https://youtu.be/phGAfV1ecSc?t=47s

Whatever you think of Russia’s deployment into the Syrian conflict, whomever is at the receiving end of this sortie, you’ve got to give their pilots credit for risking their lives to deliver their ordnance. Just as you’ve got to tip your hat to the American special forces fighting against ISIS without the help of U.S. ground troops. As JWT says, there is nothing that stops the enemy more than looking into the eyes of armed soldiers determined to kill them. Nothing.

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59 COMMENTS

  1. Lets also not forget the Volunteers who aren’t getting a paycheck for putting their asses on the line. It takes conviction in belief to go above and beyond.

  2. The more aloha Snackbars killed by the Russians means the fewer of the crazy bastiches that are running around shooting up resturants and stadiums.

    My experience of the Russian military man is from the cold war days. Ivan did not do high tech well. But nobody ever questioned the brass his balls were made of.

  3. “American special forces fighting against ISIS?” Stop spreading official lies. ISIS is the creation of the CIA and Mossad, each of whom has supplied them and trained them, for the purpose of which has been to destabilize Europe and later America.

    • >Just as you’ve got to tip your hat to the American special forces fighting against ISIS without the help of U.S. ground troops

      Hahahahahahahahaha

      You mean helping and funding, right?

    • I love of so many Americans and Europeans are quickly forgetting that we (US and Europe) did support, arm, finance the so “moderate rebels” to overthrow the Syrian regime… that the US, UK, France and such are the reason ISIS does exist and became quickly so big, so well informed, so well armed… But once the monster we did help to create just turn its back on us and bit us, now we suddenly forgetting history. And everyone that would recall it, would be called “conspiracy theorists”, or “mental ill” or something… Of course, we can’t accept the fact we aren’t perfect and we probably did one of the most atrocious things and that sometimes it was for the greater good and it works, and sometimes it didn’t work at all, and just bit us back… like it already happen in Afghanistan, in Iraq and now in Syria (and later in Ukraine… everybody seems to forget it already). It must lovely to live with a so short and selective memory…

      • And here I thought Radical Islamic Jihadists were responsible for their own creations…

        I think we are getting to the point where so-called pundits are ignoring individual responsibility, regardless of who we armed or not.

        • Radical extremists are responsible for their own creation… just like the US and Europe are responsible for supporting, arming and training them. Simple facts that go both ways.

        • The irony of calling for responsibility when no US government president has ever been punished for blowback resulting from his asinine policies.

  4. Well it took them a LOT of rounds to shoot that plain down. So that is a good thing, maybe they will run out of ammo soon.

  5. Whatever you think of Russia’s deployment into the Syrian conflict, whomever is at the receiving end of this sortie, you’ve got to give their pilots credit for risking their lives to deliver their ordnance.

    Uh… no. I’m not into slaying people simply because the government orders me to. The justification to kill someone by war or other means lies completely within the reason to do so. I don’t give “credit” to anyone who doesn’t seek justification for their actions, and doesn’t morally support their actions. How can they morally support their actions when…

    The people of Syria protested (Arab Spring) seeking reform and “rights.” How dare those protesters protest against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. They are to be content with what they have and what the government gives them. How dare they be dissatisfied with the al-Assad dynasty?? They want what??? Democratic reform and release of political prisoners?? No way. Kill them! Hafez al-Assad Hama massacre style! So there it is. 142 people immediately died and the civil war started.

    Now which side does the Russians support?? You guessed it – President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

    Zero credit. If the people of Syria want a government with “rights” the Russians shouldn’t stand in their way.

    • @Anonymous: I agree with most of your statements. The main problem with your viewpoint though is that the problems over there are far more complex than your brief overview. Many different groups in Syria now and some of them would likely be far worse than the Assad regime if they won. I understand his government is pretty bad. But I suspect an ISIL wannabe group would be worse.

    • Arab Spring what a JOKE!!! It was nothing but a cover for radical Islamist terrorist. I suspect you are a IS supporter as well.

