On 27 March 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a Yugoslav Army unit (3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade, which was under the leadership of Colonel Zoltán Dani) shot down an F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft of the United States Air Force by firing a S-125 Neva/Pechora surface-to-air missile. It was the first ever shootdown of a stealth technology airplane. The F-117, which entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1983 was the first operational aircraft to be designed using stealth technology; by comparison, the Yugoslav air defenses were considered relatively obsolete. The F-117 fleet was officially retired on April 22, 2008.
Innovative tactics and leaders who know what they are about can take ancient weapons to destroy “state of the art” weapons systems and platforms such as the use of ancient pike tactics at Stirling Bridge to slaughter the English King’s modern heavy horse on 11 September 1297 in Scotland or the English victory against the French at Agincourt on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin’s Day). During WWII, the Russian-Finnish War in 1939-40 set a David versus Goliath fight that saw a very lop-sided body-count for the Russians fighting the tiny Finnish forces.
Stealth is very expensive and puts tremendous constraints on the utility of the the platform employing it. In the calculus of war, its use diminishes over time. Yet another exemplar of the adage that complexity and sophistication doesn’t always yield martial advantage. The stealth capability has been oversold on shaky science in the art of war.
In a fight with peer and near-peer adversaries, the stealth advantage is negligible.
It is overpriced and the enemy always gets a vote.
Designed in the 1950s, its short-range and fragile design made the SA-3 (S-125 Neva/Pechora) obsolete and relegated to second-tier militaries by the time of the Kosovo War. Yet, COL Zoltan was innovative and experienced.
As Col. Zelko approached his target, Zoltan ordered his radar on for 20 seconds, but couldn’t find the stealthy aircraft. Knowing the F-117 would be out of range within a minute, he ordered it back on for 20 seconds. He and his men desperately tried to find the nearly invisible aircraft as the seconds ticked by. As the clock hit zero his men, dejected, knew they had to begin the process of relocating. Instead, Zoltan, against his previous guidance, ordered the radar on for a third time – Zoltan knew the escort aircraft hadn’t taken off, and therefore wasn’t in danger of a HARM missile strike.
At 2015 local time, Zoltan found Col. Zelko just as he was releasing his bombs since, as Col. Zelko’s weapons bay doors were open, for several seconds he was no longer invisible to radar [Ed: increased radar cross section to make the stealth characteristics null]. Zoltan immediately ordered two missile launches and maintained the radar lock even after the doors closed.
Less than a minute later, Col. Zelko spotted the missiles.
“They were moving at three times the speed of sound, so there wasn’t much time to react,” he said. “I felt the first one go right over me, so close that it rocked the aircraft. Then I opened my eyes and turned my head, and there was the other missile. The impact was violent. I was at negative seven Gs. My body was being pulled out of the seat upward toward the canopy. As I strained to reach the ejection handles, one thought crossed my mind: This is really, really, really bad.”
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