World's most feared drone:
CIA's MQ-9 Reaper killed Soleimani
Washington Examiner,
by
Russ Read
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
1/4/2020 5:14:29 AM
Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed Thursday night in a strike by an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The operation to kill Soleimani is believed to have been overseen by the CIA. U.S. Air Force pilots fly Reapers from Creech Air Force base in Nevada and some are seconded to the CIA in Langley, Virginia.
According to the U.S. Air Force, the Reaper is an "armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that is employed primarily against dynamic execution targets and secondarily as an intelligence collection asset." It "provides a unique capability to perform strike, coordination, and reconnaissance against high-value, fleeting, and time-sensitive targets."
President Trump ordered the strike on Soleimani’s convoy
Reply 1 - Posted by:
watashiyo 1/4/2020 5:26:31 AM (No. 278256)
Why are we giving away this information to our enemies?
30 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
MainelySane 1/4/2020 5:44:28 AM (No. 278257)
Let's hope the federal government never uses this against American citizens.
9 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 1/4/2020 5:52:29 AM (No. 278258)
Not as personally satisfying as dropping nape and hi-drags, but you can’t argue with the Reaper’s accuracy and body count per dollar expended. One of our better investments.
14 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
jj1319 1/4/2020 6:35:54 AM (No. 278272)
Article says the Reaper costs $16 million/unit while the Reaper profile says they cost $64.3 million/unit.
Can we get a closer estimate than a factor of 4?
4 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
franq 1/4/2020 7:14:33 AM (No. 278288)
Line item for $64m unit cost clearly says ((includes four aircraft, sensors, GCSs, and Comm.) That works out to $16m/drone.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
dcbroome 1/4/2020 7:42:19 AM (No. 278317)
Can someone explain why whenever I click on a link for Washington Examiner, it just goes to main page and never to the specific article?
1 person likes this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
jj1319 1/4/2020 7:59:23 AM (No. 278330)
#5, you are correct. I read that as: "includes four aircraft sensors..." Missed the comma.
My mistake.
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Rivetjoint 1/4/2020 9:10:38 AM (No. 278411)
As the old saying goes regarding the bad guys - 'You can run but you'll just die tired',
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
john56 1/4/2020 10:19:39 AM (No. 278493)
Only thing that could be better is that Conan the dog pressed the button.
8 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
fayebeck 1/4/2020 10:44:17 AM (No. 278530)
Seals write tell all books and now this information? America we talk too much. Too much 24/, 7 "news" too." Everyone is a pundit. Podcasts, blogs and stuff. Look Ma, I'm somebody.
4 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
fayebeck 1/4/2020 10:47:52 AM (No. 278535)
#1 it's because we're stoopid. Many conservatives want to prove themselves the smartest person in the room.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 1/4/2020 11:01:59 AM (No. 278552)
I knew it was a Reaper as soon as reports were of three missile hits. It couldn't have been the much smaller, and earlier, Predator because it can only carry two Hellfire missiles. The Reaper is much bigger and more powerful, can carry a much bigger load, generally four Hellfire missiles and a couple of 500 lb laser guided bombs (GBU-12s).
The Hellfire is ideal for these terrorist erasure missions, accurate, small (~5 ft long, 7 inches diam) and only a 20 lb warhead so plenty to obliterate a civilian vehicle conclusively, but not a lot of collateral damage. Neat and tidy......SPLAT. It arrives at faster than the speed of sound, so nothing is heard at the target site until the BOOM, and has a reasonable range around 6 miles, so the Reaper is far away, unseen and unheard, too. The 500 lb laser guided bombs would cause way too much collateral damage in this sort of a mission, where the Hellfire is "just right".
3 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 1/4/2020 11:02:49 AM (No. 278554)
#1, open source info. Perhaps more than should be open source, but it is out there already, has been for years.
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 1/4/2020 11:10:20 AM (No. 278564)
#4, frequently the higher cost numbers are the left's handiwork, intending to make the cost appear as high as possible to produce negative publicity.
So, say you want to buy 100 aircraft. Do you just buy the aircraft or do you buy ground support equipment (starting carts, hydraulic maintenance carts, electrical maintenance carts) which are necessary to maintain the aircraft and operate them? How about a couple of years of spare parts, spare engines, spare electronics, the equipment to test the electronics to see if the unit is OK or faulty? Of course you buy the need ancillaries. So, the left adds up ALL the costs and divides by the number of airframes and calls this "the cost of ______". Not totally unreasonable, I suppose.
But then, suppose one of these aircraft gets destroyed somehow and you want to buy a replacement....just the aircraft because all the ancilliaries, equipment and spare parts are still there, safe and sound on the ground at the airport. That costs a LOT less than the whole buy divided by the number of airframes.
Without checking at all, my bet is that both numbers are "correct", with the larger number intended to be a pejorative used to turn taxpayers against an aircraft program, typical leftist "legal lying".
So
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Strike3 1/4/2020 12:26:24 PM (No. 278642)
The MQ-9 is an impressive machine, looking like a bigger, enhanced version of the older Predator. I was hoping that the General had the opportunity to glimpse what was going to fry him but the specs say this baby works from 25,000 feet. No time to say "Oh Schiff" before the Hellfire went off.
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
hershey 1/4/2020 12:43:05 PM (No. 278661)
'Loose lips sink ships'...reminded from WWII poster......people just don't need to know this stuff...there are spies everywhere, and don't forget the democrats...
1 person likes this.
Just like Hallmark cards. Soleimani deserved the very best.
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
49 Ford 1/4/2020 1:15:33 PM (No. 278704)
The bad guys may know that we have this technology #16, but it's the where and when that makes it effective.
2 people like this.
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