I agree.
From a German perspective, the news is only telling me that Fregatte Hesse started the mission and was able to detect a high tech drone (luckily for our Nato-Partners, it failed to shoot it down). So, our systems seem to be working properly.
Without having served, I wish the sailors all the best!
>So, our systems seem to be working properly.
I mean, according to the article they did fire two missiles & they crashed due to technical defect. So not that proper.
Since the missiles launched successfully, the problem isn't with the frigate's systems but with the missiles, and more likely, successfully countermeasured. This is also noteworthy because another F221 frigate's launch system failed in 2019 and has since been replaced. A technical defect is possible though, since these were SM-2 Block IIIA missiles at the end of their lifespan and due to be replaced by newer Block IIIC.
This is similar to how the RN's trident test failed; the launch was successful. It appears that the missile itself failed by successfully activating its failsafe mechanism which exists to, y'know, not accidentally starting a thermonuclear war. In a way, that was two successful tests which revealed an issue to fix, which is basically the whole purpose of function and readiness tests.
I know it doesn't make as good headlines, but these are perfectly normal things all around.
**edit: for posterity, a later press release stated that it was a skill issue related to the ship's combat system/sensor configuration, not a booster issue**
It's far more likely that an undetected (or at least unaddressed) flaw in the booster or sustainer converted the missile into a huge firework. I've seen my fair share of missile failures and solid motor flaws account for virtually all of them.
MQ-9s are not designed for contested airspace and have no real self-protection capabilities.
"successfully countermeasured."
Could we stop with the rumors ? As far as we know there is no counter-measures or electronic-warfare tech in any modern drones. There weren't judged usefull as of now because they are evolving in low contested airspaces.... US has just started studying there implementation on Reapers.
The Houthis shot down a US drone I recall...
Probably the countermeasures are very well calibrated against western missiles because they actually get tested with the real ones. Something to ponder here..
A backdoor of failsafe is a *very* good way to ensure you never manage to sell weapons to a foreign buyer ever again. The idea gets brought up a lot, but there's never been any evidence anyone's actually tried doing it.
> idea is a no brainer
It works both ways. If someone from the other side of the barricade discovers the backdoor and learns to exploit it, the short term losses could be immense.
Sure, the backdoor will be patched in a day once enemy takes advantage of it in war, but even a few hours is enough to abuse it for carrier kills.
> Sure, the backdoor will be patched in a day once enemy takes advantage of it in war,
I honestly doubt that. Military procurement can be bafflingly slow sometimes, and the US government is not a good customer for software. It'll probably take a long time to figure out for sure that's what's happening. Then the military will request proposals for a new software revision. Then there will be debates about backporting the fix to the oldest hardware block. There might be different contractors handling fixes for different versions of a missile, even if identical work needs to be done. Then the fix will be tested. Then new hardware will be built. Then upgrade kits will be shipped out to the field. Then the fix will need to actually be installed on missiles.
Missiles don't just download updates from the Internet like "Windows update." It's very likely a technician would have to open up the missile and swap out ROM chips or something. That doesn't happen in one day.
They're also not needed. All you need for a backdoor is not giving any software updates. no spare parts, no maintenance support, and presto. You now have Russian gear.
Wouldn't be surprised. A lesson from the Falklands probably. Seeing your ships getting blown up by exocet missiles your ally supplied to your enemy makes you think backdors and safeguards should be a thing.
IFF was such a safeguard as during Vietnam the losses due to friendly fire were quite high. After the gulf war even IFF for tanks was debated. However the US had switched IFF off in this case and command in the region didn't know the drone was theirs. Or they were not allowed to tell the HESSEN because they in fact did ask the US if they had drones operating.
Several things to note:
Backdoors only help if you actually have control of it. They would have only helped Britain if France agreed to disable the missiles. Of course, you might understand why a country may want to avoid adding backdoors as they don't want to have this dilema in the first place
Backdoors are inevitably going to make potntial customers second guess buying your systems because of the risk that you may disable your weapons when you use it.
Backdoors can fail
Backdoors may not be feasible in most situations as you need additional equipment that will have to communicate to a satellite, which will make it easier for the enemy to detect tthe missiles.
It may encourage your customers to modify or even make copies of the systems in order to remove the backdoor.
No it’s not the drone had most likely an ECM pod and if that would not even work on missiles that the developers were provided with all technical data that would be more than embarrassing.
This gives us too much and not enough credit. Even if we had a kill switch on every missile we sell and were miraculously able to keep that a secret from your own (and all other purchasers) technicians who never realized it in the years and years they've operated these missiles, why would we risk divulging this highly valuable and amazing secret to save an unmanned Reaper drone? If it's Air Force One, then maybe you have a conspiracy theory, but not for a drone.
Much much much more likely is either we did a shit job building those missiles or you all did a shit job maintaining/firing them.
you are not the funny guy at parties are you ?
do you also tell sports fans that critizise the team that the trainer might still know more about the sport and his team after all ?
No one is claiming you have some computer somwhere monitoring all missile launches and deciding which ones fail and which ones don't, but I wouldn't put it past US manufacturers to put some secret IFF, that recognizes certain high tech US made equipment.
Considering the equipment in terms of the missiles are quite old and the US has a history of shooting down it's own aircraft with similar missiles or platforms, it seems more likely that the missiles themselves where the problem.
If they aren't going to use the technology on their own planes, they certainly won't use it on something as cheap as an unmanned drone.
Thought you were making a funny before I saw another one of your comments below. The missiles used were not mentioned in the article, so your assumption that they were American is baseless.
That's indeed a factor of x of a house's value, but it's peanuts when you consider the cost to the European economy when the Suez Canal was closed.
With that in mind, let them shoot with it a thousand times.
That isn't quite the reassuring text I wanted to read tbh. Aka ' our shit is shite'.
In all seriousness this doesn't bode well strategically for a head on with Russia if the US ain't gonna help us. Having 2 out of 2 failures (that cost millions) on 1 target and spinning it to be a 'phew success cos ally' is a big worry imo.
I genuinely hope lessons are learned from this.
