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| Iraq |
| US fighter ’shot down with missile left by SBS’ |
| 2003-06-06 |
| An American fighter shot down in the closing days of the Iraq war with the loss of both crew members may have been hit by a missile abandoned by British special forces during their flight from an ambush, according to a defence source. A Ministry of Defence investigation is focusing on the possibility that a Stinger shoulder-launched missile abandoned by the SBS during an aborted mission in northern Iraq was fired at a US Air Force F15E Strike Eagle, killing its pilot and weapons operator. A military source said: "The feeling is the SBS didn't do a good job, leaving loads of kit behind." My feeling is until the full facts of the incident are known it's too early to point the finger. Upon surprise/ambush, the SBS must've quickly realised they would be needing air evacuation. Leaving ASMs around would jeopardise their own chances. Perhaps they initially believed they could retrieve their gear, or an attempt to destroy it failed? The SBS team was operating near the town of Mosul when it was surprised by Iraqis and forced to abandon at least one Land Rover, a quad bike, rocket launchers and machineguns. Most of the team was rescued by helicopter but two men were forced to flee over the border into Syria. On April 7, about six days after the ambush, the Strike Eagle was shot down while bombing enemy positions around the northern town of Tikrit. The aircraft's pilot, Capt Eric Das, 30, and his weapons officer, Major William Watkins, 37, were killed. Major Watkins' widow, Melissa, who is pregnant with their second child, said she had been told her husband's plane had disintegrated. Examination by the Americans of radar returns and other evidence ruled out Iraqi radar-guided anti-aircraft missile systems and guns. The Strike Eagle's altitude and sophisticated countermeasures also suggested the crude Soviet-era shoulder-launched missiles available to the Iraqis were unlikely to be responsible. Suspicion then turned on the much more lethal US-manufactured Stingers lost by the British not far from the crash site. The question remains as to whether the Iraqis would have been able to operate a foreign missile system effectively at such short notice. The suggestion that Stingers were among the abandoned SBS weapons was greeted with disbelief by a senior special forces source, who said he had heard nothing of their disappearance. "You would rather leave a man behind than equipment like that," he said. The SBS is the elite special forces arm of the Royal Marines, smaller than the SAS but just as highly regarded. Yesterday, the MoD maintained its practice of not commenting on the activities of special forces. No doubt more of this story will come to light soon. |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #8 ...There might be more to this than there seems, but for different reasons. First, there are at least a few Stingers floating around the world that we simply cannot account for, and IIRC there is a pretty strong liklihood that they found their way into the wrong hands. Let me point out that these could not possibly be the imfamous Mujhadeen Stingers that never came out of Afghanistan - those weapons passed their battery shelf/service lives a long time ago. Which leads to the next point - it's certainly possible that an SF team had a MANPAD, so it's not out of the question. If they were looking for the 'drones' that some folks were saying the Iraqis had, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to have one or two - and Stinger isn't that heavy. Of course, that begs the question of why they left one in the field. We'll probably never know the first answer, but the second one has a perfectly logical one: they may have tried to use it and for some reason it simply did not function. Understandably believing the missile was TU'd, they abandoned it - and unfortunately, it got picked up. In the heat of battle, it could well have happened. How easily could someone have picked up an abandoned Stinger and used it? Well, the ones I trained on in Korea in the mid-80s actually had a plate on the side with picture instructions, designed to be used by nervous or scared troops in combat without a whole lot of practice if they had to. Now, myself, I have an exceptionally hard time believing that an SAS team could have made an error like this, and I hope that wasn't it. If they did, then I really think it has to be written off as one of those awful things that happen when the shooting starts. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2003-06-07 02:15:29 |
| #7 If it was lost British equipment, I don't hold it against them. Everybody with a brain knows damn well that they didn't just negligently leave ordnace lying around. After all, our military has done worse to soldiers from other countries, and our own soldiers, unfortunatley. And I don't blame them for it one bit. Does anyone know what happened to the report that an A-10 took out a British APC on it's second pass. I'm not saying these cases are connected at all, It just reminded me of it. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2003-06-06 10:22:19 |
| #6 F-15E Strike Eagle is the two seater fighter bomber version. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-06-06 09:29:21 |
| #5 An F-15E is a single seater,no? |
| Posted by: Attaboid 2003-06-06 09:17:27 |
| #4 An anonymous cheap shot from within our military, by some REMF. Just like what was leveled at Tim Collins. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-06-06 08:13:29 |
| #3 Why would they have needed a Stinger? The Iraqi Airforce was not flying,and SF types on a mission wouldn't carry something they wouldn't need. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-06-06 08:11:50 |
| #2 "You would rather leave a man behind than equipment like that" Surely he's exaggerating. |
| Posted by: RW 2003-06-06 06:27:04 |
| #1 No way SBS easily leaving such a weapon on the ground; no way soldiers not trained for that could crash airplanes at first shot; no way special forces would carry heavy hair defence stuff without any opponent air force; simply There are many stinger systems around the world...quite often sold or given by USA to their supposed friends around the world...starting with Bin Laden.Why keep on with lies? This USA war propaganda sometimes make me puke. |
| Posted by: Mancocapac, Italy 2003-06-15 07:31:56 |