Fishy Video

Confederate Yankee noted with some skepticism that the Iranians claimed that they sent an UAV over the US Navy, and took video of an American aircraft carrier on patrol in the Persian Gulf. They claim that it not only wasn't detected but that it was of recent vintage - perhaps being from military exercises of the past week.

Here's the video footage:


Confederate Yankee wonders whether the ship was as they describe or whether they simply culled footage of an American carrier and claimed it as their own. Considering that the Iranians had recycled video before, this was a definite possibility.

Among the problems with the video stills is that the carrier depicted has the F-14 Tomcat on deck. The F-14 was retired from the fleet earlier this year. That means that the video was either taken before the F-14 was retired (and the implication that this was a recent vintage video is incorrect) or that they're using footage from other sources (and didn't bother to check to see that the planes on board were actually still in the fleet).

The claim that the video is authentic is disputed by Russian news reports.

If this is indeed accurate and authentic video from an Iranian UAV, that begs the question as to how it managed to conduct the overflight. For starters, the UAV would have to penetrate a multiple layer system of fleet air defense starting more than 100 miles from the carrier itself. It would presuppose that the AEGIS missile cruisers operating in the carrier strike group missed the UAV, the E2C Hawkeyes flying fleet air defense missed it, the F/A-18s flying combat air patrol missed it, and so did the carrier's own air defense radar systems missed it. The key to US fleet air defense is a layered system, and the odds that the Iranians could penetrate it is quite slim.

UPDATE:
Fixed a typo above. Here's more information about the AEGIS air defense system - and it really is a system. It is an integrated air defense system, and links up with other radar assets in the fleet, including airborne radar.

Also, after reviewing the tape a second time, I am not so sure that there were F-14s on the deck. The quality isn't very good, but F-14 has a very distinctive shape - the wings would be completely swept back when stored on the deck (anyone watching Top Gun would know this) and they would be spread for launch.

This could be a current tape (as an indicator of date is no longer present). As to why such a UAV could fly unmolested over the fleet, consider the possibility that the USN was gathering as much intel on the Iranian UAV as the Iranians think they were gathering about the USN. There's quite a bit we need to know about Iranian intentions, capabilities, and weapons systems, and we'd be able develop a baseline. The Navy wouldn't necessarily want to get into shooting down the UAV since that would open up a whole can of worms.

It is interesting to note that this incident appears at about the same time that another incident involving US aircraft carriers - this time Drudge reports (no link yet) that a Chinese sub was tailing the USS Kitty Hawk (which is currently engaged in a naval exercise with the Japanese fleet).