syria/
- Source link:
The drone's type was not disclosed by the Ministry of Defence, which issued a press statement yesterday boasting of the Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR.4's victory.
"The engagement took place on 14 December when the drone activity was detected above the Al Tanf Coalition base in Syria," said the [1]MoD . "RAF Typhoons conducting routine patrols in the area were tasked to investigate."
[2]
The Eurofighter Typhoon pilot used an ASRAAM missile to destroy the "small hostile drone." The MBDA-made heat-seeking missile is estimated to cost around £200,000 per unit.
[3]
[4]
Drone usage in modern warfare ranges from consumer-grade craft on one-way missions carrying grenades and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) right through to large aeroplanes such as the RAF's US-made MQ-9 Reapers and Turkey's [5]Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles .
Al Tanf lies in southern Syria a few miles north of the Iraqi border, around 120 miles (193km) east of Beirut. A US outpost at the location is used as a base for coalition forces operating in the area, reportedly including British special forces among other nations. In October 2021 it was hit by what American news outlets [6]described as a "coordinated attack."
[7]Leaked footage shows British F-35B falling off HMS Queen Elizabeth and pilot's death-defying ejection
[8]UK's Civil Aviation Authority hashing out rules for crash-proof cargo pods on drones
[9]RAF chief: Our Reaper drones (sorry, SkyGuardians) stand ready to help British councils
[10]China compromised F-35 subcontractor and forced expensive software system rewrite, academic tells MPs
A US think tank published a report 10 days ago [11]describing Al Tanf as a "relatively low-cost, high-impact tool" for "disrupting" what it termed "hostile Iranian activity." It appears the US government may have been thinking about shutting down the remote base.
The RAF's last air-to-air strike resulting in a downed aircraft took place in 1982, when a [12]Phantom interceptor's crew accidentally shot down a Jaguar that was peacefully returning to base after a training flight ( [13]the pilot ejected safely ). The resulting internal inquiry blamed the Phantom crew in spite of a litany of organisational failures leading to a live-armed jet being scrambled on a practice interception with a crew who thought they were carrying their usual dummy payload instead of real weapons.
[14]
While the RAF has deployed on numerous occasions over the last 40 years, the air force likes to measure its air defence mission through the absence of combat engagements – reasoning that deterring combatants from seeking military control of the skies is better than having to shoot aircraft down. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-air-strikes-against-daesh
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YbzCQa-DHvkR5VD3A0EWogAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YbzCQa-DHvkR5VD3A0EWogAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YbzCQa-DHvkR5VD3A0EWogAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/ukraine-uses-bayraktar-tb2-drone-in-combat-for-first-time/
[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/attack-hits-syria-base-houses-us-troops-no-us-injuries-rcna3466
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/f35b_ejection_hms_queen_elizabeth_video/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/22/crashproof_cargo_pods_drones/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/10/raf_skyguardian_drones_local_authorities_help/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/china_compromised_f35_software_claim/
[11] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/future-al-tanf-garrison-syria
[12] https://theaviationgeekclub.com/former-raf-jaguar-pilot-tells-the-story-of-when-he-was-shot-down-by-a-raf-phantom-interceptor/
[13] https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55364
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YbzCQa-DHvkR5VD3A0EWogAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Technically fantastic but...
From a technical point of view, hitting a "small" drone (newspaper reports vary on what it actually was) with a small heat and radar signature with an AAM is a great feat, and full marks to MBDA.
However I fear that the terrorists are winning the economic argument here. £200,000 for the missile vs how much for a small drone?
I understand that the Saudis are also having a lot of success shootting down Houthi drones with AMRAAMs, which are even more expensive. The latest batch they purchased work out around $2.3M each. Ouch.
Re: Technically fantastic but...
The Eurofighter Typhoon pilot used an ASRAAM missile to destroy the "small hostile drone." The MBDA-made heat-seeking missile is estimated to cost around £200,000 per unit.
...... and a replacement "small hostile drone" was purchased on Amazon for £39.99 with free next day delivery.
Re: Technically fantastic but...
> and a replacement "small hostile drone" was purchased on Amazon for £39.99 with free next day delivery.
I doubt it's an Amazon special - whatever it was, it had to be fully autonomous, capable of carrying some sort of load (e.g. explosives or sensors/transmitting equipment) over long distances and large enough to be both picked up by radar and targetted by a missile.
But I am willing to bet it'll cost them significantly less than £200,000 to replace it.
Re: Technically fantastic but...
>From a technical point of view, hitting a "small" drone (
But knocking a $50 Aliexpress drone out of the sky with the wake of a $200K missile missing it - isn't. Assuming the drone ever existed and wasn't just phoned in by somebody on Twitter
Re: Technically fantastic but...
Al Tanf... a "relatively low-cost, high-impact tool"
Not if it takes a £200,000 missile to knock down a small drone.
Don't these aircraft have guns any more, or are the lessons learned by the USAF in Vietnam no longer remembered?
A winning strategy?
> ASRAAM missile to destroy the "small hostile drone." ... estimated to cost around £200,000 per unit
Not to mention the cost of the aircraft required to launch it from.
However, I recall a line from the film Charlie Wilson's War about the [1]US involvement in countering the russian invasion of Afghanistan . The idea was that the USA-ians supplied the insurgents with "cheap" missiles to shoot down expensive russian aircraft. Something along the lines of "If they can shoot down a $10 million helicopter with a $100,000 missile the russians will lose"
The line may well be apocryphal, but tactically it has a ring of truth to it.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/charlie-wilson-s-war-how-one-man-changed-history-765442.html
Re: A winning strategy?
If you can get the taxpayer to pay for a $200M aircraft to shoot down $50 DJI drone then you win - assuming you own shares in the aircraft maker
US owned base?
Not sure the Syrian government would agree with that description. But guessing modern aircraft have fewer options compared to the old days of tackllng V-1s
Whoops!
I remember the 1982 incident well as I was serving at the RAF base where the Jaguar came from. The crash siren went off and shortly afterwards there were already rumours circulating around the base that it was one of ours that shot it down. Wildenrath 1 - Brueggen 0.