The pilot that got the highest award- he came up with the plan on how to effectively use the strike eagle against these drones by researching/analyzing previous data. He got it quickly disseminated to the squadrons. During the attack he and the wso had to direct the attack/divide up the airspace for everyone while conducting their own intercepts. Yeah, they said going low level at night for a gun attack against something low/slow was not a great feeling ... The MS earned that award because the base was being attacked and everyone was being directed to the bunkers ...he stayed on the flight line continuing to re-arm & launch
The Msgt production superintendent who didn’t even touch the plane got a bronze star while the actual crew chiefs and weapons guys probably got bs achievement and commendation medals lol
As an Israeli I cannot overstate my appreciation and gratitude to the servicemen and women from the US, Britain, France and Jordan who all spent the enormous efforts and taking the risk upon themselves to save lives here in Israel. I hope the situation here cools down sooner rather than later and wish each and every one of you and them a peaceful and safe tour and a safe quick return to home and family.
Yep. Kinda rubbing that nerve the wrong way thinking about all the people involved in this operation that aren't getting shit because their officers didn't put them in for it. Who needs promotion points amirite?
@@nathanthompson3401 The problem is that officers have to keep promoting up or they're out and awards figure into promotability. The trick is to get enough rank and time that if they're passed over, they can still run out the 20 year clock. This is where being prior-enlisted really comes in handy. That way, if a guy can make major, he can retire instead of just separating.
@@nathanthompson3401 Those medals earn promotion points... the thing you need to now only make more money but advance in your career. In times of peace and cut budgets promotion cut off points drop drastically to the point where every point counts.
In another article I read detailing this engagement Hester's and Coffey, expended all their missile but one didn't fire. Landed with the hung missile and then jumped into another F-15E that was loaded and ready to go and got back into the fight expending all those missiles. The ground crews were turning returning F-15s around to get back into the fight in 30 minutes.
Does the radar in these F-15s have the ability to filter what the aircrew sees, or is the radar screen full of drones, cruise missiles, etc? It is amazing that everyone got home safely. Everyone did America proud that night.
Yes, the radar picture is filtered to include everything which reflects radar beam. Anything that fly above ground, above certain speed and within specific angles (vertical/horizontal) of air volume. It can track several dozen targets at once which is highly demanded feat. The main problem being solved here by the competent flyers is coordinating F-15s to fly at specific tasking routes which divide drone swarm in separate groups which in turn can be assigned to those 14 F-15s. Such scenario is even more dangerous as risk of friendly fire is quite significant.
All you people second guessing the awards need to go read the article on Task And Purpose. Irish foresaw this type of attack and wrote the plan for its defense. Ground crews exposed themselves to attack on the flight line to turn the planes as fast as possible. Irish and his WSO had a full load out and had to land with a dud amraam and jump into a different plane and get back into the air.
The real miracle was the deconfliction between units and country’s. It wasn’t just the F-15s in the fight! There were US F-16s Israeli jets Jordanian and I believe UK aircraft all in the fight. How they didn’t have a blue on blue is a real testament to some superior airmanship. Especially because it was a short notice deployment and somewhat surprise engagement…short notice. All while ground based surface to air systems were in weapons free engagements on the incoming rockets and missiles. The debris falling on the airfield was not the drones engaged by the F-15s. It was destroyed targets from the Army Patriot and Navy and Israeli SAMs killing incoming high altitude high speed missiles. I guess mode 5 works pretty good!
There may be something involved in the award that had a secret classification. The specifics that put them at a Silver Star level may be redacted from the public award order.
That can happen. Astronaut Mike Mullane talked about this. He was Air Force and when he was on the crew that launched a top-secret reconnaissance satellite from the space shuttle (he operated the long robot arm), he got a medal from the intelligence black-world that he couldn't even wear. The citation was top-secret and the fact that he even got the medal was top-secret. 10 years later, the award citation was declassified and he was allowed to wear the medal/ribbon on his uniform. What's funny is that the citation was actually pretty mundane and had no specifics, it just said that he did an outstanding job operating the robot arm when releasing the satellite from the shuttle. Classic case of over-classification, which is rampant in the space field of the USAF (now separated into Space Force). It was known that the shuttle was going up, it was immediately noticed that the shuttle was launching with a higher orbit inclination than ever before, and it was known that a classified satellite was being launched. The award and the downright boring citation didn't compromise national security in any way, but sometimes that's just how it goes.