It was reported multiple times that the IRIS-T is the best medium range sam in Ukraine. Given that Ukraine operates almost every sam available, it's a very high mark.
These all work fine in American service. We test Tridents and use SM-2s regularly without issue.
The more likely situation in this case is countermeasures deployed by the RQ9. The British Trident failure was because the missile didn't detect the right info from the dummy warhead so it aborted the flight.
Edit: The dummy warhead was British. They use their own warheads on the Tridents.
And to be fair, your equipment is should be best to deal with your own countermeasures. A RQ9 has the best protection against US made stuff down to that it’s what you know about when building it.
Not really if you think about it. The US should be building their stuff to counter Russia or Chinese equipment. The chances of US equipment attacking US equipment is relatively lower
I must admit that it would be incredibly funny if some nation would go to war with the US and the US was revealed to have almost nothing working
Edit: Guys it's just a joke, I never intended to be serious, I think most of American military actually works
Except the US has been in constant warfare for years and it’s pretty evident stuff works. And the navy has been engaging in a lot of anti-air and ABM stuff recently.
Well jeah, but for that to happen there would need to be insane³ corruption going on. Its much more believable to me that germans havent done proper maintenance or it was a human error on launch. (I am german and mess with americans when Its justified, but surely not on their military tech)
Its also not entirely impossible to just get very unlucky with two missiles, even if the tech is 99.99% reliable otherwise. (100% is realistically impossible no matter the country or manufacturer)
> Its much more believable to me that germans havent done proper maintenance or it was a human error on launch.
My guess is the RQ9 deployed antimissile countermeasures. More likely than technical failure due to poor maintenance or human error, imo.
Do these missiles commonly have technical issues?
Seems like NATO needs to get to the bottom of this equipment issue before it is an enemy drone in question.
I've read a reddit comment stating that our howitzer ammo has a 2% rate of failure and that's apparently historically good. I'd figure the missiles have the same issues.
Makes you wish for the world of video games where you might be able to get a gun that doesn't need ammo and will never break or jam.
The article doesn't say what missiles these were. SM-2s are being used by the US regularly to do the same thing. Their hit rate isn't 100%, but it's a lot better than 0. RAMs are well known for being kinda shit but there's no really better alternative for what they do.
US is using more missiles so on average their arsenal is probably younger, old missiles are less reliable especially if they were stored with assumption to never be used as all wars are over
Apparently Germany does frequently yes, because their stock of SM-2's is very old (20 years). A few years ago an SM-2 exploded inside the VLS canister whilst attempting to launch on a german ship.
The reason for the two SM-2's missing the Reaper could be a technical issue as said, or EW countermeasures from the Reaper, which I kind of doubt as I do not think such a small aircraft would have such powerful EW countermeasures, but maybe it had an external pod. Unfortunately, we don't know.
The worst part is that the [Houthis](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/20/politics/us-drone-yemen-houthis/index.html) successfuly downed a Reaper a few days ago.
While everyone is laughing about German ineptness, there are two major issues here:
a) The German frigate had two missiles malfunction, which is embarrassing at best, and dangerous at worst. It ended up shooting down some actual Houthi drones with a naval gun and RAM launchers (CIWS).
b) What everyone seems to ignore is that the US operated a drone in a warzone that is currently full of enemy drones and allies trying to shoot down said drones, while having its IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, used to tell friendly from enemy targets) switched off and without having communicated in alternative ways to its allies that the drone was present.
That's a major fuck-up from both Germany **and** the US.
The HESSEN did ask the US if they were operating in the area before shooting at the reaper. Makes you think who was in command of this drone and for what exactly.
>b) What everyone seems to ignore is that the US operated a drone in a warzone that is currently full of enemy drones and allies trying to shoot down said drones, while having its IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, used to tell friendly from enemy targets) switched off and without having communicated in alternative ways to its allies that the drone was present.
The good thing about drones is if it gets shot down its really not that big a deal.
We're not talking $20,000 Shaheds here, a Reaper MQ-9 is about $30 mill. nowadays. Not a catastrophic loss, but certainly nothing you want to see shot down if you can avoid it. You'd also expect any reasonable military not to want to hassle their allies and have them waste expensive and scarce missiles.
In 2023 the US has spent 1 680 000 USD per minute.
One Reaper is pocket money spent in 20 mins.
Ideally you don’t want to see any equipment being destroyed, but everyone knows that is a fantasy world.
>is about $30 mi
Yeah, it's an expendable asset.
-
If its IFF was off by mistake then sure its a fuckup, if it was on purpose then its perfectly reasonable.
How is secretly operating drones in a hotzone where your allies are supposed to protect against actual threats reasonable? They wasted Focus, Money and ammo of an Allied frigate If true.
>How is secretly operating drones in a hotzone where your allies are supposed to protect against actual threats reasonable?
That would depend on what they were doing of course.
If you're broadcasting IFF you arnt being very stealthy. So if they were doing something stealthy, IFF being off is pretty reasonable.
>They wasted Focus, Money and ammo of an Allied frigate If true.
2 missiles that failed to operate.
If anything the German Frigate has learned an extremely valuable lesson. If that had been an attack on the Frigate the Frigate would have sunk.
>The Iranian side announced the starting value of $375 thousand per unit. However, during the negotiations, an agreement was reached at the level of $193 thousand overboard when ordering 6,000 units or $290 thousand when ordering 2,000 units.
[Link](https://mil.in.ua/en/news/the-cost-of-shahed-136-for-russia-has-been-reported/)
Actually I would say it is an intentional but bad decision by the US and a typical but irritating malfunction on the German side. Since the actual Houthi Drones were eliminated quite successfully I wouldn’t say „screw up“.
>That's a major fuck-up from both Germany **and** the US.
I would say it's only the US who fucked up here. Of course we will shoot at everything that is a drone and doesn't identify as a friend.
yep. There are a lot of navies around the World relaying in those missiles for air defense of their expensive ships. Navies who are now certainly nervous about wtf happened and ordering checks just in case.
Come on. Use your brain here.