    • Exactly. Except – the original rebels only wanted one thing, to get rid of Assad. They rolled the dice and made it very clear they didnt want our help, just like the Egyptians, until they needed our help but we couldn’t because we didnt know who they were anymore.
      Now, however:
      50% of Syria wants a caliphate;
      25% just want revenge on Assads 25% and kill the other 50% who wants a caliphate;
      25% want Assad to rule but also take revenge on the original 25% rebels for starting this whole mess but need to destroy the other 50% who want a caliphate and if win will kill everyone. Whew!
      See… Simple! Freedom is always a mathmatical certainty. For 25% of them at least. (Numbers were rounded for expediancy, but they are wholly accurate. Almost)

    • ISIS are primarily in Iraq and Syria which were, coincidentally, once ruled by brutal secularist dictators. It should be reasonably considered by anyone watching that middle easterners will either 1: be ruled by oppressive dictators or 2: revert to brutal theocracy.

      That’s your two options. We should learn to accept the second option as the more reasonable and humane for them and us.

    • Forgetting that little airliner that ISIS bombed? “Revenge,”especially for that, is moral enough for me, jack.

    • We started this whole mess because Assad wouldn’t play ball with pipelines that would be worth many hundreds of billions to U.S. and European corporate interests. As a side benefit, it would kick the Russians out of there Mediterranean Sea base….

      This has nothing to do with “human rights” or “freedom” …

      Only a few years ago John Kerry met with Assad and his wife for a cozy meeting where everything was rainbows and puppy dogs, hell, Hollywood sweethearts Brad pitt and Angelina jolie were given a personal guided tour of the capital with Assad driving them around…. Funny how when a leader stops cooperating with U.S. all of a sudden there is a need for “regime change.”

    • Anybody remember that Barack Obama and John Kerry lobbied congress to send U.S. Marines into Syria to help the “Moderate Rebels” overthrow Assad? Then they wanted to send them into an active war zone to seize the chemical weapons that Sadam Hussein hid in Syria? Well as it turned out, the “Moderate Rebels” we’re none other than ISIS and Al Nussra Front. Long story short, we backed the Suni’s, and still are with arms and funding against the Shia. We refuse to arm the Kurdish Peshmerga for fear we will lose our “Allie” Turkey… It’s very complex and the United States has been on the wrong side of 4 different Radical Suni takeovers since Obama, but one thing is rock solid, invading Iraq didn’t create Isis, but leaving a power vacuum based on a calendar date and giving ISIS weapons to fight Assad AND not bombing them when they marched into Iraq over a 6 month period over the nightly news sure as heck helped them establish their Islamic State which Obama says isn’t Islamic…

    • Do you really think the rebels (made up of ISIS and ISIS supporters) are fighting for a democratic government?

  6. >Just as you’ve got to tip your hat to the American special forces fighting against ISIS without the help of U.S. ground troops

    Heh. You meant helping, right?

    • +11111 We started this whole mess because Assad wouldn’t play ball with pipelines that would be worth many hundreds of billions to U.S. and European corporate interests. As a side benefit, it would kick the Russians out of there Mediterranean Sea base….

      This has nothing to do with “human rights” or “freedom” …

  7. The Russians were being fired upon by AA shells. The true test will be when a western power enters the region and the first air to air battle happens.

    • “The true test will be when a western power enters the region and the first air to air battle happens” – You mean when Obama orders American boys to die trying to protect his Muslim brothers?

        • And when a US made TOW destroys a Russian helicopter on the ground near the wreckage of the Su-24 Fencer…

          Pop some popcorn, kids.

          Emergency NATO meeting called within the hour.

          This may get *very* interesting very soon…

  8. I love you guys but I’m hearing a lot of derp from both sides. Anytime a pilot hangs his ass out over the line it’s glorious. For whatever reason politics aside

  9. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all the anti-aircraft fire being directed against the Russian aircraft should Russian (or predominantly Russian) in origin itself. Ironic, yes?

    • Not really. Most AAA and SAM systems encountered in any theatre across the globe are of soviet manufacture. They needed the cash to support a crumbling system. The net result is that their weapons are everywhere, even in some countries that also have American weapons. Many countries have indigenously improved upon the 1960-70’s technology.

