Are fighter radars really good enough to do that? Buggered if I know – but it seems a little strange and I’d like to know more.

My understanding is aircraft send out an encrypted signal and offensive units pick up the signal and decide whether it is friend or foe.

I remember American Patriot missiles in the Iraq war in 2003 shot down a few friendly cruise missiles, and (I think) a British Tornado fighter jet because the missiles incorrectly identified friendly missiles and that jet as being the enemy.

Coalition forces suffered their first confirmed “friendly fire” deaths of the Iraq war yesterday, when a U.S. Patriot missile battery downed a British fighter jet near the Iraqi-Kuwait border, killing the two fliers on board.

Military analysts said the downing was rare, since the Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 would have been outfitted with a transponder – an electronic signal device identifying itself as a coalition military aircraft.

source

Anyway, the story of how we hacked the yanks here for F18 IFF and look down radar crypto should be at the very least a nice little 5000 insider blog post. If we had the antipodian equivalent of Defence Tech or Danger Room. Looking at you here Robert Merkel.

If anybody knows any insiders, happy to be put in touch

Thinking about what Tony was saying, I’m surprised by one thing: he is implying that the F-18 radar (APG-65/73) could itself distinguish between different types of aircraft, and the combat system would accordingly characterise targets as friend or foe. Are fighter radars really good enough to do that? Buggered if I know – but it seems a little strange and I’d like to know more.

As to your New Zealand excursion – “The local talent is easy … A massive fuckpot of sheep!”. That says it all really. A line from Apocalypse Now comes to mind: “He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.”

By the way, if I may be so bold, you a gamer by any chance? As in wargames. You have the classic combination of military history + black sense of humour + incipient alcoholism = wargamer.

Very well. I will now pace around in circles, swilling whisky and counting my feet while playing Magazine’s “A Song From Under The Floorboards” VERY LOUDLY!

And why isn’t Kim putting up hot pinups anymore?

Now I come to think of it, where is the wench these days?

And perhaps also perhaps an awareness that modern IFF systems are slightly more situationally aware than just blipping a transponder smodged into a Cessna 162.

Nabs, the issue wasn’t identifying whether contacts were friendly or hostile, which is what IFF does.

It was that the combat systems, based on the radars, would not correctly distinguish between friendly and hostile aircraft, thus hindering the use of those systems to engage and attack hostile aircraft, if that was every necessary.

It’s hard for me to contradict you if you do it first.

Radar can tell you what is coming at you but it can’t tell you its motives. Hence the invention of IFF.

It was that the combat systems, based on the radars, would not correctly distinguish between friendly and hostile aircraft, thus hindering the use of those systems to engage and attack hostile aircraft, if that was every necessary.

Yes, you’re right that F-14s are not leading edge these days, but they are still pretty fierce aircraft. My point was that export versions of American fighters can be turned against America, so it’s reasonable for America to de-tune them.

Paulus, yes, the process was electronic, not human intelligence. I forget whether Beazley’s words conveyed that meaning.

The sad story of New Zealand’s Skyhawks is that they spent the end of their years as targets anyway, because they were too slow for any serious role. They were used to give gunnery practice to Australian warships. Huge embarrassment for any fighter jock.

Peter Jackson pretty much nailed it with his 1987 documentary on a top secret New Zealand special forces unit.

Yes Paulus indeed, and less distanced from the truth than you’d think.

Just spent just over a week, eating and drinking and yo hoo hooing through the North Island of NZ last month.

My observations are:
- Damn, there’s some great white wine action happening out of Hawkes Bay.
- NZ cop cars have the weirdest colour scheme.
- Everyone in NZ will be a Maori, either in bloodline and/or spirit, within the next 30 years.
And that includes all the Chinese in Auckland.
- Those fluffy little lambs gambolling in a surrealistically perfect picture postcard landscape taste delicious.
- The Masonic Hotel in Napier has to be stayed in to be believed in. Think of an smaller but perfectly formed major art deco riff on “the Shining”‘s Overlook Hotel.
- The local talent is easy. Especially when you ask them to count up to “six/sex’ at a hot local venue billed as a Melbourne style bar.
- The country op-shops are even easier. A first hard back editon of ‘Biggles: Pioneer Airfighter” for only NZ$10. Tattered endpapers and rather foxed though.
- Did I mention the food and wine is excellent?
- Apparently the way to show yer really cool on K’road in Auckland is to mention some connection to Peter Jackson’s Weta Studios – in Wellington.
- Don’t bother getting hammered on NZ’s very interesting experiment in single malt whisky from Milford Sound and then charging into the Beehive, brandishing your MasterCard and demanding to buy a mothballed Douglas A3 Skyhawk. They just won’t sell you one. And that’s that.
- Not much wildlife in NZ. A week plus driving saw less roadkill than a dirty weekend in Tasmania or down the Great Ocean Road. A massive fuckpot of sheep though. Lotsa sheep. Really. Fuckin’ heaps of sheep.

“The PLA would first have to get through several million orcs, Maori biker gangs, the NZ Army’s elite Special Bungee Jumping Forces and 40 million kamikaze sheep.”

“One thing the Chinese hadn’t counted on was Derek, and Dereks don’t run!”

Peter Jackson pretty much nailed it with his 1987 documentary on a top secret New Zealand special forces unit.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092610/