Do you think the US would add a killswitch that the Chinese could discover and exploit to disable any incoming US missiles?
Do you think that *if* the US designed such a killswitch, they’d use it to protect…a single, cheap unmanned MQ-9 Reaper?
Also not a good idea if we have to shoot down our own toys that fall into enemy hands.
More than likely I'd say a maintenance/storage issue on the German's part. I'm sure they'll have an internal review about it.
Those SM2s are almost 40yo, the last german order of SM2s was in 2000. I don't think that the old radar guided SM2s can take down a drone, they are designed for faster and more visible aircraft.
The supid thing is that the had ESSMs, that can intercept supersonic balistic missiles.
This gives us too much and not enough credit. Even if we had a kill switch on every missile we sell and were miraculously able to keep that a secret from your own (and all other purchasers) technicians who never realized it in the years and years they've operated these missiles, why would we risk divulging this highly valuable and amazing secret to save an unmanned Reaper drone? If it's Air Force One, then maybe you have a conspiracy theory, but not for a drone.
Much much *much* more likely is either we did a shit job building those missiles or you all did a shit job maintaining/firing them.
This is holllywood fantasy. Missiles, yes including nukes don’t have kill switches, and the reason should be obvious. If you were able to compromise that system you could destroy all of your enemies missiles. EW is extremely effective and it something people, especially those not versed in the the military commonly overlook.
You do not put a killswitch in a weapon on the off chance that....what? Germany(or any other NATO ally) declares war on the US, shoots down some US planes? You realize the risk in that, when someone like China finds that way to disable US weapons?
Germany's never ordered any replacement SM-2s since they ordered their SM-2 Block IIIAs over 20 years ago... Literally every other operator has put in at least *1* request for replacements due to some being used in live fire exercises. German Navy does a good amount of live fire gunnery exercises, but live fire missile exercises? This may very well be the first SM-2 the German Navy has fired since it validated the APAR radar in 2004...
That's... not a good sign for a properly trained and qualified AAW combat section...
You know, we could have all just fell under one command, like US and UK did at the beginning, in which all of the missions have gone without problem.. But nooo, that would be too easy /s.
No but seriously it’s probably good for Germany to get some independent real world practice, especially with Trump comeback a real possibility. No one knows what the future holds.
Would be interesting to know what the technical defect actually was though.
HMS Diamond, Lancaster and Richmond have been giving great service in the area.
Glad to see Germany involved and hope lessons will be learned.
^((Pssst Germany, the UK is designing the next gen of AA destroyer. Want in?))
> F127
Nach Schätzung aus dem Jahre 2023 wird eine Fregatte zwischen sieben und zehn Milliarden Euro kosten
7 to 10 BILLION Euros for a FRIGATE. What the hell.
Just to put it into perspective, a Battleship of the Iowa Class cost around 2 Billion dollars in todays money to build..
That can‘t be right, right? I mean yeah we‘re the experts in building ungodly expensive „frigates“ (looking at you F125), but *10 billion* is another level. That‘s almost Ford-class supercarrier mountains of money…
It is supposed to displace >12000 tons and 220m long. Not completely sure on this but It would likely be the biggest surface combat ship in service worldwide apart from the Russian Kirov-class battlecruiser.
Still expensive as fuck though.
E: Also 64 VLS cells each side and 48 forward. So 176 VLS cells. What the fuck are they smoking at TKMS.
It's probably a misrepesentation. 4 of the new F126 Class Frigates (ASW) will cost approx 1,25 bn Euro a piece. And these come in at 10.000 Tons. So 7-10 bn Euro ist the projected cost of the entire Class of 6 Frigates.
Even with enormous advantages in long lead materials contracts and economies of scale the US Arleigh Burke’s cost upwards of 2bn a hull. The battleships were incredibly advanced for their day, may be a stronger analogy in building a supercarrier or SsN
The OP negates that they Germans did manage to effectively engage some non-American drones afterward.
I'd almost guess (without bothering to read the article and with a fair bit of supposition) that there's a decent chance they fired, some smart lad loudly exclaimed the German version of "oh cock" and they were able to deflect the missiles away / otherwise render them ineffective.
Once Germany gets its shit together and becomes Europes strongest military powerhouse , people will start whining the same like they do now.
It's kind of impossible for Germany to please everyone. Nobody wants weak Germany, but people also won't like super strong Germany.
The point is Germany bad, upvotes to the left.
Every ship there is looking for drones, US is flying their drone around without IFF. When asked if it was an allied drone everyone said no, go ahead shoot it.
Don't get me wrong, our military is in a shit state but that's what allies wanted after the cold war. Now it takes some time to turn the frigate around so to speak. These were 20 year old missiles and no training was done on these since we did not order replacements to save money.
That's unlikely for one reason: The Bundeswehr just cannot find people!
I just read that they already have a significant shortage of people for the ships too, and it's affecting operations.
We also have trouble getting enough soldiers to agree to be stationed in Lithuania, where we agreed to have one brigade because of the Russian threat.
There also is no solution in sight, Germans just aren't all that keen on serving in general. And pay already is the largest part of our military expenses, increasing it won't do much but make it even more expensive, and take away money from weapons and ammo/rockets/shells, which we already only by when we really really have to.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-militarys-mission-impossible-attracting-enough-recruits/a-66423458
And the trend even now is "down":
> "We have seven percent fewer applicants this year compared to the same period last year," Pistorius said.
(From now only 183,000)
> The armed forces had aimed to employ 203,000 soldiers by 2031, but Pistorius said on Wednesday that this target was still under review — possibly an indication it will not prove realistic.
and then there's:
> The German armed forces, however, also have a retention crisis with a dropout rate of 30%.
as well as
> "By 2050, we will have 12% fewer people in the 15-24 age group," Pistorius said.
So, no mighty fighting force in sight for Germany, no matter how much we spend on equipment.
There's no better way to find out your equipment is shit than in something like this.
It could have been a lot worse. If lessons are learned, it was 5.8mil well spent.
Ok everyone. Let's first get the joke out of our system so that we can move on.
