Lucas_From_Hell

Syrian opposition passing target coordinates to Russian aircraft

Further cooperation between Air Forces over Syria

A terrible tragedy. Hopefully we will know more about it soon. My condolences to the victims and their loved ones.

For some reason your pictures in the Photos/Video, RuAF and this thread aren't loading (at least for me). :helpsmilie:

I noticed something that warms my heart by looking at footage and pics from Latakia. The aircraft are all kept in a brand spanking new and squeaky-clean condition! It's good to see the equipment is being treated so well. Look at it, even the bombs are shiny :D

This discussion has been going around since I first remember logging in here and nobody ever settled for an answer :D I don't think that is happening today either. Anyhow, some video content: Syrian Army soldier films Russian Mi-24P doing CAS extremely low

Despite all the nagging all over the media, Russia, the US and all regional players are actually in close cooperation in terms of accident prevention, and there are open channels between most of them so that everyone knows what other planes are up to. Syria is a relatively small country, and now that Iraq and Russia have agreed to strike targets on Iraq's side of the border to prevent both supply flow into Syria and troops from fleeing into Iraq, they will overlap even more.

They're there to provide escort, and probably operational testing too. A funny thing is everyone is looking at the Su-34, Su-25SM and Su-30SM when 30 of the aircraft in Syria are Su-24M2s.

I found a generic overview of the Mi-8's survivability. Although being hit by MANPADs and making it back is no rarity, type MANPAD damage in the Google image search and you get quite a few examples.

All aboard the Latakia Night Express:pilotfly:

I know, I remember the video once it was released. Its just great to see DCS represented once more in the news, and this time with credits :D

Sputnik News (formerly RIA Novosti) posted an article on the missiles carried by the Su-30SM in Syria. Lots of basic information (R-73, R-27R and R-27ER) and all that, but the gold comes in when they find this image to demonstrate the R-27ER with the caption following :D

Thanks for the info :)

Thanks for the info, so the Su-25UBs in Latakia are Su-25UBM versions tagging targets for the Su-25SMs then? :)

Thanks a ton, reinstalling BS1 right now to avoid the .dll errors I had with FC2, and will update you once it's done :) EDIT: Up and running, cheers!

Thanks for the generosity, and I'll give that a go. I managed to dig out a 2 year old mobile phone photo of the Flaming Cliffs key so at least part of the problem is solved, but no Black Shark yet.

Canada may scrap F-35, opting for an open competition instead. This is old news of course, but now that Trudeau has been elected it looks like the most likely outcome. (Source 1 and 2)

You are correct, the Su-25SM is technologically more Su-25T than Su-25A. I don't know the specifics of it though, but this Global Security article seems to have some info on it. Hopefully some Grach expert can clarify.

So not a very current issue but I hope I can get some help here. I had Flaming Cliffs 2 and DCS:Black Shark installed on my computer. Due to some instability I had to reinstall Windows and format the HDD. Now, in a bout of carelessness I thought the installations would be fine because I had them both based off my external HDD where I keep all gaming related stuff. Fast-forward a little and here I am without being able to use either of them :( Unfortunately after moving some 10 or more times since 2010 when I bought and activated them I was heartbroken to find I had lost both CD boxes with the activation key stickers in them. Long story short: formatted the computer, lost the keys and can't find the physical copies. Is there any way I can recover those? My PC isn't up to DCS:World standards yet so I can't just migrate to that, and I'd love to enjoy the campaigns I had in progress there until I upgrade. Thanks a lot for your help!

Syrian Air Force, 2013, right?

NOLA explained it very clearly :) Here are some additional tidbits because why not. As of now slightly less than half of the Su-25 fleet consists of Su-25SM variants, with the rest being the initial (sometimes called Su-25A) variants. FlightGlobal has the total number at 199 Su-25s of all variants, SM, UB and (presumably) T included. Most sources I can find state that there are about 60 Su-25SMs flying right now, and also that the upgrade run will be completed in 2020 with 80 planes upgraded by then. To me it is unclear if the grand total number of Su-25s flying will be 80 in 2020 or if there are another 80 in the way. The other aircraft operating in Syria are the Su-24M2, the Su-30SM (no Su-30M2s) and the vanilla Su-34.

Beautiful video!

(Source)

Qatari-supplied FN-6 MANPADs which found their way to ISIS, specifically. The article is pretty generic though, it isn't directly stated that the A-10C will be flying low, only that they usually fly 'lower and slower' than the F-16. The closest comparable aircraft in the area is the Su-25SM, and at the moment it seems these are delivering (surprisingly very accurate) medium altitude strikes using dumb munitions and CCRP. The FN-6 has a pretty short maximum range and altitude so any aircraft with a decent targeting system can deliver a reasonably accurate hit with dumb bombs without getting shot at. I can't see the USAF sending them in the kind of CAS they are used to doing in Afghanistan and previously in Iraq if the AA threat is considerable. A more concerning issue is that Osa SAM (NATO: SA-8 Gecko) destroyed by a Su-34. While this one in particular was sitting there doing nothing and its range is not impressive either, the fact that more capable SAM systems are up for grabs can cause a lot of trouble if it falls in the wrong hands. Hopefully we won't see any pilots from any country shot down in this mess, there has been enough horror about this already (even before the horrific Kasasbeh incident).

Sometimes I wonder what on Earth goes through one's head to make a move like that. It's as if nobody has learned from the Afghanistan case :noexpression: ISIS has used an FN-6 to shoot down an Iraqi Mi-35, and Ahrar ash-Sham has previously shot down a Syrian MiG-21 in - guess what - Latakia, back in 2013. That being said, the altitude the Sukhois are flying at right now means anyone who shoots from a MANPAD will only help the aircraft place their bombs in the right place. Anyhow, to the news :) (From defenseworld.net)