The Iranian proxy forces had this cheap victory of US forces using a drone version of a 82 year old tactic that torpedoed the USS Yorktown (CV-5) at the battle of Midway.
The Iranian drone followed closely behind a US drone to get past air defenses, just like the IJN torpedo 1/
...planes did at Midway and Japanese Kamikazes did in the last 11 months of WW2.
It is very likely the trailed US drone had no IFF transponder at all, as the MX12B micro Mode 5 Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) transponder was only certified in 2021.
In all likelihood these dead servicemen are victims of a sluggish Pentagon procurement system geared to maximize the opportunities for Congressional campaign contributions and post DoD career opportunities.
The need for micro-IFF Transponders for small drones was a stated
3/
...military requirement in the late 1990's, that is, 30(+) years ago.
This was in the aftermath of 1994 American friendly fire deaths when two USAF F-15's shot down two UH-60 Blackhawk over Kurdistan in 1994.
And even if the US drone approaching Tower 22 had a MX12B micro Mode 5 IFF transponder, there is no guarantee procedures for its use in an air tasking order were being followed.
It wasn't in 1994, which is one of the reasons why 26 US military and civilians were killed.
5/
Getting electronic identification friend or foe right takes highly professional, multi-service and well trained air defenders.
A skill category that the US Military ran into the ground early in the post Cold War "Peace Dividend."
Demobilization is always a deliberate policy
6/
...of firing all the best & most skilled specialists in the military, government and industry as "unnecessary costs."
They are always the first let go under the "End of History" delusion.
It has ever been thus in the USA.
7/
And US Military always pays dearly via:
"Learning by Doing,
Learning by Dying"
...to get those specialist military skills back again in the next war.
8/8
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The defence-blog -dot- com website reported a very important observation on the production quality of current Russian Shahed production.
It's individual quality is declining, _Hard_.
1/ Russian End Run Production 🧵
From the article:
“The Russians have adapted these drones to their needs, but due to a lack of components and efforts to reduce costs, their quality has declined,” Kulchytsky explained.
Earlier iterations of Shahed drones contained numerous foreign-made components,
2/
...including Japanese-manufactured bearings and precision-built servo drive rods.
However, recent versions have shown a transition to simplified bearings and direct rod assemblies, indicating a shortage of high-quality components."
3/
The US Navy, as an institution, had a really horrid record of "friendly fire" in WW2, to include shooting down a FM-2 Wildcat fighter coming of the catapult of the CVE USS Tulagi in Kerama Retto on 6 Apr 1945.
Another FM-2 Wildcat, damaged in the same Kerama Retto engagement resulting in the USS Tulagi's FM-2 getting shot down, was in turn blown out of the sky by panicked USN gunners over Kadena airfield causing massive damage to fighter fuel logistics & strafing Army troops ashore. 3/
Congress being held accountable for stealth legislation & pork barrel spending _BEFORE THE VOTE IS CAST_ is my most unexpected and welcomed result of Artificial Intelligence large language models (LLM) in 2024.
It would take eight speed reading lawyers with eidetic memories 16 to 24 man hours to parse a 1000 page piece of legislation.
Specialty lawyers charging hundred of dollars an hour working for K-Street lobbyists.
2/
Now any competent person can feed huge pieces of legislation to Grok, or other LLM, for nearly no cost and generate a similar work product in minutes to post to social media.
K-Street lobbyists in DC, & Congressmen/Senators sucking up their cash, just had their world burn.
3/3
I've been involved with three US Army FMTV reset programs.
So this newest report from Ukraine's Defense Express on the the repairability problems with Russian AFV's out of their reserves is so much fun to share with you all.
Defense Express pulled an article from the No. 10 issue of the Russian magazine "Material and Technical Support" on how horrid the vehicles coming out of reserve are plus problems with battle damaged reserve vehicles.
"The central takeaway from this publication is that the actual repairability of Russian tanks is 3-5 times lower than what is claimed in official manuals. This discrepancy has extended repair times for equipment by at least 15-20%."
3/
The infographic figure below is a typical commercial production line curve.
Ukraine's stated production and use of the Peklo (Hell) cruise missile marks it as being on the 'start of production to market entry' ramp up part of the curve below.
2/
Over two dozen Peklo were shown in this public unveiling by Ukraine, which is over 1/4 of the stated production to date.
How many were pre-production prototypes or low rate initial pilot production models isn't knowable. 3/
"According to Andriy Klymenko , head of the Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies , both vessels are very old and have a "river" class, which implies certain limitations.
2/
He published and commented on the relevant map, which indicates the approximate location of the tanker disaster.
"It is about 8 miles from the seaport of Taman (a transshipment port south of the Kerch Strait).
3/