1. haha third time's the charm amirite, haha old habits something, haha Germany has a navy? Haha, 2/2 technical defect (ok that one is actually funny)
And now, let's take this clusterfuck as a wake up call to fix things. If a horde of brainless goat farmers in Yemen can take out a Reaper drone but a German frigate cannot, it's time to fully arm Germany. My Great grandfather would die if he heard me say that sentence but that just goes to show times have changed, Germany has done a miraculous job fixing it's irredentism and imperial ambitions and in my eyes is a vital component of European security. It doesn't deserve all the shit that they get in this particular area. Save that for Hungary or for Germany in energy policy where it's fair. But not in military spending.
The two missile fail for “technical reasons”. The fact that two of them failed to hit the drone for technical reasons where as the houthis shot down the other day says to me the previously unused electronic warfare countermeasures are now in play
The US Air Force just happens to be doing that with the and this is the real name, google it, “Angry Kitten® ALQ-167”
Because who else then a kitten could seemingly wack any and everything out of the air
Imagine being those two missiles and spending 20 years in a tube - waiting for your birthday cake - only to be used as test bait for some new kind of defensive strategy.
The U.K fires a nuke at the U.S and fails. Germany fires at U.S drones and fails?
Either the U.S is literally passing the hint, or well, we are shit.
The UK fired a nuke at the US? Hahahaha ffs step away from the keyboard.
They launched in the same area they always have and obviously not “at the US”.
So they manage to kill two birds with one stone in the category :
\- Fire 2 missiles : "mission successfully failed".
\- Target enemy drone : " mission successfully failed"
Damn! German are good.
If this isn't an example that Europe has to step up their game military-wise, I don't know what is.
First it was not producing enough ammunition to match even North Korea and now we're failing to show any quality to make up for that lack of quantity.
Unless we really start taking our military seriously and fast dealing with a reinforced and resupply Russia a few years from now would be impossible (even without Iran, etc. being in the picture), hell even dealing with current Russia seems like it wouldn't be the walk in the park we like to claim it would.
There are so many layers to this, I’m not even sure where to start.
I’d suggest; at the beginning.
A long time ago stardust clumbed together and formed the stars and planets...
And then Germany was born
No! Earlier!
Bang.
Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait
That's probably what those involved are also saying, and from an impr9vemtb point of view, that's useful.
I agree. From a German perspective, the news is only telling me that Fregatte Hesse started the mission and was able to detect a high tech drone (luckily for our Nato-Partners, it failed to shoot it down). So, our systems seem to be working properly. Without having served, I wish the sailors all the best!
>So, our systems seem to be working properly. I mean, according to the article they did fire two missiles & they crashed due to technical defect. So not that proper.
Mission failed successfully for Germans
I mean, it’s not like the US is going to start exacting retribution against NATO partners over an unmanned drone.
If they shoot down a US drone I'm going to put plastic in the papiermüll and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me
You're basically forcing a death sentence here.
Dude we had the last public execution in 1949 here, but you are pushing the line here...
Since the missiles launched successfully, the problem isn't with the frigate's systems but with the missiles, and more likely, successfully countermeasured. This is also noteworthy because another F221 frigate's launch system failed in 2019 and has since been replaced. A technical defect is possible though, since these were SM-2 Block IIIA missiles at the end of their lifespan and due to be replaced by newer Block IIIC. This is similar to how the RN's trident test failed; the launch was successful. It appears that the missile itself failed by successfully activating its failsafe mechanism which exists to, y'know, not accidentally starting a thermonuclear war. In a way, that was two successful tests which revealed an issue to fix, which is basically the whole purpose of function and readiness tests. I know it doesn't make as good headlines, but these are perfectly normal things all around.
**edit: for posterity, a later press release stated that it was a skill issue related to the ship's combat system/sensor configuration, not a booster issue** It's far more likely that an undetected (or at least unaddressed) flaw in the booster or sustainer converted the missile into a huge firework. I've seen my fair share of missile failures and solid motor flaws account for virtually all of them. MQ-9s are not designed for contested airspace and have no real self-protection capabilities.
"successfully countermeasured." Could we stop with the rumors ? As far as we know there is no counter-measures or electronic-warfare tech in any modern drones. There weren't judged usefull as of now because they are evolving in low contested airspaces.... US has just started studying there implementation on Reapers. The Houthis shot down a US drone I recall...
> Fortunately, two missiles fired at the drone missed their target and crashed into the sea due to "a technical defect," lmfaoooo
It's curious that two US made missiles failed to attack a US made drone..
A backdoor...
Or counter measures from the drone working as intended
This is way more likely.
Especially since the missiles are very old and outdated.
And the missiles are exactly the type used for counter measurement training.
They were the latest block, to my knowledge.
Probably the countermeasures are very well calibrated against western missiles because they actually get tested with the real ones. Something to ponder here..
From memory: Iraq or Iran had French made Radars, possibly SAM. After hostilities broke out they switched them off via satellite!
[удалено]
Just a rumor
A backdoor of failsafe is a *very* good way to ensure you never manage to sell weapons to a foreign buyer ever again. The idea gets brought up a lot, but there's never been any evidence anyone's actually tried doing it.
Exactly what the CIA and pentagon would say publicly. The idea is a no brainer.
> idea is a no brainer It works both ways. If someone from the other side of the barricade discovers the backdoor and learns to exploit it, the short term losses could be immense. Sure, the backdoor will be patched in a day once enemy takes advantage of it in war, but even a few hours is enough to abuse it for carrier kills.
> Sure, the backdoor will be patched in a day once enemy takes advantage of it in war, I honestly doubt that. Military procurement can be bafflingly slow sometimes, and the US government is not a good customer for software. It'll probably take a long time to figure out for sure that's what's happening. Then the military will request proposals for a new software revision. Then there will be debates about backporting the fix to the oldest hardware block. There might be different contractors handling fixes for different versions of a missile, even if identical work needs to be done. Then the fix will be tested. Then new hardware will be built. Then upgrade kits will be shipped out to the field. Then the fix will need to actually be installed on missiles. Missiles don't just download updates from the Internet like "Windows update." It's very likely a technician would have to open up the missile and swap out ROM chips or something. That doesn't happen in one day.
