Military history: French Start‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the project's quality scale. Associated task forces: /  French military history task force

Past discussions: Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3 Template:Cleanup taskforce notice

Is there any person so dumb that he could believe it? Human body is not so etherial that it could dissolve in the water. Please, use your common sense.

The Bosnian War article has a good section on casualties (both civilian and military) for the conflict as a whole and for the different sides. Is there any such information for the Kosovo War? I see links to all kinds of sources regarding deaths from NATO bombing but nothing on deaths from the war on the ground. Is there a source for the 10,000 killed Albanians? Is there any source at all for the number of killed Serbs? Roma and other?

It think it would be nice to get a nice comprehensive table of estimated and confirmed casualties. Osli73 23:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anyone who has any sources on the number of civilians and military killed in the ground war in Kosovo? I haven't been able to find anything other than the 10,000 estimate, and even for that figure there is no information about how it was calculated, how many are military and civilian, how many are Serbs, Albanians and others. Anyone? Osli73 11:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is difficult to do at this stage, Osli73, because there are many still missing, and their families would not like to declare them as killed before any confirmed source says that. I will look into some confirmed numbers as of now, and will bring you some sources to look at. Until then, ilir_pz 11:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick web search found the following articles/discussions of the numbers killed. I don't know how good the sources are but most seem to say the following:

• approx. 2,000 persons (civilians and military) were killed prior to the NATO bombardment
• approx. 500 civilians killed by NATO bombing 'mistakes'
• perhaps another 1,000 civilians killed in Serbia as 'collateral damage'
• after the war most mention a figure of up to 10,000 persons killed
• some mention a total figure of approx. 3,000 persons killed.

The 'sources' I found were:

• Human Rights Watch
• Centre for Policy Studies
• Serb Orthodox Church in Kosovo
• article on "A Fistful of Euros"
• Human Rights Watch again

Osli73 11:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Playing with numbers of the dead is typical of politicians, so I would not like to speculate with such sensitive data. According to some statistics there are (still) about 1500 Albanians missing, so I am not sure where that number fits. I do not thinkg NATO bombing mistakes caused that many casualties. Those numbers have been manipulated with by the Yugoslav military and police for reasons that might be familiar to you as well. I am sure that other number of "collateral damages" is not accurate as well. this HRW article has also some contradicting numbers. On the other hand, this BBC article says that ICTY got reports of 11,000 people killed, but not all were confirmed. Not sure myself. ilir_pz 11:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To give you an answe to your question I will quote the last article I gave above "How much higher is the final death toll likely to be? It is not possible to make any accurate estimates on the basis of what has been found so far because some of the mass graves yet to be opened up may contain many more - or many fewer - bodies than those exhumed so far. Besides, the ICTY says the investigators have found evidence of tampering with the graves, including the burning or apparent removal of the victims' remains." ilir_pz 11:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ilir, I've found a couple of sources which might be of some help:

• Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo March - June 1999 (a report by the American Bar Association for the ICTY) stating that "An estimated 10 356 Kosovar Albanians were killed" (bottom of page 8) They state that "the process identified 4 400 unique individuals. The number 4 400 is not an estimate; it is the actual count of uniquely reported victims." (page 11)

• Summary of info on killed and missing persons from the Intl. Red Cross. Good overview. Here is also a link to ICRC list of killed/missing [1]

I think these sources could be used to improve the article.

