US Strikes on Iran (Operation Epic Fury)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I won't go through the actual numbers, but it costs a lot more to shoot down one of those ubiquitous Iranian drones that it does to build it. Like 50-60 times more.

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

That's what Russia thought when their strategic bomber fleet was still at 100% ,😁

Look at the problems we had with drones around Langley AFB a year or two ago. The low-and-slow flight profiles of drones seem ideal for penetrating airspace attuned to controlling high, fast jetliners.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I won't go through the actual numbers, but it costs a lot more to shoot down one of those ubiquitous Iranian drones that it does to build it. Like 50-60 times more.

Boru

... and every SAM battery defending, say, Los Angeles, is one not defending basing assets in-theater.

[Mr Greene]

That’d be a neat trick, given the range of Shahed drones and the distance from Iran to California.

Boru

If Iran could get a container ship off the West Coast, not a problem ... but they'd be sunk before leaving Iranian waters.

Depending if the ship left from Iran. Alas lots of ways round that.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If Iran could get a container ship off the West Coast, not a problem ... but they'd be sunk before leaving Iranian waters.

Depending if the ship left from Iran. Alas lots of ways round that.

One of those mini-subs Iran has might work better than a big clunky surface ship. Both aerial and underwater drone can be launched from midget submarines. 

Boru

[Deesse23]

Classic Military theory: turn your enemies strength into a weakness.

The USA has way more advanced, and expensive, air assets and air defense than Iran. Flood them with cheap drones and run them dry, financially and in materiel. This was already shown to work in Ukraine.

The current USA admin is at high risk to grossly overestimate its abilities here, for well know reasons, incompetence being only one

[Paleophyte]

Much more effectively, quietly park a few thousand drones in Mexico years ago in case the USA does anything really stupid. The tests of the US defenses would look like drug running.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Much more effectively, quietly park a few thousand drones in Mexico years ago in case the USA does anything really stupid. The tests of the US defenses would look like drug running.

That was actually the initial fear - that the Mexican cartels would acquire drones. And use them.

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

Much more effectively, quietly park a few thousand drones in Mexico years ago in case the USA does anything really stupid. The tests of the US defenses would look like drug running.

That was actually the initial fear - that the Mexican cartels would acquire drones. And use them.

Boru

I don't doubt that is already in the works, if not already having come to pass.

[Leonardo17]

BrianSoddingBoru:
 
“No martyr’s supporters have EVER been in touch with reality. I’m unaware of a ‘deeper, spiritual sense’ of martyrdom. A martyr is someone who suffers or dies for their religious (or other) beliefs. Khamenei was a theocrat, which seems to fit the bill pretty neatly.”
 
- These are creatures of fear. I heard that the son of Khamenei was tapping the telephones of his father. Will Kim Yon Un be a Martyr if I kill him today?
 
IvanDenisovich:
 
“Then it merely means that those alleged many people are scum supporting genocidal piece of shit. netanyahu is fascist trash and nothing else no matter how many smiley faces you will put in your posts.”
 
- I don’t know if I would want to be a citizen of Israel. But if Netanyahu is the most bad ass guy that they are voting for while living with such existential threats for decades, I think they are doing pretty well.
 
/ Having said that: I really hope for a more moderate government in Israel after this Netanyahu era.
 
Belaqua:
 
“Remember Herodotus? He told the story of how Croesus, king of Lydia (one of the richest and most powerful kingdoms of its time) asked a question of the Delphic Oracle.
Croesus asked whether he should attack Persia. The Oracle answered that if he attacked, he would destroy a great empire.
This came true, although the empire that got destroyed was Lydia.
It looks as though history may repeat itself.”
 
- Today (fFriday the 13th) everyone seems to share your view. Netanyahu is talking of a long war. While the West does not have enough oil ration for more than 2 months. And no one knows what D. Trump has in mind.
 
I am not so pessimistic. You can easily send ground troops to Iran because the Iranian population simply hates these Basij + IRG’s. But first, you need to destroy everything they have. The US bombed Iraq for a decade before taking the whole country within days. I am not a specialist, but maybe Netayahu + D. Trump are repeating this same scenario in a more compact form here.
 
/ Yet both of them are very unpopular with some factions of society. So we don’t really know what is going to happen. I am only talking about what may happen.
 
Desse23:
“Macron has announced nuclear joint exercises with Germany”
 
- Yes. The UK + France want to have a nuclear arsenal that is as big as the Chinese military Arsenal.
 
(I don’t like where this is going)
 
On Lebanon:
 
- The Lebanese Army + Police force are completely neutral. The UN mission there is just watching. Hezbollah is the only authority (together with mafia) and the Lebanese state is a failed state.
 
On Reza Pahlavi:
 
- We should see him as a symbol. He is the symbol of true İranian İdentity. Political Islam is an ideology that seeks to annihilate people’s identities. That’s why they turn women into mere shadows of themselves. The former shah might have been very authoritarian. But he did not seek to erase the self-confidence and self-love of an entire population.
 
+ Even if Iran becomes a monarchy, it will be a constitutional monarchy like the monarchy in Spain for instance.