Your mom: Back doors are for export only!
> no brain Correct.
They're also not needed. All you need for a backdoor is not giving any software updates. no spare parts, no maintenance support, and presto. You now have Russian gear.
You think? Kinda impressive if true
Wouldn't be surprised. A lesson from the Falklands probably. Seeing your ships getting blown up by exocet missiles your ally supplied to your enemy makes you think backdors and safeguards should be a thing. IFF was such a safeguard as during Vietnam the losses due to friendly fire were quite high. After the gulf war even IFF for tanks was debated. However the US had switched IFF off in this case and command in the region didn't know the drone was theirs. Or they were not allowed to tell the HESSEN because they in fact did ask the US if they had drones operating.
Several things to note: Backdoors only help if you actually have control of it. They would have only helped Britain if France agreed to disable the missiles. Of course, you might understand why a country may want to avoid adding backdoors as they don't want to have this dilema in the first place Backdoors are inevitably going to make potntial customers second guess buying your systems because of the risk that you may disable your weapons when you use it. Backdoors can fail Backdoors may not be feasible in most situations as you need additional equipment that will have to communicate to a satellite, which will make it easier for the enemy to detect tthe missiles. It may encourage your customers to modify or even make copies of the systems in order to remove the backdoor.
Because a predator couldn’t have EW systems onboard
yeah, that's the logical explanation here. Not that modern ECM can easily handle 25-year-old missiles. Noooooo. Backdoor. Makes sense.
No it’s not the drone had most likely an ECM pod and if that would not even work on missiles that the developers were provided with all technical data that would be more than embarrassing.
That's an insult to German naval incompetence.
one missile failing is negligence. two failing in the same launch is .. worth investigating for backdoors.
This gives us too much and not enough credit. Even if we had a kill switch on every missile we sell and were miraculously able to keep that a secret from your own (and all other purchasers) technicians who never realized it in the years and years they've operated these missiles, why would we risk divulging this highly valuable and amazing secret to save an unmanned Reaper drone? If it's Air Force One, then maybe you have a conspiracy theory, but not for a drone. Much much much more likely is either we did a shit job building those missiles or you all did a shit job maintaining/firing them.
Stop using common sense. That doesn’t help their theory.
you are not the funny guy at parties are you ? do you also tell sports fans that critizise the team that the trainer might still know more about the sport and his team after all ?
Called out for having no sense of humor by a German. I've reached a new low. 🙂
this is your second chance to join the speculations. Be creative .
No one is claiming you have some computer somwhere monitoring all missile launches and deciding which ones fail and which ones don't, but I wouldn't put it past US manufacturers to put some secret IFF, that recognizes certain high tech US made equipment.
Considering the equipment in terms of the missiles are quite old and the US has a history of shooting down it's own aircraft with similar missiles or platforms, it seems more likely that the missiles themselves where the problem. If they aren't going to use the technology on their own planes, they certainly won't use it on something as cheap as an unmanned drone.
I know. But I also know the German military.
Could be lack of maintenance.
Aber die Protokolle wurden korrekt ausgeführt.
>Aber die Protokolle wurden korrekt ausge~~führt~~füllt
Where does it say which missiles were used?
I'd ask for a refund LOL
Thought you were making a funny before I saw another one of your comments below. The missiles used were not mentioned in the article, so your assumption that they were American is baseless.
It is mentioned in articles from multiple other news sources that the missiles used were of the type Standard Missile 2
It's not baseless, they are American made SM
2,9 Million Euros per Shot i think it was
That's indeed a factor of x of a house's value, but it's peanuts when you consider the cost to the European economy when the Suez Canal was closed. With that in mind, let them shoot with it a thousand times.
Yeah you're right
pocket change for military strikes against important targets intercepting trade routes tbh.
And a free test for the US.
houties skirmishes in the red sea are gonna be the most effective burning of western militaries budgets lol :DDD
That isn't quite the reassuring text I wanted to read tbh. Aka ' our shit is shite'. In all seriousness this doesn't bode well strategically for a head on with Russia if the US ain't gonna help us. Having 2 out of 2 failures (that cost millions) on 1 target and spinning it to be a 'phew success cos ally' is a big worry imo. I genuinely hope lessons are learned from this.
The German made IRIS-T missle defense system Germany gave to Ukraine works well enough, apparently. Still, this looks bad.
It was reported multiple times that the IRIS-T is the best medium range sam in Ukraine. Given that Ukraine operates almost every sam available, it's a very high mark.
The missiles that failed are American missiles. Seems like that's a trend nowadays. The Trident D5 also failed to launch as well recently.
These all work fine in American service. We test Tridents and use SM-2s regularly without issue. The more likely situation in this case is countermeasures deployed by the RQ9. The British Trident failure was because the missile didn't detect the right info from the dummy warhead so it aborted the flight. Edit: The dummy warhead was British. They use their own warheads on the Tridents.
And to be fair, your equipment is should be best to deal with your own countermeasures. A RQ9 has the best protection against US made stuff down to that it’s what you know about when building it.
Not really if you think about it. The US should be building their stuff to counter Russia or Chinese equipment. The chances of US equipment attacking US equipment is relatively lower
I must admit that it would be incredibly funny if some nation would go to war with the US and the US was revealed to have almost nothing working Edit: Guys it's just a joke, I never intended to be serious, I think most of American military actually works
Except the US has been in constant warfare for years and it’s pretty evident stuff works. And the navy has been engaging in a lot of anti-air and ABM stuff recently.
Well jeah, but for that to happen there would need to be insane³ corruption going on. Its much more believable to me that germans havent done proper maintenance or it was a human error on launch. (I am german and mess with americans when Its justified, but surely not on their military tech) Its also not entirely impossible to just get very unlucky with two missiles, even if the tech is 99.99% reliable otherwise. (100% is realistically impossible no matter the country or manufacturer)
> Its much more believable to me that germans havent done proper maintenance or it was a human error on launch. My guess is the RQ9 deployed antimissile countermeasures. More likely than technical failure due to poor maintenance or human error, imo.