Some more sources which could be useful:

• also has some good info/links on ethnic cleansing in Kosovo

• link to a good summary page

Osli73 08:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all back then I think those people called themselves Yugoslavs, not Serbs, so let's put these things into a historical perspective. Second of all, if links are dubious in nature we can always post that it's dubious, but both sides must be heard. I am veteran of the Iraq war and I am sick of all the damn politicians and all the BS out there, way too many innocent died during Nato attacks and during "Iraqi Freedom" operation, remember the first casualty in war is the truth, I am also a historian and I was the first one to find out about NATO casualties, it was not here before, the ah-64 chopper, may 5th, wow there are so many mistakes, but I am not going to dwell into ethnic bs who is right or wrong, everybody is right or wrong to a certain point and I have no time for these games. However, certain things need correcting and certain web sites must be available on the main page. E.g. http://www.aeronautics.ru/natodown.htm As far as you Mieciu VANDAL Kapusta go... It was shot down but NATO and its forces never wanted to admit to it, would you ? They wanted to show how powerful they are. If a plane explodes in the air and there is a ball of fire, trust me, it was shot down... Now... these sites might be dubious or not neutral, but there is lot of info here we need to go over...

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/crashes01.htm

Sorry to be pedantic, but I'm pretty sure that Serbs always called themselves Serbs, in much the same way as Scottish people would refer to themselves as Scottish, rather that British. Davu.leon 14:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You said these pages are not working, may be your browser from your country can not access them...

• Two american pilots die in a crash on Kosovo/Albanian border

This links seems to be working today. WHO said AH-64 exploaded? Who and how claimed to shot it down? How far is Kosovo from Tirana?

• Reports on NATO losses during 1999 Kosovo war, might not be neutral

This link is not only non neutral the picture placed there it is offencive. Can't you get a better link?

• Over 10 British soldiers die in Kosovo operations

~:This event did not happen during the Kosovo war. It happened after the war so the place of this link is somewhere else. Mieciu K 19:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The link clearly indicates the casualty of the conflict.

The title of this article is Kosovo War. The Kosovo war ended on June 11, 1999. These people died after June 11, 1999? And by the way Who said AH-64 exploaded? Who and how claimed to shot it down? How far is Kosovo from Tirana? Mieciu K 20:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nie, kosovo war ended on june 11 and you had it until 10th all the time. The chopper exploded after it was hit, this was top of the line chopper, they do not malfunction and explode in the air out of the blue, rozumiesz?

Who apart from you claims the AH-64 exploaded? Are the guys who supposedly shot it down shy or something because the guys who shot down the F117 aren't shy and probably even got some medals for this achievement. Read this article Wikipedia:References and be kind enough to replay to my questions (in english). Who apart from you says the war ended on 11 July? Mieciu K 20:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are a complete idiot, FOR 2 YEARS THE END OF WAR ON THIS SITE WAS JUNE 10th, so I changed it to June 11th, stop putting words into my mouth dude, it seems to me you are part of nato and it seems you were there... I am not going to argue with you forever. I made discoveries not you, you want to revert, fine, I will be back to revert it to the appropriate position. What do you know about army and war strategy and procedure, nic, nothing. It was nato's strategy not to admit to anything to look invincible, this was shot down, search and look better, I explained already and it was 80 kilometers from Tirana, that means close to the border, Yugo forces were inside Albania, in order to stop KLA from entering and stopping them before it was too late. This is what it is, like it or not. And I dont care about f117.Did I mention that?

Do you call your parents "complete idiot"s if not why? Maybe because this phrase is considered an insult and we do not use insults on wikipedia it seems you are unfamiliar with the Rules of Wikipedia, if you put in content without any references it is considered vandalism. Why won't you answer my questions (which can be seen above)? Mieciu K 08:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me show you how the Serb viewpoint should look like. "According to ............. (+ serbian goverment source not some personal website/blog) the AH-64 was shot down by ............ (name of the unit) using an .......... (what did they use?) at ......... (time/place) as a result the helicopter ........ (what happened to the AH-64). What happened to the Yugoslav unit afterwards? Did they get any medals?" By the way commandoes do not carry anti-aircraft weapons, they relay on stealth, camuflage and luck instead. Even if they did it would be max. 1 MANPADS missile per 10 soldiers (they are heay and weight over 10kg each). Mieciu K 18:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are a confused person, because you are reverting what is given and explained, as you are doing with your own Katyn in Poland, calling you idiot is not vandalism because you are disrespecting other people's time, period, I told you 10 times I do not have time to explain you self evident truth, besides, I did not mention serbs claim, and assuming a serb claimed it crashed or not, how do we know he is neutral... I SAID AGAIN FOR THE FINAL TIME... I MENTIONED WHAT BOTH SIDES CLAIM THEY DID IT, AND of course on serbian sides they will claim they bombed it Mr. hypocrite, but I am not including their side because it's obvious they will report what they think and nato will report what they think, so think straight for a moment...

