Hello everybody!

Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you: I’m a weirdo, and a nerd, too. Have said so, multiple times, to make sure. ….and so, and just for example, cannot but chuckle whenever catching the title of yet another splendid article in the mainstream media, about how (and essentially) - in reaction to repeated Russian violations of the airspace of multiple NATO-members in the Baltic - ‘NATO should do like the Turks did back in 2015’.

Arguably, a part of me is in agreement with the ‘actual message’ aired by the journos, Experten, and editors writing and publishing such lines. Yes, the Russians must be forced to stop. If necessary: in violent fashion. Because they neither comprehend, nor take seriously any other kind of ‘messages’.

But, and that’s my point of view: they must be stopped ‘for different reasons’.

For example: because of their sloppiness. The sloppiness which results in, for example, crews of their MiG-31s mis-programming their navigation systems and then violating NATO airspace… and that on top of jeopardising lives of hundreds of people comfortably seating on board of different civilian airliners transiting the airspace over the Baltic Sea.

Another of my points is: well, sorry, but that ‘Turkish example’ is simply the wrong one - and then because what happened on that 24 November 2015 over north-western Syria/southern-central Turkey developed in entirely different fashion than the mass of people seems to be thinking. Because it was caused by the same Russian sloppiness like this violation of NATO airspace by three MiG-31s.

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Ah yes, and: ‘the prequel’?

Well, mind that back at the time - in October-November 2015 - I was commissioned to write a quite long/big ‘study’ about certain aircraft type in service with certain air force. I’ll not go into details regarding the air force and the type in question: safety of the contact is always a paramount issue. Let me just add that - by sheer accident - it so happened that ‘thus’ I’ve been in touch with one of people that was something like ‘directly involved’. Indeed, at the time the shoot-down of the Russian Su-24 took place, we two were in the process of exchanging e-mails. And so it happened I was ‘witnessing that shoot-down live’, so to say, at least ‘minutes’ before any kind of videos or other data were released in the social media.

…and the photos and videos of the result of that ‘incident’ could hardly have been more dramatic: a gray-blue Sukhoi Su-24 (ASCC/NATO-reporting name ‘Fencer’) shot across the blue sky like a meteor, leaving a long trail of burning kerosene behind it. Its cockpit was already empty when the aircraft tilted to the side and then slammed into a brownish mountain landscape in northern Syria near the Turkish border….

Really: one can’t get more drama out of a shoot-down fighter jet.

Unsurprisingly, the shoot down caused quite a stir among all the notable Experten in ‘the West’. All the more so when it became clear that the aircraft was Russian: some feared they had witnessed the ‘beginning of the Third World War’. Even a week later, the shock was still deep: combined with misjudgments, prejudices against Turkey (and/or its president), and a flood of false reports from Moscow, in ‘the West’ this went so far that it rendered even experienced and respected military people incapable of drawing reasonable conclusions about the reasons, and caused a near paralysis between decision-makers.

Where, actually, the affair was plain simple.

It began in September and October 2015, with a series of provocative violations of Turkish airspace by Russian fighter jets and UAVs stationed in Syria. As is the custom, Ankara protested. When there was no response from Moscow, and especially the crew of a Russian Su-30SM interceptor not only violated the Turkish airspace again, but then also locked-on its radar on an intervening Turkish F-16, Ankara threatened with the use of armed force.

This did prompt a Russian reaction: on 15 October 2015, the Deputy Commander of the Russian Air-Space Force (VKS) visited Turkey to meet his Turkish counterparts. They’ve agreed that Russia would give at least twelve hours’ advance notice of any flight that would take VKS aircraft close to the Turkish-Syrian border. A hotline was also set up for the Turks to use to warn the Russian military if their aircraft came too close to the border.

Such special measures were necessary primarily because the equipment of VKS aircraft was ‘at least too poor for expeditionary operations’ - operations well away from the Russian airspace. Certainly enough, at the time, Moscow was bragging with advanced, super-modern armament and equipment deployed in Syria. And, certainly enough, such super-prominent, ultimately authoritative Western Experten like - just for example - the retired Inspektor General of the Bundeswehr, went public to express their ‘full agreement’: the Russian equipment was turbo-hyper-advanced…

Actually, the fact was that, just for example, the mass of Su-24Ms deployed there wasn’t equipped with any of improved navigation-attack systems with which the Russians were bragging at the time. Like SVP-24, just for example. They haven’t received any kind of upgrades before being sent to Syria: they were still underway the way they were equipped at the time they were manufactured… which is sometimes back in the 1970s…

Unsurprisingly, their standard radios were unable of monitoring any of the emergency radio frequencies (121.5 and 243 megahertz) used worldwide. Such a capability would have required the installation of an additional module - which the Russians never cared to add.

And there was more. The outdated navigation-attack system of the Su-24 (this swing-wing bomber was originally designed to bomb rear NATO targets in [West] Germany, the Benelux countries, and France in a Third World War) tended to turn the jet into a flying brick as soon as the attack was initiated. For the obsolete computer to calculate the moment at which the weapons could be deployed, the jet had to fly as straight as possible - and that for a full minute/60 seconds before the weapons release…

Foremost, the Russo-Turkish agreement demanding the VKS in Syria to announce its operations close to the Turkish border held barely a month. On November 23, the Russian headquarters at the Hmeymim Air Base (AB), south of Lattakia, have failed to announce a mission by two of their Su-24s for the following morning.