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy Even the comms used by those "classified" Shuttle missions were encrypted and launch times were not distributed There were 10 DoD mission with 8 of them being classified launches. This was during Mullanes 3rd and last spaceflight STS-36. The 62º inclination orbit was higher than the usual as the payload was originally designed to be launched to the South in a Polar orbit from the Vandenberg SLC-6 launch site. Following STS-51L Challengers failure, all shuttle launches out of California were cancelled and only launches to the East out of Florida were allowed. Following Challenger, USAF couldn't get away from the Space Shuttle Program quick enough. They needed cheap reliable access to space and Shuttle was not it.
nah man, that F22 who took out the balloon is credited as the first, and only, air to air confirmed kill on an enemy target. Shooting down that balloon was actually a big deal (for the one pilot who got to do it)
they didn't launch anything from space, it was a intermediate range ballistic missle, with no warheads, nothing special there except instead of yelping to try and scare the US, they let out a slight growl.
Russia has launched nothing from any space-based platform. The did apparently launch an IRBM on Kyiv, an experimental IRBM. I guess it did come down from space, but that's only it's trajectory carried it into space and back to the ground.
here is the dude walking around with a silver star: "Yeah I was sitting in a chair looking at a radar scope and telling pilots where to fly" Here is a dude with a silver star in the army: "I ran through gunfire and got shot in the leg but kept going to resupply my platoon with ammo Oh and I did that five times over." I wouldn't wear it if I was the AF dude.
Gonky & Wombat talk like most of their experience flying is with inept people who couldn't get anything right. Which units did you fly with? Inquiring taxpayers want to know.
No joke. He also got a silver star and bronze star (with valor). Pretty serious awards for a guy who was purposely kept far from the action. That pansy couldn't hold up against a Bangkok cocktail waitress. Even with those awards and the fact that he got his commission in 1966 just weeks after joining the Navy, he got out in 1978 as an O-3, making him the longest serving lieutenant in the history of the world, not that that trust-fund baby needed the money. No idea if he got a retirement or just separated. With a Demonrat congress and president, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a medical retirement because he was "wounded three times" (one shaving cut and two hangnails). In May 2024, Blow Biden gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom for tying his shoes. When it comes to being over-awarded, John is right up there with Idi Amin and Hermann Goering (who designed special Iron Crosses and diamond-encrusted Order of "whatever" medals for himself, that poofter had a fetish for costume jewelry masquerading as military awards).
Should look at the details from the mission, it was no joke, those silver stars we earned from that crew, pilot planned and directed the entire thing, and they were hot swapping jets to go back out with more weapons mid-attack.
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy The Silver Star is for bravery in combat. They were shooting drone targets. It has been a while since the Air Force has done much, other than ground support. This is much back slapping for target practice. I'm missing the part where the Valor is, the high point for me is there wasn't a friendly fire.
@@robertc5292 During the War on Terror, the Air Force was constantly handing out Bronze Stars to air traffic controllers, what a joke. The bronze star went from a valor award to a personnel retention tool. LAME.
Seems like awards are all political. I don’t pretend to know anything but isn’t giving F15 pilots awards for dropping drones like giving an NFL team all MVPs for beating a high school team? Agree the maintainers were the most critical part of the team. Aren’t WWII pilots rolling their eyes?
Not really it's still a airborne target that is low and moving slow and dangerous to the ground. They are difficult to hit in general let alone find them, then getting everything coordinated to attack them is also hard. I feel it would be more difficult in some aspects then a high flying fast jet.
Wonder what the co$t of the defense was, compared to the co$t of the offense... 🤔 New warfare of attrition. A hint of "attrition warfare"..."economic warfare." A few waves of cheap drones...when you're out of money and munitions...send the real stuff.
Wrong. That's not a legal -1 configuration! the minimum combat loadout would be at least 2x2 120's & 9's. If they were configured for air to air, there normal loadout would be 6x120's & 2x9's and the 9's would only be there because they would have to take the tanks off to load the inboard 120's on stations 2 & 8.
@@DJ1BigTymer777 Certainly weren't 6 AIM-120 on the jet. There were: 2x AIM-120, 4x AIM9, 2 x CFT and 2 bags(EFT). I'm guessing that the OP saw the same pic I did, but forgot the other side of the jet? For reference the pic was of "LN" jet 91-0313.
