Shooting down an Su-34 with a rifle

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...on-Russian-Su-34-jet-RIFLE-awarded-medal.html

Color me skeptical. What say you folks?

While theoretically possible to strike with a high powered rifle if the plane was flying low enough, the odds of not only hitting the aircraft but also striking an especially vulnerable spot that causes enough damage to completely disable it, would amount to a one-in-a-million shot.

 

Sounds like Soviet WWII propaganda.

 

Both Russian and Ukrainian pilots have been operating at extremely low levels during the conflict, trying to avoid surface-to-air missiles, so that would lend a little credence to the story.
10 shots from and SKS, at low level.....ya, possible. Unlikely, but possible.

 

Armored cockpit, two pilots, twin engine. Doubtful in the extreme.

 

Nope don't buy that story at all if any thing it was a flameout that brought it down and now that russia has cut off all gas and oil get your guns in order this may be the start

 

Reminds me of a cartoon in Playboy back in the late sixties... showed a rice paddy with a fighter jet down in it and a little peasant in black PJs talking to a really pissed off looking jet jockey, saying "honestly it wasn't me that threw the rock that brought your screaming bird down"...

And just about as likely... I'm guessing the folks in Ukraine could use a good laugh right about now...

 

Propaganda of the highest order comrade Bolshevik, no?

Da, da comrade, pour more vodka!

 

Look either we all get in line to praise this brave Ukrainian or else we’ll be labeled pro Russian and a threat to democracy!!!! (Evil red background behind me as I type)

 

So an 80 year old man goes in for his physical. The doctor asks how he is feeling. He exclaims great!! I even just married a 28 year old hot blonde.
The doctors says really?
Not only that the old man says proudly, I even got her pregnant.
The doctor looks at the man and says let me tell you a story. I have a colleague who goes bear hunting every year. He preps his rifle and sets it next to his keys and umbrellas next to the door the night before he leaves. Well he had just spent almost 48 straight hours on duty when he headed out to hunt and wouldn’t you know it he grabbed the umbrella instead of the rifle. So he gets out in the field, spots a bear, pulls the “trigger” and the umbrella pops open…….and that bear just dropped dead right there.
Ohhh come on the old guy exclaims…..SOMEBODY ELSE SHOT THAT BEAR!!
That’s what I’m trying to tell you my friend, that’s what I’m trying to tell you the doctor said with a smile.


So what I am saying is …….somebody else shot that bear.

 

At Dunkirk, the British troops fired at German planes with massed fire from their Enfields. Just saying. IIRC, an American pilot was parachuting from his plane and circled by Japanese fighters and he shot at them with his 1911. Whether these are true stories - I dunno.

Do you remember the Pearl Harbor movie (Ben Affleck - terrible movie) where he gets into the air and lures Japanese planes to fly around a tower where guys with Thompsons can shoot them down!

Last, in SG-1, the Stargate guys using P90s shot down fighter space ships!

 

I love anecdotal dreams!

 

Its bound to happen at least once or twice in the 110 year history of aerial warfare. not impossible, just highly improbable

 

The engines aint armored.....

Besides, we are missing the most obvious explanation for a Russian jet falling from the sky-
It's a Russian jet.

 

Early Arisakas even had dedicated anti-aircraft sights- of doubtful utility of course.

 

How about a fuel line or hydraulic line being hit spraying hot fluid on a hot turbine. Possible? Heck yea. Probable? Less so. Heck, we in the gulf war and now Ukrainians are taking out fabled Russian tanks with shoulder fired rockets.

 

It’s not a given that only the cockpit is armored. Other parts are armored as well.

Maybe the round went into the back of one engine, blew apart the combustor and flamed out the engine, (but with no fire), and then boinged off one of the turbine blades into the fuel control for the other engine, flaming that one out as well, and then bounced through the airframe, into the armored cockpit, and “head shotted” both pilots, causing them to slump over the controls, causing a departure from a glide and ending up in the smokeless, thrustless, falling leaf” mode of flight, as is evidenced in the video.

But I really doubt that’s what happened.

 

IIRC, Imperial Army doctrine was that you were to use massed Platoon (30-50 men) in anti-aircraft roles, and the AA sights were so that the entire platoon complement could have a similar point of aim.

 

Perhaps some of you should ask Navy and Air Force VN Vets about Aircraft downed from ground fire , IT happens obliviously Not often but it only takes one precise or lucky bullet .
I can personally attest to Huey's going in from ground fire ,as I had the misfortune of going in with it ; upon leaving combat and Country no less !.

 

the 1911 story is a true one. Guy shot a plane down from his parachute with his 1911 (shot and killed the pilot). Was witnessed by other pilots and reported as such.

 

Improbable things happen. (Too long a story.)
I will defer to those who decided. Not to mention the old man deserves some respect.

 

There is a huge difference between being downed by ground fire, and a fighter jet being tagged and downed uncontrollably from a single shot while cruising along as a couple thousand feet. The falling in the video suggests a relatively medium to high”ish” altitude.

Hitting an aircraft with a single shot at altitude? Not easy, but certainly not impossible. It’s happened, and will continue to happen.

Hitting a pilot with a single shot, while they’re sitting in a fully armored cockpit capable of taking 30mm hits. Less likely, to say the least.

Hitting an SU-34 with a single shot from a rifle in such a fashion as to cause it to literally fall out of the sky?

Propaganda.

We’re not talking about Army helicopters taking a magazine full of AK fire “in the face” across the cockpit, or one guy tagging one of the pilots as they hover over a palm grove in the nastiest case of bad timing, or organized massed ground fire.

This is one guy, with a single shot, catastrophically taking out a heavily armored fighter bomber.

Comparing helicopters and fighter bombers getting shot up and shot down is apples and oranges. Even with engine armor, it doesn’t take much to bring down a helicopter. On the other hand, it’s amazing what damage they manage to fly with. It all domes down to millimeters and microseconds. Different world.

But I guess it plays well.

 

Baron von Richthofen was most likely killed by ground fire, and , apparently, General George Patton unloaded his Colt revolver at a passing German aircraft, with little more effect than giving the man his much earned go at the enemy.

You wont know if you don't try.