Downed U-2 Spy plane.

What downed the U2 Spy plane back in the 60's, after all it is a stealth aircraft!!!

They the PDF's on this site below for the official documents released at that time:
www.eisenhower.archives.gov...

Here's one document on it:
U-2 Incident/MemCon Pres Eisenhower at Bipartisan Leaders Breakfast 5-26-60 Page 1

EDIT:
There are photos of the wreckage near the bottom:
www.eisenhower.archives.gov...

[edit on 30-4-2005 by AceOfBase]

It is in no way stealth, it was just that it flown so high that it was hard to detect, so this does not really mean anything much.

Good ol' ruskie SAMs!!
And I think they were detected most of the time..
Its just that the russians didnt fire then..
Gary powers was the unlucky one..

The U-2 is NOT a stealth aircraft, it can be detected on almost all modern radar systems. The purpose of the U-2 was that it would fly so high that it couldnt be intercepted. The Russians were aware of the U-2 overflights from the very first flight.

An SU-9 high altitude fighter was directed to intercept Powers but he was unarmed, so he had orders to ram the U-2 to bring it down. He attained the same altitude as the U-2 moments before that order was withdrawn. A SAM battalion near Sverdlovsk then fired a missile on the U-2 which exploded behind the aircraft, sending shrapnel into the wings and tail surfaces. Powers bailed out of the aircraft (he could not eject because the ejection seat had been pushed forward by the explosion) and the aircraft was hit a second time by another missile. A MiG in the area was also hit by a missile.

What amazes me is that when this shootdown was made public in the US, there were many many calls to invade the USSR, because the shootdown 'consittuted an act of war against hte US'. Didnt the act of invading another countries airspace deliberately and continually constitute an act of war? Wouldnt that countries shooting down of said aircraft constitute an act of defence? The same thing happened in the Cuban missile crisis when recon aircraft were fired on and hit.

Lol.. How come a MiG was shot at too??
And was the US even capable of mounting an invasion of the USSR at that time??

Also I agree with your assessment of Cuba..
Infact had the U-2 jets been shot down before they ever discovered the cuban missiles, then there wouldn't have been "a missile crisis" .. but who nkows what would have happened..
Intrusion of airspace is definitely an act of war if shooting down an enemy aircraft in one's own airspace can even be considered an act of war..

Originally posted by Daedalus3
Lol.. How come a MiG was shot at too??

It just happened to be close to the U-2 at the time when the missiles were in the air, unfortunately one of hte missiles switched targets.

And was the US even capable of mounting an invasion of the USSR at that time??

Definately yes. Whether they were capable of defeating the USSR is another matter. Given the issues that the US and the UK are currently having in Iraq, multiply that by about a thousand, and you have big issues pacifying a country that big. its the same reason an invasion of the US would be infeasable, size matters.

Issues in Iraq come-on man different type of war would have been fought.
You really think the U.S. at the time would have given a... about rebuilding Russia or preserving population centers? Hell no, we would have bombed everything is site, civilians or not. We probably were not going to play police man with the Russians.
Besides after al the nukes had been fired then no one would have to worry about an invasion because we would all have been dead., or incapable of any invasion.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Issues in Iraq come-on man different type of war would have been fought.
You really think the U.S. at the time would have given a... about rebuilding Russia or preserving population centers? Hell no, we would have bombed everything is site, civilians or not. We probably were not going to play police man with the Russians.
Besides after al the nukes had been fired then no one would have to worry about an invasion because we would all have been dead., or incapable of any invasion.

So you would deal with an unjust leadership and political system by .... wiping it and hundreds of millions of people off the face of the earth indiscrimently. Tell me again how the US gets labelled as the 'Good' guys?

If the US had done as you suggest Westpoint, you can bet your arse that there would be a regime change in the US by your own people soon after.

Stick to the issue, the style of warfare and the times.
That is to say, perspective, Mr. Price, perspective.

