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Merged Iran Shoots Down US Drone?

Thought it would be displayed as a prize by the Iranians if it were shot down.
 
My guess is the truth is probably somewhere in between.

The US isn't denying losing a drone in "Western Afghanistan" and it wouldn't shock me to learn it was actually over Iran. I doubt the Iranians shot it down, though. If, as they claim, it's "minimally damaged" then it probably just went out of control and crashed.

Looking at the map, if there's any truth that it was recovered near Qom, then it probably flew from Turkmenistan and never went anywhere near Afghanistan. I have no idea what sort of range these drones have, but Qom is about 500 miles from Afghanistan but less than half as far from Turkmenistan.

<edit> Having looked at the rather slim amount of available information about the RQ-170 on Wikipedia, it's much larger than I had imagined - roughly estimated 20m wingspan. Hard to see something that big crashing with "minimal damage".
 
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There were some claims on CNN last night to the effect that the drone had been "hacked", and that the Iranians had the thing intact.
Further, that it wasn't some garden-variety predator but one of the new, highly-classified surveillance drones.
Propaganda till they show pics....
 
I think I would like to hear the US version of events. The drone easily could have been flying along the border and suffered a systems failure.

The chances Iran hacked the thing? About as good as me being crowned Miss World next year
 
DID Iran shoot down a US drone?

OK - I'm confused.

Yesterday, I saw 'breaking headlines' that Iran had shot down a US Spy drone over their territory.

Then the headlines seemed to disappear off my internet news feeds - I had to google for the topic specifically.

I DID read one news story that reported that the US Pentagon confirmed that a drone had been shot down. I can no longer find this story online.

Now the headline has reappeared, but the US now denies that the drone has been shot down. The most current story is that they have lost contact with the drone. Or that what actually was brought down is a recon plane, and not a stealth drone.

So - what the hell is the truth here?
 
google news still has stories about it.

Still appears to be an RQ-170 drone. Iran still claims they shot it down "with little damage".

US still says it lost control of a drone over Afghanistan.
 
Paper today says it's an RQ-170... super stealthy.. lost last week, out of contact with the controllers.
 
rjh01 said:
I wonder where the crashed drone actually is? It would be a propaganda win for the Iranians if it was in Iran.
Click to expand...

If it really is an RQ-170, and it really is in Iran, it'd be a technological win as well.

I wonder what kind of propaganda win it would be, though? Would it be, "ha ha Americans are so stupid that they forget to secure their drone comms against even our primitive electronic warfare systems!"?

Or would it be, "ha ha, our electronic warfare systems are so advanced that they can even defeat state-of-the-art American drone comms security!"?
 
That was my take on it. If it was a shoot down though, It likely wouldn't be admitted publicly. If it malfunctioned and was found, I don't think Iran would admit that either.
I guess either way, they have it now. How they obtained it...well, I lean toward malfunction.
 
Al Quaida smuggled a malfunctioning drone fro Afghanistan to Iran? Got paid off in weapons?
 
On the wild and wacky side... stories went round a while back that US drones controllers were being hit by a computer virus. Now all this did was log keystrokes... and there's been some speculation that it might actually be a security feature one part of the DoD put in without telling another part. But maybe, just maybe, it's within the realm of possibility that somebody could have interfered with the control of a drone. Perhaps caused it to crash in an area where they were waiting? Perhaps caused it to fly into Iran? Perhaps even caused it to land there?

Only speculation, of course.
 
I'd be surprised if the craft was shot down.

Malfunction possibly, but the notion that it just accidentally came down on Iranian soil is a little disingenuous. If the USA isn't trying to spy on Iran using all it's best gadgets then my name's Elmer Fudd ( I've been called worse )

So, the Iranians have a bit of a propaganda victory, but it's more likely to be for domestic consumption rather than trying to stoke international indignation.
 
Quite frankly, I'm pleased as punch that we're at the point where the bad guys are crowing about about the capture of a robot. As long as they're not killing actual flesh and blood soldiers, let them bust all the toys they want.
 
Plenty of contiguous and porous border between Iran and Afghanistan. No shock al Qaeda, Taliban or even Joe Shepherd would think to sell such a valuable thing to the highest bidder. Other than for "bragging rights," malfunction or shot down is immaterial.
 
How to tell if it was shot down or a technical malfunction. If it happens again it was shot down. After all if you can do it once you can do it again. If it was a freak whatever then it would never happen again.
 
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