@@hoghogwild I'm 100% certain that you did not see them with 4x9's & 2x120's because again, that's not a legal -1 configuration. If you guys may be referencing a photo of a F15E loaded with training munitions. I'm speaking from real-world experience as a retired 462...F15E Weapons Troop.
@@DJ1BigTymer777 I'm speaking as an old grunt with 2 good eyeballs. I appreciate your experience and am not trying to insult it. In flight pic deployed during the last great Houthis shoot. Lakenheath jets deployed to Djbouti early 2024 to protect Israel.The Superhornets just got outfitted with the 4x config for that deployment was a Navy push for great heater capacity in NATOPs, not a stretch to see USAF lead/follow in their -1. Look for yourself. 2:55 mark Ward Carroll report on the USAF F-15E air-air tasking. th-cam.com/video/Bm-C1UueNNI/w-d-xo.html Legal or not, that specific jet was loaded as such. . 4 heaters and 2 rammers I'd appreciate any input.
The pilot that got the highest award- he came up with the plan on how to effectively use the strike eagle against these drones by researching/analyzing previous data. He got it quickly disseminated to the squadrons. During the attack he and the wso had to direct the attack/divide up the airspace for everyone while conducting their own intercepts. Yeah, they said going low level at night for a gun attack against something low/slow was not a great feeling ...
The MS earned that award because the base was being attacked and everyone was being directed to the bunkers ...he stayed on the flight line continuing to re-arm & launch
so he was awarded for doing his job at the most basic level?
wait, it wasn't female personnel staying and doing those things? I'm shocked. Probably just chance that it was a guy.
Those pesky Houthi guys are something else! 😅
My dad flew with that squadron in the 60’s
The Msgt production superintendent who didn’t even touch the plane got a bronze star while the actual crew chiefs and weapons guys probably got bs achievement and commendation medals lol
As an Israeli I cannot overstate my appreciation and gratitude to the servicemen and women from the US, Britain, France and Jordan who all spent the enormous efforts and taking the risk upon themselves to save lives here in Israel. I hope the situation here cools down sooner rather than later and wish each and every one of you and them a peaceful and safe tour and a safe quick return to home and family.
Officers figuring out awards are subjective bullshit is the chefs kiss.
Yep. Kinda rubbing that nerve the wrong way thinking about all the people involved in this operation that aren't getting shit because their officers didn't put them in for it. Who needs promotion points amirite?
Medal creep hasn’t changed. Isn’t the pay check the reward for doing your job?
@@nathanthompson3401
The problem is that officers have to keep promoting up or they're out and awards figure into promotability. The trick is to get enough rank and time that if they're passed over, they can still run out the 20 year clock. This is where being prior-enlisted really comes in handy. That way, if a guy can make major, he can retire instead of just separating.
@@nathanthompson3401 Those medals earn promotion points... the thing you need to now only make more money but advance in your career. In times of peace and cut budgets promotion cut off points drop drastically to the point where every point counts.
In another article I read detailing this engagement Hester's and Coffey, expended all their missile but one didn't fire. Landed with the hung missile and then jumped into another F-15E that was loaded and ready to go and got back into the fight expending all those missiles. The ground crews were turning returning F-15s around to get back into the fight in 30 minutes.
That is humiliating for the USA
Does the radar in these F-15s have the ability to filter what the aircrew sees, or is the radar screen full of drones, cruise missiles, etc?
It is amazing that everyone got home safely. Everyone did America proud that night.
Yes, the radar picture is filtered to include everything which reflects radar beam. Anything that fly above ground, above certain speed and within specific angles (vertical/horizontal) of air volume. It can track several dozen targets at once which is highly demanded feat.
The main problem being solved here by the competent flyers is coordinating F-15s to fly at specific tasking routes which divide drone swarm in separate groups which in turn can be assigned to those 14 F-15s. Such scenario is even more dangerous as risk of friendly fire is quite significant.
Those bronze stars weren't w valor so they were likely admin or maybe crew chief.
oh c'mon don't rip the weather guys lol. I was one for 14 years and the last 3 as a F15 Crew Chief.
