U.S. A-10 reportedly shot at by ISIS militants with Strela MANPADS in Iraq

January 19, 2015 Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft face the threat of Man Portable Air Defense Systems in Iraq.

According to a report by Iraqi News, American A-10 were shot at with four Strela missiles during the recent air strikes carried out by the Warthogs (as the Thunderbolts are referred to by the pilot community) on ISIS positions near Mosul, in Iraq.

Based on reports by unnamed sources who witnessed the attack, the A-10s killed and wounded several terrorists but were also targeted by the ISIS militants who allegedly attempted to shoot down the U.S. planes fling at low altitude using 9K32 Strela-2 (NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail) man-portable, shoulder-fired, low-altitude, IR (infra-red) guided, surface-to-air missile systems.

Even though the Warthogs were not hit by the surface-to-air missiles, the episode seems to confirm that, flying at medium and low altitude and loitering over the battlefield, the A-10s deployed to Kuwait face the threat of MANPADS known to be in possession of Islamic State forces.

Still, the “Hog” is a tough plane, that has already shown its special ability to bring the pilot back to the homebase in spite of heavy damages by ground fire.

Image credit: U.S. Air Force

 

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About David Cenciotti
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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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6 Comments

  1. They are lucky these were Strela (per the story) because these morons have a bunch of more sophisticated and lethal manpads (FN-6 or SA-24 for example).

  2. ISIS took their best shot and couldn’t hit sh–. That’s typical, they’re in their element when they’re beating on 8 years olds and old women.

  3. The old SA-7 is a pretty inferior weapon. Even with zero countermeasures it misses like half the time. Put advanced US countermeasures into the picture, it’s like one in a thousand chance. Even if it did hit, the Warthog is so robust there is a good chance it would survive anyway.

  5. Why don’t they do the right thing and give the A-10 to the Army and be done with all the controversy, it would only solve all the problems.

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