• Can you write that again? And this time use english. Mieciu K 22:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If somebody can check how many soldiers Yugos lost, according to my friend who is an analyst for CIA headquarters he claims Yugos reported between 560-600, but not 1000 and that was verified, I do not have time to search for that and then get reverted, at any rate, there were 3000 dead civilians across the land, but I am not sure if that included albanians killed by nato bombs or clusters.

Every time I've tried to explain this guy can not and does not want to cooperate and it seems to me, this guy is not neutral in any way. The above is a very good explanation,due to my time constraint... I can not write 10 paragraphs every day, in reply, he simply replied in a very rude and ignorant way... can I say that in English ? If he can say it in Polish, it will make some sense, so far, he has been vandalizing this page and he should be stopped asap.

• Wikipedia:Verifiability,
• Wikipedia:No personal attacks
• Wikipedia:Etiquette
• Wikipedia:Civility

I don't think you have read any one of those articles. Mieciu K 22:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I read them and you must learn from them, because above you told me I should write in English, clearly shows you lack of ethics, values, standards, understanding and so much, your reversals have no meanint and they are clearly not neutral and you keep on inventing new stories every time I revert it or even correct it... but when I ask about other topics, you do not have a clue... so, learn everything from the beginning, here's a thought, go back to kindergarten or ask your parents to reteach you manners. I said my peace, you can say what you want, hey I can give you 10 more links on the above, still, that does not help the situation, I have a feeling you were one of those nato forces? Your country was involved.

• Than why are you spreading misinformation? how many people can fly in one AH-64 helicopter? And why are you saying the war ended on 11th July? Nato stopped bombing Serbia on July 10th and that's when Operation Allied Force ended. Mieciu K 23:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

==Hmmm... this guy is a complete mess, again now he tells us the bombing ended on July 10th, this man is sick.

• Wikipedia:No personal attacks, calling me a sick man is not an argument. Mieciu K 12:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Correction, calling you sick after you can listen to a raeson is not an argument (true enough) but I am only stressing the point that this is true, you are a sick man.

(From Wikipedia:No personal attacks), "Specific examples of personal attacks include but are not limited to:

• Accusatory comments such as "Bob is a troll", or "Jane is a bad editor" can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly, in bad faith, or with sufficient venom.
• Negative personal comments and "I'm better than you" attacks, such as "You have no life."

What you are doing (calling me a sick man) has a name... its called trolling. And of course it is also rude. Mieciu K 23:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The page has now been protected to force all involved parties to use the talk page to resolve disputes, rather than furthering this disruptive edit war. Once you have reached an agreement and protection is no longer necessary, please let me know or request unprotection. Thanks. AmiDaniel (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This confused individual has been putting words into my mouth and into others, first he claims war ended on July 11th, then he removes all other info, you have to leave it like it was when Chopper 64 was shot down and 2 american servicemen killed, I never said they were shot down but I gave my best and most accurate assumption what might have happened SINCE NATO NEVER CONFIRMED IT OR DENIED, and as time went by they just did not want tot alk about, what does that tell you? It's time Mieciu K is blocked forever from wikipedia, since his country, poland, was part of nato attacks and he wants to look invincible. So it's time you unprotect it, remember this guy is going out of normal conversaion and he uses non-sense logic, comparing other things to God knows what and then putting words into my mouth, clearly very ignorant, when he replies like... Speak English and when I ask about other things to be looked at, he can never answer because he just does not know it. As you can see, the best version is in the link below. Let's have this done right without vandals like Mieciu. He has time for these games and I am sure his answer will make sense but only to a point. Again, both versions must be explained, what might have happened.