All you people second guessing the awards need to go read the article on Task And Purpose. Irish foresaw this type of attack and wrote the plan for its defense. Ground crews exposed themselves to attack on the flight line to turn the planes as fast as possible. Irish and his WSO had a full load out and had to land with a dud amraam and jump into a different plane and get back into the air.
From the little I've heard, the Major and Captain awarded the Silver Stars were acting as airborne coordinators in this mission.
Shit, might as well give the crew chiefs awards too…. Y’all know the E-4 mafia made this happen….
The real miracle was the deconfliction between units and country’s. It wasn’t just the F-15s in the fight! There were US F-16s Israeli jets Jordanian and I believe UK aircraft all in the fight. How they didn’t have a blue on blue is a real testament to some superior airmanship. Especially because it was a short notice deployment and somewhat surprise engagement…short notice. All while ground based surface to air systems were in weapons free engagements on the incoming rockets and missiles. The debris falling on the airfield was not the drones engaged by the F-15s. It was destroyed targets from the Army Patriot and Navy and Israeli SAMs killing incoming high altitude high speed missiles. I guess mode 5 works pretty good!
There may be something involved in the award that had a secret classification. The specifics that put them at a Silver Star level may be redacted from the public award order.
That can happen. Astronaut Mike Mullane talked about this. He was Air Force and when he was on the crew that launched a top-secret reconnaissance satellite from the space shuttle (he operated the long robot arm), he got a medal from the intelligence black-world that he couldn't even wear. The citation was top-secret and the fact that he even got the medal was top-secret. 10 years later, the award citation was declassified and he was allowed to wear the medal/ribbon on his uniform. What's funny is that the citation was actually pretty mundane and had no specifics, it just said that he did an outstanding job operating the robot arm when releasing the satellite from the shuttle. Classic case of over-classification, which is rampant in the space field of the USAF (now separated into Space Force). It was known that the shuttle was going up, it was immediately noticed that the shuttle was launching with a higher orbit inclination than ever before, and it was known that a classified satellite was being launched. The award and the downright boring citation didn't compromise national security in any way, but sometimes that's just how it goes.
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy Even the comms used by those "classified" Shuttle missions were encrypted and launch times were not distributed There were 10 DoD mission with 8 of them being classified launches.
This was during Mullanes 3rd and last spaceflight STS-36.
The 62º inclination orbit was higher than the usual as the payload was originally designed to be launched to the South in a Polar orbit from the Vandenberg SLC-6 launch site. Following STS-51L Challengers failure, all shuttle launches out of California were cancelled and only launches to the East out of Florida were allowed. Following Challenger, USAF couldn't get away from the Space Shuttle Program quick enough. They needed cheap reliable access to space and Shuttle was not it.
@@hoghogwild
Good stuff!
Hey Gonky & Wombat: how about some love for Navy Nukes? (I'm the father of an MM(N)2 vet of CVN-68.)
@Mover are you okay bud?
When’s the last time a US airbase was under attack?
A little late with this I think. Plus info is out there about the award named folks particular duties. But maybe you guys taped this many days ago?
Single seat 22s got a balloon stencil....right .
Lm*o.
nah man, that F22 who took out the balloon is credited as the first, and only, air to air confirmed kill on an enemy target. Shooting down that balloon was actually a big deal (for the one pilot who got to do it)
Want to hear your guys take on what Russia did launching missiles/bombs from space
they didn't launch anything from space, it was a intermediate range ballistic missle, with no warheads, nothing special there except instead of yelping to try and scare the US, they let out a slight growl.
Russia has launched nothing from any space-based platform. The did apparently launch an IRBM on Kyiv, an experimental IRBM. I guess it did come down from space, but that's only it's trajectory carried it into space and back to the ground.
Doesn’t your life have to be at risk, for the Award of the Silver Star? In my years in the Infantry my life was regularly at risk in training missions
Medal creep hasn’t changed. Isn’t the pay check the reward for doing your job?
here is the dude walking around with a silver star: "Yeah I was sitting in a chair looking at a radar scope and telling pilots where to fly" Here is a dude with a silver star in the army: "I ran through gunfire and got shot in the leg but kept going to resupply my platoon with ammo Oh and I did that five times over." I wouldn't wear it if I was the AF dude.
Silver star guy did fly, he flew and directed the entire mission, hot swapped jets mid-battle to go back out with more arms.
