• ... they literally just got lucky.

    What are you basing that on? There's a quite detailed wikipedia article on the SAM battery commander that says there was a bit more to it than that, and a few other articles kicking around the web with a bit more in them.

    The main points:
    They used 'obsolete' low frequency radar which they modified to even lower frequencies to overcome the stealth effects so they could track the bombers. The nato warning systems ignored low frequencies. The Serbians only used high frequency radar to illuminate the plane so the missiles could track it - and they'd separated the targeting radar and the launchers so the missiles would come in at a different angle from the radar, making the stealth less effective.

    They put together a lot of information from radio intercepts, observers and spies to know what was going on and what they could get away with. Specifically, to engage at short range and to attempt targeting illumination for longer than normal.

    They also did something unspecified to make the missiles track stealth targets better.

    (I'd also picked up the idea that they did some off-line processing on raw radar data to enhance detection and so learned that the bombers were using the same flight paths night after night, but now i can't find any references to that.)

    So i think they worked hard for their luck.

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