As you can see in his answers above, there will be no agreement with this confused individual

My answer: (About the AH64 crash) "This was a training mission - I want to insist on that - there is no indication of any hostile activity. This accident underscores the great risk that is shouldered by all the men and women associated with operation Allied Force, we salute all of them and our thoughts at the moment are naturally, as you would expect, with the families of the two pilots who lost their lives last night".By Jamie Shea, NATO Spokesman [2].

I do my best to follow these rules and guidelines:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability,
• Wikipedia:No personal attacks
• Wikipedia:Etiquette
• Wikipedia:Civility Mieciu K 12:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

The bombing stopped on June 10th, but the war came to an end on June 11th, let's get this straight.

• On June 10 1999 Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo (a de facto capitulation), and Nato stopped bombing Serbia. Why do you think the war came to end end on the 11th? What happened on that day? Mieciu K 12:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was on that day that both NATO and Milosevic declared the end of war, just because bombing stopped does not mean that many other secret operations were over. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFB3C5C0C728DDDAF0894D1494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fS%2fSolana%2c%20Javier Just because bombing on Warsaw in September 1939 stopped, that did not mean the war was over, remember the 63 days uprising in Warsaw, hell on earth in Aug 1944, still, was that the end of war? Just because you find something on google or it's popular opinioN DOES NOT MEAN IT'S TRUE.

• This talk page is about the "Kosovo war" so let's leave other the Bombing of Warsaw during the IIWW out of it. Interesting link but it's second-hand infotrmation (paper newspapers usually comment things that happened the day before) this link is better:

"On 10 June 1999, after an air campaign lasting seventy-seven days, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana announced that he had instructed General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, temporarily to suspend NATO's air operations against Yugoslavia. This decision was taken after consultations with the North Atlantic Council and confirmation from General Clark that the full withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo had begun. The withdrawal was in accordance with a Military-Technical Agreement concluded between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the evening of 9 June. The agreement was signed by Lt. General Sir Michael Jackson, on behalf of NATO, and by Colonel General Svetozar Marjanovic of the Yugoslav Army and Lieutenant General Obrad Stevanovic of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, on behalf of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Republic of Serbia. The withdrawal was also consistent with the agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the European Union and Russian special envoys, President Ahtisaari of Finland and Mr. Victor Chernomyrdin, former Prime Minister of Russia, reached on 3 June." So in conclusion an agreement was reached on the 9th, combat stopped on the 10th, so (currently) I do not see areason why we should say that the war ended on the 11th. Any more arguments/links top support your theory? I looked thrue serbian govermrnt websites (in english and serbian) but I was unable to find any info on the day that the war ended according to Yugoslavia, or about shooting down an AH-64 on May the 5th 1999. Mieciu K 23:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you just say go on serbian government website, they talk about their life, things that happened today, not about 1999 tragedy, you are a vandal and this is true. http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/kosovo_crisis/nato/ Sites like this claim, prooven or not it was shot down, but I already explained that, you are beating around the bush again and again and again and repeating same things but in a different manner and way... Ok, war ended on June 11th and bombing is something else, it's obvious you do not understand anything.