Fox 18!!....oops.....sorry......that's the news channel I was watching. 🤦
Gonky & Wombat talk like most of their experience flying is with inept people who couldn't get anything right. Which units did you fly with? Inquiring taxpayers want to know.
Silver Star's for this? Must have found the guy that gave John Kary 2 Purple Hearts.
No joke. He also got a silver star and bronze star (with valor). Pretty serious awards for a guy who was purposely kept far from the action. That pansy couldn't hold up against a Bangkok cocktail waitress. Even with those awards and the fact that he got his commission in 1966 just weeks after joining the Navy, he got out in 1978 as an O-3, making him the longest serving lieutenant in the history of the world, not that that trust-fund baby needed the money. No idea if he got a retirement or just separated. With a Demonrat congress and president, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a medical retirement because he was "wounded three times" (one shaving cut and two hangnails). In May 2024, Blow Biden gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom for tying his shoes. When it comes to being over-awarded, John is right up there with Idi Amin and Hermann Goering (who designed special Iron Crosses and diamond-encrusted Order of "whatever" medals for himself, that poofter had a fetish for costume jewelry masquerading as military awards).
Should look at the details from the mission, it was no joke, those silver stars we earned from that crew, pilot planned and directed the entire thing, and they were hot swapping jets to go back out with more weapons mid-attack.
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy The Silver Star is for bravery in combat. They were shooting drone targets. It has been a while since the Air Force has done much, other than ground support. This is much back slapping for target practice. I'm missing the part where the Valor is, the high point for me is there wasn't a friendly fire.
@@robertc5292
During the War on Terror, the Air Force was constantly handing out Bronze Stars to air traffic controllers, what a joke. The bronze star went from a valor award to a personnel retention tool. LAME.
Seems like awards are all political. I don’t pretend to know anything but isn’t giving F15 pilots awards for dropping drones like giving an NFL team all MVPs for beating a high school team? Agree the maintainers were the most critical part of the team. Aren’t WWII pilots rolling their eyes?
Not really it's still a airborne target that is low and moving slow and dangerous to the ground. They are difficult to hit in general let alone find them, then getting everything coordinated to attack them is also hard. I feel it would be more difficult in some aspects then a high flying fast jet.
@@charlies40556👍
Wonder what the co$t of the defense was, compared to the co$t of the offense... 🤔
New warfare of attrition.
A hint of "attrition warfare"..."economic warfare."
A few waves of cheap drones...when you're out of money and munitions...send the real stuff.
@@charlies40556 but there’s nothing shooting back at you.
@@ypw510 Agreed. This is the true matrix in work.
They weren't fully loaded. I believe each aircraft only carried 1 Aim-120 and 2 Aim-9
Yes that's right. I saw some pics showing the left side of a Strike Eagle and I could only see 2 Sidewinders and a single AMRAAM on one side.
Wrong. That's not a legal -1 configuration! the minimum combat loadout would be at least 2x2 120's & 9's. If they were configured for air to air, there normal loadout would be 6x120's & 2x9's and the 9's would only be there because they would have to take the tanks off to load the inboard 120's on stations 2 & 8.
@@DJ1BigTymer777 Certainly weren't 6 AIM-120 on the jet. There were: 2x AIM-120, 4x AIM9, 2 x CFT and 2 bags(EFT).
I'm guessing that the OP saw the same pic I did, but forgot the other side of the jet? For reference the pic was of "LN" jet 91-0313.
@@hoghogwild I'm 100% certain that you did not see them with 4x9's & 2x120's because again, that's not a legal -1 configuration. If you guys may be referencing a photo of a F15E loaded with training munitions. I'm speaking from real-world experience as a retired 462...F15E Weapons Troop.
@@DJ1BigTymer777 I'm speaking as an old grunt with 2 good eyeballs. I appreciate your experience and am not trying to insult it.
In flight pic deployed during the last great Houthis shoot. Lakenheath jets deployed to Djbouti early 2024 to protect Israel.The Superhornets just got outfitted with the 4x config for that deployment was a Navy push for great heater capacity in NATOPs, not a stretch to see USAF lead/follow in their -1.
Look for yourself. 2:55 mark Ward Carroll report on the USAF F-15E air-air tasking.
th-cam.com/video/Bm-C1UueNNI/w-d-xo.html
Legal or not, that specific jet was loaded as such. . 4 heaters and 2 rammers I'd appreciate any input.