Were we and the rest of the Allies the good guys during WWII? Civilians were killed in that war, too. Of course we were the good guys. We'd have been the good guys had we taken out Russia back then, but we were better guys by doing it Reagan's way. We're still paying for it, but we are the better for it.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Stick to the issue, the style of warfare and the times.
That is to say, perspective, Mr. Price, perspective.

Were we and the rest of the Allies the good guys during WWII? Civilians were killed in that war, too. Of course we were the good guys. We'd have been the good guys had we taken out Russia back then, but we were better guys by doing it Reagan's way. We're still paying for it, but we are the better for it.

Oh I have perspective, WP was alluding to basically killing anything that moved without doing the 'hearts and minds' thing that 50% of all war today consists of. Take this quote:

You really think the U.S. at the time would have given a... about rebuilding Russia or preserving population centers? Hell no, we would have bombed everything is site, civilians or not.

Today you cannot kill civilians indiscriminantly - in WW2 you could get away with labelling a whole city as a military target because of one factory, but that was only possible because the Allied civiliant population wasnt hearing anything about the civilian deaths through what was a heavily controlled media at the time. Today you have embedded reporters, reporters in all the major cities, reporters with nearly unlimited access to the enemy and a press that doesnt think twice about reporting this way.

The entire scenario has basically changed. Civilians do not have the same outlook on killing as the military do, and its the civilians that own the country. Once the military starts owning the country, its no longer democratic.


[edit on 1/5/2005 by RichardPrice]

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Today you cannot kill civilians indiscriminantly - in WW2 you could get away with labelling a whole city as a military target because of one factory, but that was only possible because the Allied civiliant population wasnt hearing anything about the civilian deaths through what was a heavily controlled media at the time. Today you have embedded reporters, reporters in all the major cities, reporters with nearly unlimited access to the enemy and a press that doesnt think twice about reporting this way.

The entire scenario has basically changed. Civilians do not have the same outlook on killing as the military do, and its the civilians that own the country. Once the military starts owning the country, its no longer democratic.


[edit on 1/5/2005 by RichardPrice]

not forgetting that there was no such thing as "precision bombing" (at least what we mean today) in the day's of WWII

The topic is:
Downed U-2 Spy plane.

What downed the U2 Spy plane back in the 60's, after all it is a stealth aircraft!!!

seekerof

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Today you cannot kill civilians indiscriminantly - in WW2 you could get away with labelling a whole city as a military target because of one factory, but that was only possible because the Allied civiliant population wasnt hearing anything about the civilian deaths through what was a heavily controlled media at the time. Today you have embedded reporters, reporters in all the major cities, reporters with nearly unlimited access to the enemy and a press that doesnt think twice about reporting this way.

The entire scenario has basically changed. Civilians do not have the same outlook on killing as the military do, and its the civilians that own the country. Once the military starts owning the country, its no longer democratic.

Of course you can kill the civilians. The only reson why it's not done today is because
a/ it is not necessary - the enemies are weak, the defeat is not possible so the military can afford to be chivalrous.
b/ the recent wars were labeled to be waged only against dictators, not against people/nations . That was the reason why civilian casualities were not acceptable.

The recent wars(at least those ones waged by west) were not real wars for national survival, they were just military opearations. Let's hope noone of us wil see real war again.

There have been two mentions of sticking with the topic here people.
This will be the last, or the thread will be closed.

The topic is:Downed U-2 Spy plane.

What downed the U2 Spy plane back in the 60's, after all it is a stealth aircraft!!!

seekerof

Originally posted by Daedalus3
Lol.. How come a MiG was shot at too??

And was the US even capable of mounting an invasion of the USSR at that time??

Also I agree with your assessment of Cuba..
Infact had the U-2 jets been shot down before they ever discovered the cuban missiles, then there wouldn't have been "a missile crisis" .. but who nkows what would have happened..
Intrusion of airspace is definitely an act of war if shooting down an enemy aircraft in one's own airspace can even be considered an act of war..

