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Second paragraph: "Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the
by adolph 5y ago
Second paragraph: "Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast."
Who is lying about the surveillance quality?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoFurther in the article >A 5th Special Forces Group officer in the task force looked at the drone footage and didn’t see any civilians, a task force officer said. But the drone he relied on had only a standard-definition camera. Central Command said there were no high-definition drones in the area that could get a better view of the target...In fact, a high-definition drone was available. The task force did not use it.
- csee 5y agoThere were 2 drone streams. The HD one that the Qatar base was watching, and the SD one that the task force was watching (if we're to believe their account).
- torstenvl 5y agoI wouldn't necessarily assume it's a lie. I have no inside information and, if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to share it. However, based on my experience in Iraq, it wouldn't surprise me if 5th Group were relying on a previous-generation drone and didn't know an MQ9 or better class drone was watching the same AO. We once had a TF call in requesting a strike on military-aged males carrying rifles. In the strike cell, we had a newer drone on station and checked out what they were calling in. I'm glad we did. With higher fidelity video, we could see that it was actually teenaged males with fishing poles. The strike request was (of course) denied. In our case, it worked out the way one would hope, but with aging equipment and poor networking, it's definitely a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.