Now, the Turkish Air Force (THK) detected the two Fencers as soon as they took off from Hmeymim AB (if not before), and tracked them as they approached the border. As so often, the ‘identification friend or foe’ (IFF) -transponders on the two Su-24Ms were turned off.

(BTW: this was something like ‘the only similarity to the Russian practices for operations over the Baltic Sea’. There, the Russians would send their military aircraft with IFF-transponders turned off - and that into an airspace full of civilian airliners. This went so far that NATO threatened to open fire already well before 2015… However, the Turks (and crews of NATO’s radar stations in Turkey) seem not to have been used to such practices…)

…and so, the two ‘unknown’ jets flew towards the Turkish border. As they did so, the THK transmitted 10 warnings via the usual emergency radio frequencies. Of course there was no reaction: Su-24-crews couldn’t hear them, while the HQ at Hmeymim AB couldn’t care less. Even then, the Turkish tactical commanders played it safe: they called headquarters in Ankara and explained the situation. Two unknown aircraft were approaching, they could not be contacted, and the Russians had not announced any flights.

What a surprise the Turks then drew the logical conclusion: the two jets could only belong to the Syrian Arab Air Force - a service which even former officers of the same force refer to disparagingly as the ‘Assadist Air Force’. The Turks had several scores to settle with Assad’s military: not only that in June 2012 the Assadists have shoot down a Turkish RF-4E Phantom II underway in the international airspace, but subsequently they repeatedly violated the Turkish airspace and then began firing rockets into Turkey. By 2016, this has caused the deaths of at least seven Turkish civilians.

Eventually, two THK F-16Cs flying a combat air patrol over the Adana area were vectored to intercept. They arrived too late to catch the Russians as these crossed the Turkish airspace and then turned south. However, after violating the Turkish airspace for the first time, the two Russian Su-24s made a 360 degrees turn and returned to repeat the violation: the first of them violated the Turkish airspace again - and that while releasing free-fall/dumb bombs on targets very close to the border. It was at that point in time that the lead F-16 was within range and the Boeing E-7 of the THK provided the targeting cues(see ‘cooperative targeting’). Without activating the radar of his jet, the Turkish pilot fired a single AIM-120C - and that at the second Su-24s, and as his target was well outside the visual range, flying almost perpendicular and ‘up Sun’ to him. There was no way the F-16-pilot could see the Sukhoi.

…just like there was no way the Russian crew could detect the threat before the AIM-120C’s seeker head activated, when it was too late.

It was only later - once the images from a Turkish TV team on site were published - that there was clarity: the AIM-120C has hit a Russian-, not a Syrian jet.

Another ‘funny’ aspect: some have subsequently complained about ‘trigger happy’ Turks. Quasi, the two Su-24s have flown ‘just over an extremely narrow tip of Turkish territory, remaining mere 17 seconds within the Turkish airspace. Why care?

The others were (mis)using precisely these 17 seconds to complain about the Turks: what a nonsense that the two jets would take 17 seconds to overfly that two-kilometres-wide/narrow piece of Turkish real estate…

…which is where I’ve got to return to that obsolete navigation/attack system of the Su-24M to explain the reasons. The fact the system was so old and that the Russians were doing their utmost to avoid any kind of ground fire from Syrian insurgents, resulted in the decision (and a standing order) the VKS Su-24s to fly very slow and rather high during their bombing runs: at speeds of 380-400km/h at altitudes of 6,000 metres. Flying any faster would have rendered their - already inprecise - attacks even less precise (mind: while as of October-November 2015 the Keystone Cops in Moscow were claiming something like ‘1 bomb = 1 target destroyed’, actually, their ‘rate of hits’ was something like ‘1 hit per 100 bombs dropped’).

The result was simple: yes, it took the two Russian Su-24Ms some 17-18 seconds to cross these 2,000 metres of the Turkish airspace - but: because their nav/attack systems were so hyper-turbo-super-modern that they were underway at mere 400km/h….

***

…ah yes, and: why am I explaining you all of this?

Because, it’s a mistake to think that on 24 November 2015 the Turks have had enough of the Russians and thus opened fire. No. They’ve opened fire and shot down that Su-24 precisely because they’ve trusted the Russians: they’ve trusted the Russians would stick to their arrangement, they were convinced the Russians would never-ever do be as sloppy as to forget announcing their flight, and were convinced they’re shooting at the Assadists.

As confirmed by nobody less than Erdogan when, few days later, he stated something like (from memory), ‘we didn’t know it was Russian, otherwise we wouldn’t have issued the order to fire’.

Moreover, after the Turks have shot down the Russian Su-24s, all of NATO was on the phone to Ankara, not to Mosow: they were calling Erdogan & Co KG GesmbH AG to ask if he went ape-shit or was horny about provoking a ‘Third World War’ - to shoot at the Russians. Already ‘hated because of Erdogan’, Turkey was left down by NATO: left isolated, ‘free’ for Pudding to kick with his boot as he wanted. Because Pudding’s holly gas and selling him Mercedes limousines and TV-sets were more important than that ‘al-Qaeda-associated Islamist in Ankara’.

…all of which is why taking that shoot-down of the Russian Su-24 by Turks on 24 November 2015 as ‘an example for how NATO should act if the Russians continue violating NATO airspace over the Baltic’… muhuhahahahaha!

Sorry, can’t hold back any more: yes, that is ape-shit.

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This text is published with the permission of the author. First published here.