The f35 was tracked and was fired upon. It was somewhat damaged because of the flares and decoys got closer to what the US Military would like.
This is in a way similar to Pakistan boasting about shooting down those Rafales during the Indian war. They shot down decoys, the Indian airforce isn’t going to admit that they’ve got superior mechanisms.
Neither would the Indian airforce admit that the Pakistani missiles got way closer than what they were supposed to get under.
The Kurds didn’t want to do it. They have no such plan. It is all ad-hoc to try to win the war. Quite similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, just planned even worse.
The F-35 is fucked and the pilot was injured by shrapnel.
If so , that’s a massive blooper. A stealth aircraft getting tracked (by a s400 as it seems) that’s a massive red flag
It is not really possible for me to know if the plane can be repaired or not. That is secret information that has not been leaked. But it is known that it made a hard landing and that it was damaged by shrapnel (pilot was injured by it as well).
It’s not really a blooper imo, bound to happen if you overfly GBAD and find that previous SEAD missions have not detected it. Any GBAD can be lucky if used by competent people. Stealth doesn’t mean it is invisible after all.
I am not sure that it was actually tracked - and it looks like the damage was caused by simple AA fire, not a missile. So busy thinking they are invisible to radar that they forgot that old school leading fire is invulnerable to ECM…
edit - it is somewhat amusing seeing the active spin around F-35 performance that is happening in Canadian defence circles, due to the pending decision to either add to the F35 order, or purchase the Gripen. Manufacturer is eager to blame poor tactical use for what looks like an expensive piece of kit to write off
So visible in plain sight ? That’s not where the f35s were supposed to be operated on.
I am not sure what they hit it with myself, just that it was damaged, pilot wounded (not clear how wounded), but he managed to fly home but made a relatively imperfect landing. Several experts I read claimed that the plane might not be repairable. This is however not know to me and I doubt the US will release that info before the war has ended.
However, shrapnel wounds makes me suspect missile and not guns. Several videos circulating of Iranian GBAD missiles detonating close to F15s etc. I find it likely it is similar.
I wish countries would see the total cost of ownership with respect to the aircraft before deciding that the us combat planes are the way to go.
A lot of the times , it just isn’t worth it. Not with the added costs that us keeps
NGL , it looks like s400s
Not broad daylight, but middling altitude with some light in the night sky. It is hard to know what actually hit it - it could be just dumb luck, ground-based gunfire hitting a AA missile triggering an explosion close enough to the F-35 to damage it, the gunfire itself.
It will of course be highly classified
Yeah, it is a bit of a puzzle, because it doesn’t look like a missile impact, but it does look like an explosion was at least part of it.
Iran does not have S-400 and if they did, it would have been likely targeted and destroyed in the 12 Day’s War.
More likely a BUK..
There’s been some info recieved that they did get some additional s400s by Russia. The Antonov plane deliveries do give credence to that and the fact that the f35 was shot down after the said delivery
I know, but it wasn’t delivered due to attrition of Russian arsenal. They got downgraded S-300 variants instead, and not a lot of it.
Looks increasingly like a flare which got intercepted way too close to the f35
AA guns won’t do that damage to the aircraft.
I don’t know if you are aware, but missiles from BUK and such, don’t actually hit planes. They are designed to explode outside planes and pepper them with shrapnel.
Just in case you don’t know (many don’t know).