Everyone knows about this famous story of the F-117 being shot down by combination of S-125, SNR-125 tracking radar, and P-18 search radar.
Yes, I know about predictable flight path and lack of escorts, but I’m more interested in the technical aspects of it.
The story I’m given is, since the crews knew where the approximate place F-117 would go at a time, they turned on P-18 search radar, got lucky since F-117 opened bomb bay, fired missile with SNR-125 tracking radar, then tracked the jet even after bomb bay was turned off.
This story is interesting because there’s so many holes in the story I would like to see filled.
How did the Serbians knew that the F-117 had a reflective bomb bay? I assume in previous strikes that there were moments that the F-117 opened it’s bomb bay and someone that survived the onslaughter (from anti radiation missiles) told the tale?
Does the F-117 RWR know that it is constantly being pinged by the P-18 and ‘accepted’ it as just being there (like modern pilots and AWACS)
The F-117 was tracked after it opened the bomb bay; fairly plausible, but why was the tracking from SNR-125 remained after the bomb bay closed? Is it because the F-117 has poor RCS in rear aspect?
After the F-117 closed the bomb bay, did the P-18 still had target data, is tracking done exclusively by the SNR-125 without search radar provijfning data?
As far as I know, radars as old as SNR-125 and P-18 lack pulse doppler function or MTI algorithm, would chaff have helped in this case?
I recall that being mentioned somewhere when it was added.
Probably but only if they had known they were even being targetted, and chaff is not like it is in-game. It would have made tracking harder, but not impossible. Its why kinematics are often used to defeat SAMs, for example Tornados during Op Granby dumping hundreds of chaff still being hit by SAMs
The rest of it. I dont know. But stealth doesnt make something invisible. A large part of why the Baghdad raid with the F-117 was so effective was because there was no warning, it was at night and no one had seen the F-117 before beyond rumours. Even the soviets had tried the concept and given up, deciding it was impossible to create (iirc, it was a soviet research paper that inspired the F-117 but the Kremlin determined it wasn’t feasible and shelved it)
By the shootdown, it was a known aircraft, they were probably somewhat ready for it or expecting it and that level of preparedness probably made all the difference
This is a good read:
by the sounds of it, they knew there was no EW cover and the F-117s were coming.
It dosent have a rwr neither does it have any countermeasures
Because the issue isn’t tracking the bird, the issue is finding the bird sized target
There are stories of Gepard crews locking onto birds just for fun
Also turns out that when you are flying the exact same route every single time, then they will know where you are coming from and know where to look for you
S**t happens. Luck and random chance have conspired throughout history to mess stuff up - in warfare it tends to do so spectacularly.
I’ll give you an example. In Vietnam, SA-2s were found to be immune to jamming - at least that’s what US B-52 crews believed. It turns out that the SA-2 was very easy to defeat electronically and SEAD was very effective at keeping the radars off. The Vietnamese crews adapted, fired them in barrages - often with minimal guidance - so called optical ‘dumb’ firing. A volley of telegraph pole-sized missiles lobbed into a B-52 formation would thus ignore all the EW measures, not provide a Wild Weasel any radar signature to zero in on and not trigger RWRs. Totally random - I think the average was something like 30-40 missiles fired for every hit/near miss - but sometimes it would work despite the vast array of countermeasures and defences available to the USAF. All it took was someone being in the wrong part of the sky at the wrong time.
As with the F-117 shoot down, you only have to get lucky once…
AFAIK it was something about operational security misconduct when they flew sorties by the exact same route and time, serbs obrserved the pattern and then got lucky at the right time and place.
I’ve read this now. So the SNR-125 cannot did not have the ability to track the F-117 until it opened bomb bays. It dropped the bombs and the tracking somehow remained after the bomb bays were closed again?
Does the F-117 has bad rear aspect RCS that the tracking remained despite the plane moving further and further away from the radar?
Im not really that well versed but Ron_23 I think summed it up best
So finding the target to lock onto is the hard part. Maintaining the lock after the fact. Especailly against a target not reacting in anyway. Is much easier
I know; I’m mostly talking about range the stealth planes can be detected and tracked from.
The fact that the tracking remained on the ground radar, tells me that the F117 may have a larger rear RCS.
So the SNR-125 wasn’t able to track F-117 frontally, it opened the bomb bays, tracked, now flying over it, the tracking stayed on despite the closure of bomb bay.
While the F-117 couldn’t have detected the P-18 itself as it didn’t have a RWR, Prowlers and other SEAD aircraft definitely could. This would normally be a big threat to Serbian SAMs but that particular night there were no SEAD in the area and the Serbs knew. That’s why they felt confident enough to stay around so long and ping more often than usual.
I’d say more, but alas this video explains the whole thing better than I ever could
They did get complacent, but they only lost a single aircraft from it. Vietnam they did a lot more, WW2 it kind of had to be predictable. I don’t think it’s that hard to spot a formation of B-17’s
In the end the daylight bombing proved more useful since otherwise the Germans could’ve gone all in on night fighters, and it made escort fighters a thing which were also pretty effective. It also gave them no time to rest