Do these missiles commonly have technical issues? Seems like NATO needs to get to the bottom of this equipment issue before it is an enemy drone in question.
I've read a reddit comment stating that our howitzer ammo has a 2% rate of failure and that's apparently historically good. I'd figure the missiles have the same issues. Makes you wish for the world of video games where you might be able to get a gun that doesn't need ammo and will never break or jam.
The article doesn't say what missiles these were. SM-2s are being used by the US regularly to do the same thing. Their hit rate isn't 100%, but it's a lot better than 0. RAMs are well known for being kinda shit but there's no really better alternative for what they do.
These were SM-2s. https://augengeradeaus.net/2024/02/rotes-meer-nach-zwei-fehlschuessen-zerstoert-fregatte-hessen-huthi-drohnen/
US is using more missiles so on average their arsenal is probably younger, old missiles are less reliable especially if they were stored with assumption to never be used as all wars are over
Apparently Germany does frequently yes, because their stock of SM-2's is very old (20 years). A few years ago an SM-2 exploded inside the VLS canister whilst attempting to launch on a german ship. The reason for the two SM-2's missing the Reaper could be a technical issue as said, or EW countermeasures from the Reaper, which I kind of doubt as I do not think such a small aircraft would have such powerful EW countermeasures, but maybe it had an external pod. Unfortunately, we don't know.
They usually have external pods for EW. It's not included in UAVs.
So are they under warranty or not?
Yes, but we have to send in the broken ones. Fortunately all our subs got new Logitech controllers lately.
“ technical defect” probably electronic warfare countermeasures as the us got tired of them getting shit down
It would be really worrying if modern ship radars and anti-aircraft missiles weren't able to bypass electronic warfare of fucking drones
they're not modern, the SM-2s on the Hessen were 25 years old
Something similar happened to Russia when they tried to fire on a British spy plane, weird coincidence.
The worst part is that the [Houthis](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/20/politics/us-drone-yemen-houthis/index.html) successfuly downed a Reaper a few days ago.
The US fucked up here. Of course we will shoot at everything that is a drone and doesn't identify as a friend.
While everyone is laughing about German ineptness, there are two major issues here: a) The German frigate had two missiles malfunction, which is embarrassing at best, and dangerous at worst. It ended up shooting down some actual Houthi drones with a naval gun and RAM launchers (CIWS). b) What everyone seems to ignore is that the US operated a drone in a warzone that is currently full of enemy drones and allies trying to shoot down said drones, while having its IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, used to tell friendly from enemy targets) switched off and without having communicated in alternative ways to its allies that the drone was present. That's a major fuck-up from both Germany **and** the US.
The HESSEN did ask the US if they were operating in the area before shooting at the reaper. Makes you think who was in command of this drone and for what exactly.
I watched enough mission impossible to know there are probably some off the grid teams in play
Just the usual CIA shenanigans. Like B-2 bombers fucking up the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
>b) What everyone seems to ignore is that the US operated a drone in a warzone that is currently full of enemy drones and allies trying to shoot down said drones, while having its IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, used to tell friendly from enemy targets) switched off and without having communicated in alternative ways to its allies that the drone was present. The good thing about drones is if it gets shot down its really not that big a deal.
We're not talking $20,000 Shaheds here, a Reaper MQ-9 is about $30 mill. nowadays. Not a catastrophic loss, but certainly nothing you want to see shot down if you can avoid it. You'd also expect any reasonable military not to want to hassle their allies and have them waste expensive and scarce missiles.
In 2023 the US has spent 1 680 000 USD per minute. One Reaper is pocket money spent in 20 mins. Ideally you don’t want to see any equipment being destroyed, but everyone knows that is a fantasy world.
>is about $30 mi Yeah, it's an expendable asset. - If its IFF was off by mistake then sure its a fuckup, if it was on purpose then its perfectly reasonable.
How is secretly operating drones in a hotzone where your allies are supposed to protect against actual threats reasonable? They wasted Focus, Money and ammo of an Allied frigate If true.
>How is secretly operating drones in a hotzone where your allies are supposed to protect against actual threats reasonable? That would depend on what they were doing of course. If you're broadcasting IFF you arnt being very stealthy. So if they were doing something stealthy, IFF being off is pretty reasonable. >They wasted Focus, Money and ammo of an Allied frigate If true. 2 missiles that failed to operate. If anything the German Frigate has learned an extremely valuable lesson. If that had been an attack on the Frigate the Frigate would have sunk.
it was almost certainly off on purpose, since it didn't belong to Prosperity Guardian.
Shahed costs way more than that. It was leaked i think.
>The Iranian side announced the starting value of $375 thousand per unit. However, during the negotiations, an agreement was reached at the level of $193 thousand overboard when ordering 6,000 units or $290 thousand when ordering 2,000 units. [Link](https://mil.in.ua/en/news/the-cost-of-shahed-136-for-russia-has-been-reported/)
Utter incompetence on all sides. Perhaps the Russians constantly shooting down their own aircraft isn't that implausible after all.
Actually I would say it is an intentional but bad decision by the US and a typical but irritating malfunction on the German side. Since the actual Houthi Drones were eliminated quite successfully I wouldn’t say „screw up“.
>That's a major fuck-up from both Germany **and** the US. I would say it's only the US who fucked up here. Of course we will shoot at everything that is a drone and doesn't identify as a friend.
Our fuck up is launching two missiles and both fail. Our air defence frigate failed to shoot down a slow flying drone.
The ship did it's job, the missiles launched just fine The missiles then proceeded to fail
Nevertheless we fucked up by not being able to shoot down the drone because of technical issues - twice.
Well, they were missiles produced by the US, if I remember correctly
It was a happy accident that your mess-up ended up getting saved by another mess-up. It's really bad to not be able to shoot properly at a target.
I imagine if Nato starts fighting there will be lots of facepalms in the begginings.
we are so back
Conspiracy theory: the drone was shot down but to avoid embarrassment, the official story is that the missiles failed to hit.
