Russian Su 24 vs Turkish F 16

Russian Su 24 vs Turkish F 16

    The Syrian Civil war once again heat up with latest show down of Russian Su 24 shoot downed by a Turkish F 16 D. Tuesday Morning a Russian Su 24 M2 on a surveillance and reconnaissance mission over rebel held area in Northern Syria close to Turkey. Surveillance mission where conducted prior to bombing raids. The Northern Syria was under controlled by FSA, ISIS and Kurd Forces, all of them fighting against each other to capture grounds.

    Reports suggested a pair of Su 24 M2 fly very close to the Turkish air space. The Turkish Quick reaction forces launched two F 16 D fighters from nearby air force base to investigate the threat. Turkey said they warned atleast five times before shooting down the Russian Su 24. Many suggests the Su 24 M2 strayed the Turkish air space less than 17 seconds. A so called Wikileaks diplomat cable published a letter saying about the air space violation occurred only 17 seconds.

Letter posted by Wikileaks

     Analysts confirm that the Turkish F 16 fired a AIM 120 C from long Range, allows the fighter jet staying well inside Turkey before launching the missile, The TuAF fighter jets waited for the Su 24 M2 to enter Turkish air space and fired the AIM 120 C Missile.

    The AIM 120 C is a long range BVR missile with semi Active radar guidance. The Range of AIM 120 is more than some 100 kilometers. The missile can be guided by the F 16's Radar. and can use onboard sensor once the missile visually identify the target for high interception probability. Most of the CAP mission uses the Radar guided missile to ensure the safety of the launch aircraft. This allows little room for the enemy aircraft to out maneuver the missile and brake the missile lock.

     The Fighter jets can easily evade such long range missiles by many ways. By using ECM,Jamming,  chaff's and aircraft maneuvers. The Russians once claimed the Su 24M2 blind the USS Donald Cook's high power AN/SPY 1 AESA Radar outside Black Sea. The poor propaganda was spread by most pro Russians to cheer the Russian break through in jammers. However Military analyzers debunked the Russian claim by saying no one can defeat the Physics.

The Turkish claim of Su 24 M2 Shoot down

   The Su 24 M2's Radar warning receives and Missile approach warning receivers may alert the Crew about the incoming missile. And the onboard Jamming system will try to jam the missile's radar seeker using the high power radio frequency. But failed, Next they will try to out maneuver the  missile by maneuvering the jets to broke the lock, But again failed. At last they must launch the countermeasures to confuse the Missile. However the Su 24M2 failed to deploy countermeasures too.

Flames after Su 24 M2 hit by AIM 120C

  This proves the Russian fighters are poorly equipped to fight in modern battles. while the Americans improved much in missile seeker and ECCM techniques. The Russian state media and official Ministry of defense claimed their fighters performing very well in Syria. However this incident shown there is no notable achievements in Russian Fighter Aircraft technology.

    The Su 24 M2 is not a air superiority or multi role fighter jets, It's a Ground attack and Nuclear strike bomber. The Su 24 M2 don't have a onborad radar for scanning the airspace, Air Force analysts Avitionist.com once published photos of Russian Su 24 using America GPS Navigation, However it uses the Electro optronics to fire Infrared guided close combat missiles like R 73 and R 60 both are fire and forget short range missiles used for dog fighting.     

   The Russians need to send Su 30 SM to conduct mission close to Hostile presence area. that can perform such aerial combat missions. Otherwise they need a multi role fighter aircraft like the western Rafale or EFT, Which is suited best for conducting reconnaissances as well as combat air missions. Anyhow this a small lesson to Russian origin Aircraft operators about the capabilities of Russian fighter jets in real battlefield.

   Warnings were issued to foreign aircraft's when they fly very close to sovereign air space, Early in 2012 Indian Su 30 MKI Fighter jets fly close to Chinese border in Arunachal pradesh in a special mission, Within a second Chinese radar picked up Indian Air force activity's close to the border, So they too dispatched a pair of Su 27 to confront Indian jets. However Indian fighter jets fly 30 km off from International Border and never tried to breach the Chinese air space. Later both of them turn back and continue their mission without violating others air space.  

    The Russians on other side flying very close to Baltic Nations Air space, Even nuclear armed Russian bombers flown very close to European countries, However they never entered their Air space. The EU and other Baltic Nations scrambles their fighters to intercept the Russian Jets and Bombers before they violating Sovereign air space. More than hundreds of such scrambles happens in last few months. However there were no shoot down or dangerous maneuvers reported.

   Back in 2012, A Turkish RF 4 E Phantom Reconnaissance plane fly very close to Syrian Air space. Without any warnings the Syrian SAM Batteries fired and shoot down the F 4 killing the two pilots. The Turkish plane violated the Syrian air space by entering their territorial waters. However no warnings or anything issued.