Hold on! The Cuban Missile Crisis was a different set of circumstanses than the U-2 Incident. The U-2 Incident happend because the US was invainding Soviet Air Space on reconnassance flights. The Cuban Missile Crisis started because the CIA heard that the USSR was trying to stash Nuclear Weapons in Cuba. The Pentagon was worried that the Russians were trying to plan a surprise Nuclear Attack against the US. The First photo of the missiles in Cuba came from a KH-4 Corona Spy Satellite. Using this grainy photo as the bases for their suspicision, the CIA sent a U-2 to locate an identify the missiles. Once the missles had been positivly Identified, the Military began trying to move to counter the threat. The U-2 that got shot down was on one of the later flights that was there to track the progress in the preperation of the missiles for launch.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

Originally posted by ghost

Hold on! The Cuban Missile Crisis was a different set of circumstanses than the U-2 Incident.

On the threat of being told again what the topic is about, that wasnt what I meant. Early photographs were captured using both highlevel recon aircraft (U-2) and lowlevel aircraft (various). Before the U-2 was shot down (I wasnt even aware that one had! Thanks for the pointers on that) several low level aircraft were hit by antiaircraft fire, and hte pilots were specifically told by their immediate superiors and the Whitehouse Liason NOT to report this fact in their reports because it would be used as an 'Act of War' against the US.

Basically in both situations, a country fired on and hit illegally overflying aircraft, and in both situations those actions were used to inflame the US leadership and the population such that there were calls for immediate action against these 'Acts of War'. The same thing is being used against Iran at the moment, with the USAF deliberately breeching Iranian airspace on several occasions. If Iran were to bring down one of these aircraft, how long do you seriously think it would be until reprisal attacks were carried out against iranian targets on Presidential order?

[edit on 2/5/2005 by RichardPrice]

Originally posted by ghost


Hold on! The Cuban Missile Crisis was a different set of circumstanses than the U-2 Incident. The U-2 Incident happend because the US was invainding Soviet Air Space on reconnassance flights. The Cuban Missile Crisis started because the CIA heard that the USSR was trying to stash Nuclear Weapons in Cuba. The Pentagon was worried that the Russians were trying to plan a surprise Nuclear Attack against the US. The First photo of the missiles in Cuba came from a KH-4 Corona Spy Satellite. Using this grainy photo as the bases for their suspicision, the CIA sent a U-2 to locate an identify the missiles. Once the missles had been positivly Identified, the Military began trying to move to counter the threat. The U-2 that got shot down was on one of the later flights that was there to track the progress in the preperation of the missiles for launch.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

Oh.. I thought the missiles were infact DISCOVRED BECAUSE OF earlier U2 flights..

And as for invading the Soviet Union in the 60s..
I was under the opinion that the USSR had ground foreces/technology surpaaing all at the time to such an extent that Europe would have been a walkover for the USSR..
It would have been like the Arab Israeli war...Russian SAMs negating NATO air power.. and in this case no strong sharons with good tanks and no weak minded arabs..
sorry for the detour..

Please don't close the thread..

[edit on 2-5-2005 by Daedalus3]

Originally posted by Daedalus3
And as for invading the Soviet Union in the 60s..
I was under the opinion that the USSR had ground foreces/technology surpaaing all at the time to such an extent that Europe would have been a walkover for the USSR..
It would have been like the Arab Israeli war...Russian SAMs negating NATO air power.. and in this case no strong sharons with good tanks and no weak minded arabs..
sorry for the detour..

I agree, it wasnt actually until pretty late on in the Cold war until the US gained technological upper hand, and even then the USSR outnumbered the US substantially (at one point, the USSR had more aircraft capable of hitting continental US targets than the US had operational SAMs capable of downing these aircraft). It wasnt until the USSR really started to run out of money (late 70s, early 80s) that an invasion of the USSR would have even been feasable.

I’m sorry to detour of the topic but have you people ever heard of MAD?




West Point, Out.