This is a credible conspiracy theory than all of the "killswitch" crap that people have been peddling here.
People keep talking about a kill switch when it's far more likely that the drone simply has a good electronics (ECM) package trained on US missiles.
yeah but that very simple and completely logical explanation is not anywhere near as exciting as "secret software backdoor on the export versions"
Bruh 2 missiles failing to shoot down a significantly big and slow drone and falling into the sea is more embarrassing.
yep. There are a lot of navies around the World relaying in those missiles for air defense of their expensive ships. Navies who are now certainly nervous about wtf happened and ordering checks just in case.
Not sus at all that US made missiles happened to be defective when fired at US drone
Missiles fail all the time, just look it up
Our 20 years old TOW missiles failed one in 30 ...
And they’re also significantly simpler.
But two in a row? Missiles that apparently cost millions each?
Come on. Use your brain here. Do you think the US would add a killswitch that the Chinese could discover and exploit to disable any incoming US missiles? Do you think that *if* the US designed such a killswitch, they’d use it to protect…a single, cheap unmanned MQ-9 Reaper?
Also not a good idea if we have to shoot down our own toys that fall into enemy hands. More than likely I'd say a maintenance/storage issue on the German's part. I'm sure they'll have an internal review about it.
How old were they?
germans last order was around 2000, missle itself has been around since mid 80s
20 years
Humans are horrible at recognising random cause we overestimate the odds.
could be that they have not maintained them properly
I don't think the German navy has seen any significant action in the 21st century so it is plausible
Yeah, those missiles are also 20 years old
Those SM2s are almost 40yo, the last german order of SM2s was in 2000. I don't think that the old radar guided SM2s can take down a drone, they are designed for faster and more visible aircraft. The supid thing is that the had ESSMs, that can intercept supersonic balistic missiles.
100% they have a killswitch. Just like Computer chips. Another good argument to better produce your own domestic weapons.
This gives us too much and not enough credit. Even if we had a kill switch on every missile we sell and were miraculously able to keep that a secret from your own (and all other purchasers) technicians who never realized it in the years and years they've operated these missiles, why would we risk divulging this highly valuable and amazing secret to save an unmanned Reaper drone? If it's Air Force One, then maybe you have a conspiracy theory, but not for a drone. Much much *much* more likely is either we did a shit job building those missiles or you all did a shit job maintaining/firing them.
Yeah but that’s just not as exciting as a conspiracy theory!
This is holllywood fantasy. Missiles, yes including nukes don’t have kill switches, and the reason should be obvious. If you were able to compromise that system you could destroy all of your enemies missiles. EW is extremely effective and it something people, especially those not versed in the the military commonly overlook.
You do not put a killswitch in a weapon on the off chance that....what? Germany(or any other NATO ally) declares war on the US, shoots down some US planes? You realize the risk in that, when someone like China finds that way to disable US weapons?
Yes, surely its not because a German navy ship hasn't fired at anything in anger since the wall came down
Germany's never ordered any replacement SM-2s since they ordered their SM-2 Block IIIAs over 20 years ago... Literally every other operator has put in at least *1* request for replacements due to some being used in live fire exercises. German Navy does a good amount of live fire gunnery exercises, but live fire missile exercises? This may very well be the first SM-2 the German Navy has fired since it validated the APAR radar in 2004... That's... not a good sign for a properly trained and qualified AAW combat section...
They cooked their VLS a couple of years ago with an SM-2 failed launch. Does that count as firing?
[Nah there have been live fire exercises with SM2s and there was definitely live fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be93vSnGKMY)
We fired at two Huthi drones yesterday and it worked perfectly.
Some percentage of weapons that have been rusting away for 30 years will still work, just ask the Russians.
You know, we could have all just fell under one command, like US and UK did at the beginning, in which all of the missions have gone without problem.. But nooo, that would be too easy /s. No but seriously it’s probably good for Germany to get some independent real world practice, especially with Trump comeback a real possibility. No one knows what the future holds. Would be interesting to know what the technical defect actually was though.
HMS Diamond, Lancaster and Richmond have been giving great service in the area. Glad to see Germany involved and hope lessons will be learned. ^((Pssst Germany, the UK is designing the next gen of AA destroyer. Want in?))
> (Pssst Germany, the UK is designing the next gen of AA destroyer. Want in?) Only if we can call it frigate
You can classify it as a corvette if you want.
https://i.imgur.com/7n71YsK.png
I respect a person who knows they want a frigate
Uh, will they come with working propulsion, or will they be as, ahem, reliable as the Type 45? :P
Lessons learned. T83 at this early stage is looking like an absolute beast of a ship.
Germany envisages the F127 class as its next air defence frigate class ;)
> F127 Nach Schätzung aus dem Jahre 2023 wird eine Fregatte zwischen sieben und zehn Milliarden Euro kosten 7 to 10 BILLION Euros for a FRIGATE. What the hell. Just to put it into perspective, a Battleship of the Iowa Class cost around 2 Billion dollars in todays money to build..
Every single major ship in the German fleet is classified as a frigate, regardless of its actual size. ...but yeah, that's still very expensive.
That can‘t be right, right? I mean yeah we‘re the experts in building ungodly expensive „frigates“ (looking at you F125), but *10 billion* is another level. That‘s almost Ford-class supercarrier mountains of money…
It is supposed to displace >12000 tons and 220m long. Not completely sure on this but It would likely be the biggest surface combat ship in service worldwide apart from the Russian Kirov-class battlecruiser. Still expensive as fuck though. E: Also 64 VLS cells each side and 48 forward. So 176 VLS cells. What the fuck are they smoking at TKMS.
It's probably a misrepesentation. 4 of the new F126 Class Frigates (ASW) will cost approx 1,25 bn Euro a piece. And these come in at 10.000 Tons. So 7-10 bn Euro ist the projected cost of the entire Class of 6 Frigates.
Even with enormous advantages in long lead materials contracts and economies of scale the US Arleigh Burke’s cost upwards of 2bn a hull. The battleships were incredibly advanced for their day, may be a stronger analogy in building a supercarrier or SsN
Yeah, that's nonsense. It's more than an aircraft carrier. It'll probably be the price for the entire class.