• Why are you lying? The website that you have shown me contains the following information:

"BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Two American Apache crew members were killed during a training mission Wednesday when their helicopter crashed in Albania, the U.S. European Command said. The deaths were the first NATO casualties in the air campaign against Yugoslavia. The command said there were no initial indications of hostile fire in the crash, 47 miles northeast of the Albanian capital of Tirana, and the cause of the crash was not immediately known. The names of the two crewmen were not released pending notification of next of kin. The crash was the second time an Apache helicopter has gone down during a training mission in Albania. The first copter crashed April 26 as NATO prepared to put the U.S. attack helicopters into action against Serb forces in Kosovo. Its crewmen escaped with cuts and bruises. See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559431157-01d" And of course the 1999 Kosovo war was a tragedy, a tragedy caused by the stupidity of a dictator and his-half blind serbian nationalist friends who started a war (to keep in power) that was lost long before it started. You can mock my wikipedia user name but out of the two of us at least I have the courage to log in and sign my posts. What's wrong with you that you don't want to log in and sign your comments the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is chasing you or something? Mieciu K 19:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I am an american, born and raised in Indiana, I lived in croatia 4 years when I was studying, you are a vandal and a criminal, nothing but garbage, put words in my mouth I AM A HISTORIAN WITH A DEGREE IN HISTORY, you are nothing, I am not pro or a con against what happened in the war, my stuff was neutral, the above attack clearly shows your one sided story, it clearly shows you are part of nato animals who killed over 3000 civilians, almost half of those albanians, those they supposedly came to protect, ok, if you have the courage, give me your full freaking name and address in poland, so I can visit you one of these days, you are not being objective or neutral with pure garbage above. Nothing but vandalism and hate and false attacks and then some...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.2.90 (talk)

That is enough. There have been very unconstructive statements made here - by both parties - and it's not helping to improve this article. Please take this discussion elsewhere or, better yet, step back and cool off for a few days. Kafziel 20:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You tell him that, he is not doing anything about it and article is wrong, period, i simply asked him if he has courage to talk about it and he does not do anything about it, i am historian and i know what i am saying, ok...

Telling everyone you're an historian holds no weight on the Internet. You can't prove it any more than I can prove I'm the President of the United States. In any event, it doesn't give you the right to threaten others, or to post controversial information without proper citations. Kafziel 20:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I am a criminal"? Since I am a lawyer please tell me which laws have I broken? And are you threatening me? Why do you want to visit my house? Since I served time in a Polish elite reconissance unit of the 1st Warsaw Armoured Brigade from Wesoła, Poland your physical threats don't bother me. Mieciu K 21:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, in my reply above i say... "I simply asked him if he has courage to talk" now if that is a threat of any kind, including physical...you people need to include that in the new webster dictionary. And the above statement "I served in a Polish Elite unit" Tells me that this person is biased to neutrality WHICH I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO ESTABLISH HERE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. His intentions and slick lawyer talk (prooving guilty before even going to court or assuming innocence) clearly indicates is objectivity towards NATO side.

Citations

Read my replies, read how neutral they could be, Kafziel you are not doing a good job as an administrator, when I tell you war was over on June 11th, legally, that's when it was ended,t he bombing can stop On May 11th, that does not mean it's over. Your statements about me being the president... It also makes no sense because if I were the president I would not bother wasting my time (as I have already done so, a lot) here, talking to people who do not grasp the point citation or not and it's not about citations. But about truth. Attacking me like Mieciu did is vandalistic behavior, putting words into my mouth, not to mention claiming July 11th as the end of war (above) and creating his side of events. Great, keep your own dates!

Perhaps when this article is unlocked, the correct NATO losses could be put in. (46 Aircrafts, 6 helicopters, 8 unmanned aircraft, 182 cruise missles). [3]

• "The following are the official NATO losses data released by the Press Service of the Yugoslavian army:" This document is supposedly based on an official Yugoslavian army document, and where is the original document? Where, when by who was it published and what was the name of official document? Mieciu K 19:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, a cruise missile isn't a loss of an aircraft; it's a round expended. The figure of 46 aircraft and 6 helos seems high; as for the 8 unmanned drones, well, that's why they fly them. Do you have a detailed list? Does it tally with the NATO list for engagements? GABaker 2020Z 29 June 2006.

Hello. I dont know much about this war. New Zealand (my country) served in it, but primarily as Peace Keeping forces.

