UK C-130 down in Iraq

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-01-31 05:24am

cnn.com

A Swedish Newspaper says that Ansar al-Islam claims the shoot it down, no confirmation so far.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2005-01-31 06:25am

15 dead...

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-01-31 06:51am

We haven't heard about the MANPADS threat for some time ...

salm · Post by **salm** » 2005-01-31 01:31pm

are large planes like this hercules equipped with countermeassures like flares and stuff?

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2005-01-31 02:43pm

salm wrote:are large planes like this hercules equipped with countermeassures like flares and stuff?

The Herc's best defense is to simply avoid the thread. This is done by a variety of means such as flying low level routes or using high altitude penetration approaches. If engaged we do have a few tricks up our sleeves, but I can't tell you about those because they are classified.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2005-01-31 02:49pm

Wouldn't a MANPADS just take out one of the engines? The Herc has 4 engines, so unless it took multiple hits, it's unlikely to go down hard right?

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2005-01-31 03:04pm

kheegan wrote:Wouldn't a MANPADS just take out one of the engines? The Herc has 4 engines, so unless it took multiple hits, it's unlikely to go down hard right?

That depends on a great many things. There might have been a fuel fire, a bleed air leak, a fin stall, etc. These are complicated airplanes, you don't just take a missile hit and expect for every system to be perfectly intact.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-31 03:07pm

Depending on the system used, it needn't be the engine hit anyway. IR sources can be anywhere, the engines are just the brightest, but the ability to select specific parts of a target exist on newer missiles.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2005-01-31 03:10pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:
salm wrote:are large planes like this hercules equipped with countermeassures like flares and stuff?
The Herc's best defense is to simply avoid the thread.

You mean the pilots could be viewing a board forum somewhere, hence the problem?

This is done by a variety of means such as flying low level routes or using high altitude penetration approaches. If engaged we do have a few tricks up our sleeves, but I can't tell you about those because they are classified.

Damn! Nice to know you guys aren't totally helpless though.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-01-31 04:10pm

Al-Jazeera apparently has footage of militants firing a missile at it.

And its looking like 15 are going to be confirmed dead as the final tally, including one Aussie (the navigator).

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-01-31 04:20pm

weemadando wrote:Al-Jazeera apparently has footage of militants firing a missile at it.

And its looking like 15 are going to be confirmed dead as the final tally, including one Aussie (the navigator).

That footage is bullshit, though. They're claiming to have shot the thing down with an anti-tank weapon.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-01-31 04:36pm

Incidentally, you'll be happy to know that DU.com members believe the insurgents that over 40 people were killed on the plane, including officers. Observe:

TahitiNut wrote:I doubt very much that there are many airfields or bases that don't have large numbers of Iraqis working on them doing "coolie labor."

It was the same in Vietnam. We had all kinds of Vietnamese working on post, from office workers to barracks maids to men who burned the shit in the split 50-gallon drums under the latrine seats to men and women who worked mucking out the roadside trenches to the barbers who cut our hair.

It'd take almost nothing to count the number of troops boarding a C-130. The C-130 Hercules is the transport workhorse of the military, ferrying men and supplies all over any war zone. When troops are loaded onto a C-130 Hercules, they usually walk in nice formation up to the plane and up the ramp. It's easy to count them - just count the boots and divide by two.

I'd be willing to bet that the Resistance has a better handle on troop movements in Iraq than the Pentagon does. It's been the "second rule of warfare" for 3,000 years. First Rule: Know where your own forces are. Second Rule: Know where the enemy forces are. These have been the primary immutable rules of armed conflict for all of history.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2005-01-31 04:43pm

Robert Walper wrote:You mean the pilots could be viewing a board forum somewhere, hence the problem?

I can say at least one pilot spends too much time on the forums.

Damn! Nice to know you guys aren't totally helpless though.

We know what we're doing.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-01-31 05:22pm

kheegan wrote:Wouldn't a MANPADS just take out one of the engines? The Herc has 4 engines, so unless it took multiple hits, it's unlikely to go down hard right?

The Hercules does have four engines and this example pretty much certainly had decoy flares. However, flares only work if you see the missile coming and deploy them and the aircraft probably did not have any sort of active missile warning system. Or rather not one that works against passively guided infrared missile.

In addition the design of the C-130's wing and engine placement simply makes it very vulnerable (this is hardly a fault against the aircraft though) to missile strikes on the engines, many C-130's and AC-130's have been shot down by single missile hits and they quite often blow a chunk of the wing clear off. The landing probably was likely very hard to the tune of the aircraft slamming into the ground and exploding, if it hadn't already blown up in mid air.

It's a very unfortunate situation if it was a missile strike though. This was a very short-range mission the aircraft was on, and it probably never climbed high enough to be above the effective altitude of MANPADS missiles because of that. Though of course no matter what flight profile it took it would have been at a vulnerable altitude for a considerable portion of its flight. But we will have to wait and see for more information on if it was a missile or not. Even planes so well known and reliable as the C-130 do crash from time to time. Anyone know if this was a night mission or not? The pilots wearing night vision goggles certainly wouldn't have helped.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-01-31 05:33pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Depending on the system used, it needn't be the engine hit anyway. IR sources can be anywhere, the engines are just the brightest, but the ability to select specific parts of a target exist on newer missiles.

While in theory you could use a laser guided MANPADS to aim for a specific part of the plane, in reality I don't think anyone could do better then to aim for the center off mass. Though that wouldn't be an engine in the case of a C-130. Beyond that, the only MANPADS missile I could see which might be able to lock onto a specific part of a plane is the Stinger RMP Block II, which used a thermal imager as a seeker rather then a single heat sensor. However it was canacled to pay for more Strykers and FCS.