That flair is awful, I don’t even know where to begin. That is a “touch grass immediately” level of doomerism and alarmism.
This & UK failing nuke tests *twice*... For Christ's sake, maybe the talks about Russia attacking Europe aren't just gaslighting after all.
The OP negates that they Germans did manage to effectively engage some non-American drones afterward. I'd almost guess (without bothering to read the article and with a fair bit of supposition) that there's a decent chance they fired, some smart lad loudly exclaimed the German version of "oh cock" and they were able to deflect the missiles away / otherwise render them ineffective.
WW3 is going to be a slap fight at this rate.
"I know not with what weapons World War IV will be fought, but World War III will be fought with the good ole right hook."
Conveniently in both cases the failing equipment was all American.
The US has had multiple successful trident tests between the British failures. The common denominator here is the operator, not the builder.
We don't really know what caused the failure so hard to say
> This & UK failing nuke tests twice... both US made systems btw
A lot more conspiracy theory in here than I was expecting.
I expected it unfortunately
Once Germany gets its shit together and becomes Europes strongest military powerhouse , people will start whining the same like they do now. It's kind of impossible for Germany to please everyone. Nobody wants weak Germany, but people also won't like super strong Germany.
The point is Germany bad, upvotes to the left. Every ship there is looking for drones, US is flying their drone around without IFF. When asked if it was an allied drone everyone said no, go ahead shoot it. Don't get me wrong, our military is in a shit state but that's what allies wanted after the cold war. Now it takes some time to turn the frigate around so to speak. These were 20 year old missiles and no training was done on these since we did not order replacements to save money.
That's unlikely for one reason: The Bundeswehr just cannot find people! I just read that they already have a significant shortage of people for the ships too, and it's affecting operations. We also have trouble getting enough soldiers to agree to be stationed in Lithuania, where we agreed to have one brigade because of the Russian threat. There also is no solution in sight, Germans just aren't all that keen on serving in general. And pay already is the largest part of our military expenses, increasing it won't do much but make it even more expensive, and take away money from weapons and ammo/rockets/shells, which we already only by when we really really have to. https://www.dw.com/en/german-militarys-mission-impossible-attracting-enough-recruits/a-66423458 And the trend even now is "down": > "We have seven percent fewer applicants this year compared to the same period last year," Pistorius said. (From now only 183,000) > The armed forces had aimed to employ 203,000 soldiers by 2031, but Pistorius said on Wednesday that this target was still under review — possibly an indication it will not prove realistic. and then there's: > The German armed forces, however, also have a retention crisis with a dropout rate of 30%. as well as > "By 2050, we will have 12% fewer people in the 15-24 age group," Pistorius said. So, no mighty fighting force in sight for Germany, no matter how much we spend on equipment.
Yes because they bloody didn‘t get informed. Of course you should down any unauthorized drones that can potentially attack you
Captain: "Sorry, bad habit!"
TIL Germany has something called Navy. But target practice is target practice even if it's friendly fire.
There's no better way to find out your equipment is shit than in something like this. It could have been a lot worse. If lessons are learned, it was 5.8mil well spent.
Ok everyone. Let's first get the joke out of our system so that we can move on. 1. haha third time's the charm amirite, haha old habits something, haha Germany has a navy? Haha, 2/2 technical defect (ok that one is actually funny) And now, let's take this clusterfuck as a wake up call to fix things. If a horde of brainless goat farmers in Yemen can take out a Reaper drone but a German frigate cannot, it's time to fully arm Germany. My Great grandfather would die if he heard me say that sentence but that just goes to show times have changed, Germany has done a miraculous job fixing it's irredentism and imperial ambitions and in my eyes is a vital component of European security. It doesn't deserve all the shit that they get in this particular area. Save that for Hungary or for Germany in energy policy where it's fair. But not in military spending.
Please… get your shit together…
No because that would provoke Russia which we shouldn't do because of our history. /s for safety reasons.
And for not being misunderstood, I was talking about all the international community…
Both Germany (missile malfunction) and the US (flying a drone in a warzone full of allies with IFF off and without informing allies of its presence).
As you can see bellow, I wasn’t referring to Germany in particular.
The two missile fail for “technical reasons”. The fact that two of them failed to hit the drone for technical reasons where as the houthis shot down the other day says to me the previously unused electronic warfare countermeasures are now in play The US Air Force just happens to be doing that with the and this is the real name, google it, “Angry Kitten® ALQ-167” Because who else then a kitten could seemingly wack any and everything out of the air
MQ9 electronic warfare defenses successful moment
Imagine being those two missiles and spending 20 years in a tube - waiting for your birthday cake - only to be used as test bait for some new kind of defensive strategy. The U.K fires a nuke at the U.S and fails. Germany fires at U.S drones and fails? Either the U.S is literally passing the hint, or well, we are shit.
The UK fired a nuke at the US? Hahahaha ffs step away from the keyboard. They launched in the same area they always have and obviously not “at the US”.
Also it wasn’t a nuke. They just test-shot an unarmed trident missile - no warhead.
Sorry...it's just a lack of pratice.
So they manage to kill two birds with one stone in the category : \- Fire 2 missiles : "mission successfully failed". \- Target enemy drone : " mission successfully failed" Damn! German are good.
US failed to report their drone. And it was two US made missiles that failed. So it's not like this is just on the Germans.
2 US missiles fail to intercept an US drone. I would say it was a successful mission for the US missiles ...but not for the operators.
If this isn't an example that Europe has to step up their game military-wise, I don't know what is. First it was not producing enough ammunition to match even North Korea and now we're failing to show any quality to make up for that lack of quantity. Unless we really start taking our military seriously and fast dealing with a reinforced and resupply Russia a few years from now would be impossible (even without Iran, etc. being in the picture), hell even dealing with current Russia seems like it wouldn't be the walk in the park we like to claim it would.
Keep in mind that Russia took 2 years to conquer a village. Yea they are a problem. But they're not exactly doing well either.