However this article seems to have a slight bias against serbs. Serbs, last time I checked, are a nationality/ethnicity and while some organizations of serbian nationality committed atrocities, by consistently referring to them as "the serbs" this article smeels definitely of racist POV.

Its like saying that "the Sunni's" are the cause of all the troubles in iraq, or hating "the American's" for the actions of their government. Is someone addressing this? It seems we need a historian from a definably neutral country, or at least a qualified international historian. Cheers, --Havoc8844 02:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The casualties listed are fairly accurate, though I remember the official statement in Serbian press that listed around 700 (not 1.000) Yugoslav combat fatalities. I think the civilian number was 5.000 (either inflated or possibly true if Albanians were counted in my oppinion). 13 destroyed tanks (of which only 6 declared lost due to NATO bombing - the rest were not explained but were probably lost to the KLA). The article does not mention KLA losses, however, that probably exceeded 1.000 men. It should be noted that this was not merely a bombing campaign, but also a low-intensity ground war on Kosovo between the Yugoslav Army & Police and the KLA.

As for NATO losses - the article f-117 mentions an additional f-117 heavily damaged and written-off.

Veljko Stevanovich 2. 7. 2006. 01:30 UTC+1

So Veljko, how to contact you?Ok, how many planes did your people shot down, also the last official day of war was June 11th when both Milosevic and Nato claimed it's over, signed, sealed and delivered, right? Just because bombs stop falling, does not mean it's the end.

• You claim that the war ended on July 11th, is it your own opinion or do you have any sources to back up your claim? Nato website says the war (Operation Allied Force) ended on July 10th. Mieciu K 00:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I studdied reports on the net about the air war from both sides and accepted only the ones with hard evidence as fact. So far the two aircraft filmmed are the only trully proven shot down. The second F-117 (a write-off after landing) was long rummored damaged during the bombing and now I beleve it was true since I found out that American sources acknowlaged it(actually at least three were rummored to have been damaged during the bombing apart from the one shot down - but I haven`t found any proofs for the others yet).

I do not entirely rule out that a few more (but only FEW) possibly fell in the neighbouring countries and were hushed-up, but until some proof is found it of course shouldn`t be included in encyclopedia.

Also I forgot to add - I`ve heared that there were several Yugoslav POWs to KLA (one of them a lieutenant if I recall correctly), probably (but I really dunno) many more KLA to Yugoslav army, and also three US soldiers with a Humvee. The soldiers were released, but the Humvee is still on open display in front of the Military Museum in Belgrade.

As for the contact - well, you`re communicating with me on this forum, are you not? (It would be nice of you to sign your name, or at least a nickname, though)

Veljko Stevanovich 9. August 2006. 17:40 UTC+1

When this page is unprotected, would someone please disabiguate "Serbian [[Orthodox Church]]" to "[[Serbian Orthodox Church]]"? Thanks! Disambiguation link repair - You can help! --Iggle 06:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, there has been no substantive discussion on the differences over the past two weeks. I do notice however that the discussions further back than that were at times grossly uncivil. I request that the editors pursue their differences with civility in an attempt to find consensus. Attacks, such as acccusations of lying, "vandalistic behavior" and the like, are unacceptable and may have to be dealt with, if the participants cannot take a hint, by more pragmatic means.

I'm unprotecting this article. Happy editing. --Tony Sidaway 22:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that both sides lie about their looses and that’s normal in war. Serbian side purposely exaggerated NATO looses from reasons of moral and NATO as usual never recognize their looses. It’s not the first time. As always the truth is somewhere in between.

As military freak I have some knowledge about modern warfare. In my opinion, Yugoslav air defense shot down maybe 10 NATO aircrafts and damaged between 40-60 aircrafts. The problem with confirming looses is that Yugoslav air space is very small and except in two cases (F-117 and F-16) the only proof of hits were peaces of various NATO aircrafts scattered all around the country. The planes that crashed outside Yugoslav territory were quickly recovered by NATO. I also believe that if you shot down cruise missile (which cost I don’t know, but surely millions of dollars), before it reaches its target, with Zastava 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon (which cost maybe few thousand dollars) that you can count that as loss.

