send an email to the Russian Embassy in Ankara saying 'you remember the Turks shot down your SU-24, well, if you can send us some SA-18's, we'll even the score up for you..'?
as
butchersapron has written, this conflict is marked by the proflagrate use of every weapon to hand - if the PKK had had them down the back of the sofa they'd have used them 6 months ago. that they did not suggests that the PKK has a new patron. i wonder who that could be...
much more definative than some peple on the internet is an analysis of the video: you are watching a $20m helicopter, used for 20 years by one of the most well funded militaries in NATO, fly low and slow over a warzone on its own - no escort, no top cover - if the Turks were used to being shot at with MANPADS, do you think they would operate in this way?
the missile firing crew looked, to me, trained but unpracticed. some of the things were a bit slow, a bit 'hammed up', but perfect. too much training to rush it or get flustered, not enough practice to do it all in a fluid motion without doing the 'talk through' thing. the counting down out loud to firing was an obvious '
keep calm, keep calm, just like we practiced, its just a drill, we've done this fifty times this morning' line.
its also worth noting that the helicopter - its an AH-1W Super Cobra by the way, bought and built in the early 1990's - didn't
appear to use any automatic defence aid systems (chaff, flares, lasers, balloons etc..) - these are now fairly ubiquitous on modern western attack and battlefield support helicopters like Apache, Chinook, Merlin, Blackhawk etc. if these systems aren't fitted to the Turkish AH-1W's, then that suggests the Turks don't think they need them - though they can certainly
afford them, though they are by no stretch of the imagination cheap - if their AH-1W's were being shot at on a regular basis, they would have them.
