In reply to: Looks like it was a waste of perfectly good drones and posted by sprack
After Sulamani was killed in 2020, the Iranians launched a dozen ballistic missiles at a US facility in Iraq, injuring over 100 soldiers. Back in January, in response to the bomb attack in Kerman, the Iranians used similar systems to strike at militant camps in Pakistan, killing or injuring a number of people. Iranian drones have killed three US service members and a defense contractor, and wounded dozens of others. An Iranian drone attack in 2019 took half of Saudi oil refining capacity off line. And it is Iranian drones which are killing Ukrainians and destroying Ukrainian infrastructure on a daily basis.
Never mind how much all of the defense missiles cost. It was a great advertisement for the Arrow system, but those suckers ain't cheap.
This wasn’t an “attack”, it was handbags at 20 paces.
Over 120 ballistic missiles, accompanied by drones launched to arrive at same time, and it wasn’t a serious attack meant to do significant damage? Iran would have to have incredible faith in Israel/coalition defense systems, faith we ourselves do not have, to think not one would reach a target causing significant loss that garners an equal response. It isn’t logical.
I do think they thought it would be relatively limited due to the air defense, but certainly not as ineffective as it was, in fact that was probably unsettling. But they had a communications plan, this was retaliatory in nature, hard but finite, and now we’re even.
They are not as big a foe, nor as isolated a regime, as we prop them up to be.
to defend against. If that ordinance were fired at you and you had no defense you would see fairly quickly how useful it was. If you want I would be happy to push you out of a c-17 with a parachute over a portion of ukraine that receives constant shelling and drone attacks. You can report back on how useless that ordinance is.
Don't mistake as useless those attacks deflected by a better defense.
And have them fly hours to their destination.
I don’t think the drones are useless, but this attack was done purely to save face and to allow Israel (and others) to easily shoot them out of the sky.
As Robert McNamara once said, when talking about the Cuban blockade, “This is language. A new vocabulary, the likes of which the world has never seen”.
And they are certainly expensive, but with all the oil they are selling to China, Irans economy is doing just fine
using missiles to shoot down the drones, not with the drones.
As to flying time -- it's only about an hour more flying time from Iran to Israel as it is from Russian territory to key targets in Ukraine. Even if the move is telegraphed, it still requires 100% success on defense to keep hundreds of pounds of explosives from hitting or crashing in Israel. The link below shows pictures of what happens when a small Iranian drone hit a merchant vessel (killing the captain and a crew-member)
99% success rate.
As I said below, if Iran really wanted to maximize damage it is not that hard for them. Have Hezbollah send in a volley of rockets right before the drones and missiles from Iran are about to get close to Israel's airspace. Overwhelm the Iron Dome and you would have a much lower success rate (Hezbollah reportedly has enough rockets to get through the dome by themselves anyway).
The reason why they didn't do that is pretty telling in my mind. I'm hoping Israel recognizes this is just a response to save face, as I think it's clear our government does, and does not escalate this any further. Heck, Iran even said that it was a retaliation to the Israel attack last week and its now over.
is going to bite the Navy in the ass... having to drive your boat back to port to reload is a tactical nightmare.
Luv ya' Across
UNREP - underway replenishment
SM2 - one of the SAM used for air and ballistic missile defense
VLS - vertical launch System
I suspect the extent and nature of the attack and Israel’s response were largely communicated ahead of time. At the very least, I ran was telegraphing exactly the nature of its attack and made little to no attempt to use basic combined tactics to increase the lethality of the strike. This allows them to respond while simultaneously minimizing the chance that it escalates
And Russia needs Iranian support to continue in Ukraine. Iran can’t provide them that support and fight a war with Israel that will be heavily backed by the United States
It is a big change for Iran to launch from their own land. It certainly is a move to appease their hardliners while also giving the biggest heads up to Israel that missiles and drones were on their way. It seems to be done to save face, while limited the need for Israel to have a severe response.
But, if Iran really wanted to do something they would unleash Hezbollah who have enough rockets to overwhelm the iron dome. This is not the best Iran can do. They are capable of much more. But, It’s what they are most willing to do at this time, IMO.
This is all a big game and Iran is just slightly escalating within the unwritten rules. Hopefully Israel continues with a mostly measured response and just hits back at some mostly useless Iranian military targets or even none Iranian land targets.
proxy weapons depots not in Iran. Hopefully this is the end of it.
What will you say when this symbolic act is met with 3x the force from Israel? Will you blame Israel for responding, or Iran for spinning the wheel of violence?
In response to the 10/7 attack, Israel has waged six months of war. What do you think that they will do in response to an unprecedented attack from Iran? Nothing doesn’t seem like it is on the table. So it is either attack their proxies in Southern Lebanon or attack Iran directly (logistically much more difficult, for sure).
Much different than 10/7
My point is that Israel isn’t known for restraint when it comes to these situations. Given the unprecedented nature of the attack, I can see them striking back much more forcefully to dissuade such action in the future.
if we are being objective Iran was probably within reason with this response — Israel blew ip up two of their generals. The trade of that strike for this futility seems like Israel should just take a win
Hezbollah being front and center. Hamas, too.
I’d say that Israel is justified in any attack on Iran, given their state sponsorship of terrirism in the region.