{"id":190285,"date":"2019-06-21T11:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=190285"},"modified":"2019-06-25T05:59:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T05:59:03","slug":"iran-just-shot-down-one-of-the-us-militarys-most-advanced-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=190285","title":{"rendered":"Iran just shot down one of the US military&#8217;s most advanced drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Ryan Pickerall \u2013 Business Insider June 21, 2019<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iranian forces shot down a US surveillance drone Wednesday evening, escalating an already tense situation between Washington and Tehran, Iran&#8217;s capital.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The drone was a US Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS-D) aircraft \u2014 a RQ-4A Global Hawk high-altitude long endurance (HALE) drone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">This high-value aircraft is one of the US military&#8217;s most advanced unmanned aerial systems, and it has a price tag much higher than that of an F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iran claims the drone had entered Iranian airspace, but the US says it was shot down in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_190228\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Global-Hawk-Block-40.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-190228\" class=\"wp-image-190228\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Global-Hawk-Block-40.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Global-Hawk-Block-40.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Global-Hawk-Block-40-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-190228\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Global Hawk drone. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p data-piano-inline-content-wrapper=\"\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iranian forces took out a US unmanned aerial vehicle Wednesday evening with a surface-to-air missile, US Central Command confirmed. The drone the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot out of the sky happens to be one of the US military&#8217;s most advanced high-altitude unmanned aircraft.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Iranians shot down a US Navy <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/iranian-boat-took-shot-at-us-drone-before-tanker-attack-2019-6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS-D)<\/strong><\/span><\/a> intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, specifically a RQ-4A Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) drone, which the military uses to conduct recon operations over oceans and coastal waterways, among other areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The US military called the incident &#8220;an unprovoked attack on a US surveillance asset in international airspace&#8221; over the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf. The Iranians have accused the US drone of entering Iranian airspace, an allegation Central Command characterized as completely false.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The RQ-4, which informed the development of the newer MQ-4C drones, is one of the most advanced high-altitude drones being employed operationally, The War Zone <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/28613\/everything-we-know-about-irans-claim-that-it-shot-down-a-u-s-rq-4-global-hawk-drone\">said<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. These aircraft, Northrop Grumman aircraft that have been used extensively in the Persian Gulf, rely on a suite of high-end electronic sensors and other intelligence-gathering systems to peer into other countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The aircraft, which is used by both the US Air Force and the US Navy, has a price tag <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarcusReports\/status\/1141676906598653955\">higher<\/a> than the US military&#8217;s new F-35 stealth fighters. A Global Hawk has a<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong> <a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.usni.org\/2018\/09\/06\/exclusive-photo-crashed-123m-rq-4-air-force-drone-fished-atlantic\">unit cost<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of roughly $123 million, while an F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter costs only $89 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;This isn&#8217;t a throwaway drone whose loss the US will just shrug off,&#8221; Ulrike Franke, a drone expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations,<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong> <a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RikeFranke\/status\/1141617041373388800\">said<\/a><\/strong><\/span> on Twitter. But it&#8217;s not just the price tag that makes the loss of this drone a big deal. The drone is designed to be harder to hit, she said, because they fly at altitudes beyond the reach of some air defense defense systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;The RQ-4 flies at upwards of 65,000 feet,&#8221; Tyler Rogoway, the editor of The War Zone, <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/28613\/everything-we-know-about-irans-claim-that-it-shot-down-a-u-s-rq-4-global-hawk-drone\">wrote<\/a>. &#8220;So this would have been a sophisticated radar-guided surface-to-air missile that shot the aircraft down, not a shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Iran said the IRGC shot down the US drone with an upgraded Khordad missile-defense system, which can detect and track targets 95 miles away and down them at a distance of 30 miles, Breaking Defense <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2019\/06\/us-iran-shoots-down-global-hawk-second-drone-down-this-month\/?_ga=2.104505030.779183169.1560135958-763343312.1539980600\">reported<\/a>. The system can target enemy aircraft flying as high as 81,000 feet, or roughly 15 miles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Global Hawk does not have any stealth capabilities or high-end countermeasures for penetration missions, leaving it vulnerable to any air defense systems that can hit high-altitude targets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The latest incident comes just days after the crew of an Iranian boat fired an SA-7 surface-to-air missile at a MQ-9 Reaper drone, a roughly $15 million drone, but missed. Wednesday&#8217;s shoot-down marks a serious escalation in tensions between the US and Iran<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/iran-shot-down-one-of-us-militarys-most-advanced-drones-2019-6?r=US&amp;IR=T\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It costs more than an F-35 stealth fighter and was designed to fly at an altitude beyond the reach of most air defence systems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190287,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190285\/revisions\/190287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}