    • I’m not sure how good American Anti-aircraft guns are – it’s been almost 30 years since I got out of the Army and we haven’t had a lot of opportunities to shoot at incoming enemy aircraft since then anyway. What I do seem to notice in the mid east wars is that an awful lot of AA ordinance has been expended with damn few shoot-downs.

      Second thing I noticed is what in the hell was this Russki doing there all alone? Shouldn’t he have a wingman or some other sort of cover? Shouldn’t there be somebody making life difficult for the guys pulling the triggers on those guns? Maybe it’s been too long since the Russian air forces have been operationally opposed as well.

  10. It’s pretty hard to hit a plane, especially a jet with optically tracked AAA. Its an art. Ironically two of the best low altitude tactical AAA systems were Soviet, the ZSU23-4 and and ZSU57. In radar-targeted mode, they were very formidable. The Soviets recognized NATO reliance on airpower as a force multiplier in a Fulda Gap scenario, and invested heavily in a layered AA defense including both guns and missiles as fixed point defenses and at the tactical level to accompany ground forces forward.

    • Yeah, I didn’t see a lot of maneuvering to avoid AA in there either. It obviously wan’t needed, as shown by the few tracer rounds you could see–well aft of the aircraft. The lead on a jet plane traveling 500 mph is so massive that at a 10-15,000 foot range, the odds of AA actually making contact are exceedingly small.

  11. Man the tin foil hats wearers are out thick again. Must have got to much fluoride in their water. Damn gubmint!

  13. Mission planning a combat sortie to achieve a surface attack mission objective involves 2 major aspects:
    1. Kill the target
    2. Minimize/mitigate the threat

    Step 1 can be complex, such as an underground cave complex. Or simple, such as a residential building. Drop the appropriate bomb (or bombs in a pattern) on it, select the appropriate fuze delay, and the target is killed. In Syria, it can be both simple and complex, but that’s a discussion for another day.

    Step 2 can also be complex. In Syria, it is simple. ISIS surface-to-air threats are laughable. Even the machine gun/AAA fire (even from the audio, Im not certain what it is) in the video is a non-factor at medium employment altitudes. If I were to guess, they’re firing AKs and DShKs. The DShK has a max effective range of around 7500ft. The rounds aren’t anywhere close to the Su-24 employment altitude.

    The tricky part is mitigating Syrian and Russian military surface-to-air missiles. If you’re a Russian bomber, that’s a simple Comm Coord action. If you’re US asset, it’s slightly trickier, but not by much.

    So…temper your enthusiasm. TTAG, stick to what you know. You know small arms very well. Keep pumping out those articles and the world will be happy to read them.

    On the topic of air assets, threats, and capabilities, this video is boring. I’d refer everyone to some intense Wikipedia research before commenting. Wikipedia shares the open source/unclass numbers for just about everything you’d ever want to know.

  14. So, RF, are you going to take the bait? The name of your site is “The Truth About Guns”, not “The Truth About Little Guns You Can Carry Around With You”.

    When are we going to see regular features about slightly larger ordinance?

  16. Sorry Ahmed, but saying aloha snack bar over and over does not increase hit probability and does not stop the incoming bombs. I’d understand the barbarian need to worship the devil in celebration of taking down an enemy, but this made no sense to me

  17. He should zigzag instead flying straight. Russia now good, Muslim bad? I confuse. We arm train Muslim fight Ruskie, fight Ruskie proxy Korea, Nam and so on. I think we schizoid paranoia persecution syndrome. Where Jebus to save us.

  19. You are watching the beginning of world War three. I’m glad I don’t live in California any more. There are plenty of guns and ammunition here. And with no ” black code” type extra taxes to make them more expensive to buy.

    Some parts of kentucky have gasoline at $ 1.65 a gallon.

  21. Here’s to hoping Russia bombs the shit out of Turkey. They don’t belong in EU or NATO, they are to blame for a lot of the migrant crisis and ISIS incursion into Europe.

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