Watch an ISIS compound be wiped out through an F-15E Strike Eagle’s SNIPER advanced targeting pod

September 30, 2014 Iraq, Military Aviation, Syria, Troubled Areas, War on ISIS
David Cenciotti

An interesting point of view: from an F-15E Strike Eagle Advanced Targeting Pod

Designated AN/AAQ-33, the Lockheed Martin Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP), equips several U.S. and foreign attack planes including the B-1B “Lancer” and the F-15E Strike Eagle.

The pod, equipped with a Laser designator used to guide LGBs (Laser Guided Bombs) and a FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) and CCD TV camera,  is used for identification of targets (both on the ground and airborne ones), tracking, coordinate generation, and guidance.

F-15E Sniper

Although some videos recorded through the Sniper ATP are available online, here’s one released by the Pentagon showing an attack on an ISIL Compound near Kobani, Syria.

Blast aside, the symbology that appears in the ATP footage is interesting: target aside, there are a lot of symbols that we know nothing about, a result of the so-called “sensor fusion,” the combination of sensory data derived from the plane and other assets’ data sources.

 

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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7 Comments

    • I’m not sure they were empty, if you look closely, just down and to the right of the initial bomb explosion there appears to be a smaller secondary explosion. Ammo/fuel storage perhaps?

  2. Again, the angle of the camera shot and the height, is not the same of the attacker fighter, this image was maybe taken by another F-15E, or a drone, not by the attacker

  4. Does anyone have firsthand experience and knowledge of the F-15E’s capabilities as a dogfighter?

    I’m not soliciting comments from video gamers and pretend experts, I’m asking about reality.

    • The F-15E wasn’t setup as a dogfighter. It was setup as a ground attack platform. It does have air to air capabilities to defend itself but it’s not the ideal airframe for dogfight engagements.

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