The NATO looses could have been higher but it’s evident that Yugoslav air defense was hiding their positions and conserving ammunition and missile reserves in case of all out land invasion. In that case, NATO aircrafts would have to fly lower, in order to support advancing NATO troops and would automatically exposed their self to fire of Yugoslav air defense which was best equipped for covering heights to 3.000 m. --Marko M 07:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• As for the price of a cruise missile at that time I remmember some reliable press source writing that prices of different versions varied from 600.000 USD to 1 800 000 USD, but it can hardly be considered a victory, If a cruise missile was shot down all Nato had to do was send another, remember the difference between economies of Serbia and the USA. In my opinion it would be very hard if not immpossible to hide the figures of US planes shot down, after all it the US airforce has to answer to the congress (the budget), to the press, and there would be a lot of people (the ground crew, the pilots, the air traffic officials, the commanding officers, the guys at the spare parts depot) who sooner or later (after leaving the army) would leak the info to the press that on ______ day an _____ plane from the _______ unit did not come back to base. Mieciu K 09:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The relative sizes of the Nato/US and Serbian economies is not a good yardstick by which to define what is a loss and what is not. Couldn't it just be easier to just say that xx cruise missiles are estimated to have been shot down by YU air defences?KarlXII 11:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• If we can get some reliable sources that would be a good idea, but not in the battlebox (unless the V-1 are already being added to the World War II battleboxes), maybe as a note at the bottom of the page? I presume that at least some of the cruise missiles were not shot down but crashed due to mechanical or programming errors, or simply crashed into obstacles (they fly at low altitiude) like power lines. I remember one cruise missile for some unknown reason "landed" in a country bordering Yugoslavia. Mieciu K 11:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mieciu, remember Rule number one. It's not my intention to start a long discussion. My opinion is based at first hand experience as someone who’s been bombed by NATO and on my conversation with my cousin who is colonel in Yugoslav Air Force. There won’t be reliably sources on this subject for many years. Only speculations. Look what happened with NATO report on military loses of Yugoslav army units during Kosovo War. --Marko M 13:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have nothing against you or official Yugoslavian Army sources (but it should be stated that these numbers come from official Yugoslavian Army sources). I have not been bombed by NATO but I have seen photographs and listened to first hand reports of how Belgrade looked after 1999. If you are Yugoslavian could you please write something about how the perception of the war changed after the fall of Milosevic, this topic interests me a lot and probably other people too. As for the NATO report on military loses of Yugoslav army units during Kosovo War, yes they got tricked which is suprising since all Warsaw Pact armies paid a lot of attention to camuflage and dummy targets so it should not be a suprise for the US airforce. perhaps they have learnt a valuable lesson for the future. Mieciu K 13:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would be just my personal opinion and if I understand correctly there is no place for personal opinions on Wikipedia. I’ll just say this. Two weeks ago, two American F-16, from US Air Force base at Aviano, landed on Batajnica military airport near Belgrade. They were welcomed by their colleagues, pilots of Yugoslav Air Force. If they, who fought against each other during the war, could find common language, it should be easy for us civilians to do the same. --Marko M 14:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Good to hear this, take a look at this page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Cruise missiles in the battlebox? I asked for comments and ot seems most of them were negative regarding mentioning Cruise missiles as shot down Nato equipment. Maybe you could take part in the disscussion? Mieciu K 00:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some alleged mass graves were also found in Serbia itself, on Yugoslav military bases or dumped in the Danube. Someone please explain this phrase to me, honestly. (Yes, I remember the exhumations - these graves contained children, and not so much as a military but on a "police" grounds.) --HanzoHattori 09:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]