a single AN/FPS-132 radar costs $1.1 bln, not $500m. And Iran stuck 17 of the CENCCOM sites hosting radars of all kinds across Qarar, Bahrain, Iraq, UAE, Saudi, Jordan, Israel, etc).

Total cost is so much bigger, it is staggering. The whole CENTCOM is blind basically, as well as Iron Dome which relied on these radars - all blind now, in addition to long-range early nuke detection to protect CONUS is also blind.

in addition to cost, they all require Rare Earth Minerals, and China has banned the export of these (they own like 99% of the market).

So not only CENTCOM is blind and incurred damage in high single digit billions, but also will be unable to repair the damage any time soon (probably for decades) even if the funding were made to be available

Government obviously pretty silent on all these failures and media doesn't want to dig and ask hard questions

Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/world/middleeast/iran-str...

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-radars-airstrikes/

Is this story even true ? There has been fake AI photo about destructed THAAD radars : https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.A2B239E

AFAIK, the one in Qatar was paid by Qatar and operated by US.

we have likely moved on from this to satellite as a stop gap.

Cmon. At least it is all justified with good reasons!

Did you tactically forgot to put parachute on the landing pod? Or run out of fuel mid mission?

The first time I ever attempted a rescue mission in KSP, I ended up stranding 5 different kerbals in various orbita nearby trying to get the first one, and of course every one was a bigger and more complicated craft trying to save as many kerbals as possible. Eventually I just gave up and put a giant cross memorial in orbit, part as a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and part as a memorial to the like 6 kerbals I left stranded in space.

Slaps car, thsi baby can fit soo many rescue teams in it

And it did sometimes get way out of control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo

That's an example of things getting out of control.

Not sure if it was actually used, but a fun idea for pilot recovery..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_ROE_Rotorcycle

…against the viet cong, where the biggest risk was the pilot getting pierced from small arms fire (in addition to the helo going down from pilot error). Quite different from the anti-air weapons modern day Iran possesses.

Manpads (man portable air defense) works just fine.

Geran-2 (which is Russian licenced Shahed drone) also carries air-to-air missile, so sending slow archaic manned airframe is just suicide mission (aka shaheed)

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russia-used-shahed-drone-arme...

> ignoring the spicier broader debate of if the whole Iran campaign was the right call or not

How spicy of a debate is that really? How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good idea?

Their point is that the NYT says it crashed, the cause isn't clear.

Is that reliable? The IRGC basically runs the economy and takes a significant cut. The IGRC is also separate from the military. The nuclear program, quite obviously for military use, may also not be included. What about support for proxy groups? Hezbollah alone gets support above $1B per year.

They should probably be closer to 0 or more in line with European countries but these numbers aren’t accurate and don’t tell the full story. They don’t, for example, include money paid to and missiles transferred to Houthis to launch from Yemen. Nevermind Hamas and Hezbollah, rebels in Iraq and so forth.

Almost half of the economy is controlled by the IRGC: https://fortune.com/2026/03/02/iran-islamic-revolutionary-gu...

> The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than shot down.

Which makes them irrelevant here in this discussion but sure yea. Russia (those sneaky guys who invaded Ukraine and are being supplied by Iran) provide targeting information to Iran, Iran has missiles, we can't shoot them all down, and here we are. It's unfortunate but that's what happens in a war. Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the United States and they're going to come in handy if we end up in another war.

> Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5 trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.

We can easily afford both, but we choose not to because our political system is full of morons and corruption, but instead of Iran being more like the US and being dysfunctional in this regard, it should be more like Norway (excluding population differences) and pump and sell the oil and do so for the benefit of their citizens instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America and death to Israel nonsense.

> Iran's military budget as a % of GDP has historically been inthe low single digits:

Figures provided here are inaccurate and don't account for spending on proxy groups, for example.

US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board, so this will be a good chance to cleanse the system of fraud.

or at least US citizens should protect legitimate entitlements and inspect everything to cut down on corruption

At least something positive

We'll have to wait and see what comes out but I don't think this is a bad sign. In war you lose equipment and aircraft. It's silly to think the US wouldn't lose some during the course of the war. After all, the OP to this thread highlighted all of the advantages Iran has. Yet we've wiped out quite a bit of their military infrastructure and have complete control over the skies. Russia can't say the same though for their little adventure ;)

How civil is murdering 30,000 protestors? Muh progressive Iranian government

Yes, most ground strikes were by other aircraft types, but the F-15E did have a lot of sorties, almost as many as the F-111 or F-4G (although the F-16 had many, many more sorties, but not all of them were air-to-ground)

Source is the Gulf War Airpower Survey, page 184 (PDF page 205): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA273996.pdf

The story is actually quite interesting. The Serbs observed that a nighthawk would routinely fly the same route but their radar couldn’t lock on it unless the missile hatch were open, which they managed to elicit.

In short, it took 2 rare events to occur for it to happen.

Next you're going to tell me that operating out of your own mountainous terrain has an advantage.

The Serbs successfully used a similar tactic to down an F-117A, so yeah.

Yes, although it’s designed for interdiction, rather than primarily a ground attack aircraft, the difference being that it’s intended to be used against defenceless ground targets (like supply lines), not on the front lines.

"Iran will have a nuclear weapon real soon!" is a claim that has been pushed, particularly by Benjamin Netanyahu for thirty years.

https://www.news18.com/world/weeks-away-by-next-spring-video...

You forgot the 5th actor - Russia - which is benefiting hugely from the collapse of NATO, the loosening of oil sanctions, the huge hike in oil prices, and the way the US was persuaded to expend a ridiculous percentage of its conventional missile stockpiles on a pointless project.

Ukraine is doing its best to minimise Russian oil exports, and that's certainly having an effect.

But strategically, Russia is a huge beneficiary of this mess.

Not sure how the US comes back from this.

Who will trust US treaties going forward?

> The Gulf States just want to maintain the pre-war status quo. Saudi Arabia in particular just wanted to contain Iran. They're less vulnerable to the Strait being closed but it's still a problem politically as the US and Israel are bombing other Muslims. The Gulf states are learning the the US security guarantee ain't worth shit but they can't break away from being US client states with their own unpopular regimes probably collapsing without US arms. But in a prolonged conflict some of them may collapse anyway, particularly Bahrain and even Iraq.

Saudi and the UAE don't want the pre-war status quo, they want America to bomb Iran back to the stone age so it can't continue missile or launcher production.

Yep, all sounds right to me

Waiting to see the Shaheds with AA missiles like Russia was using (until their starlink was finally shut off late last year)

Sure, but there are videos of US war planes strafing, like that near hit clip.

Even the Philippines, a US ally, has struck a deal with Iran for safe passage. Meanwhile, Oman is working with Iran on a toll scheme. There's an emerging chance that no US-flagged vessel crosses the Straight of Hormuz again in our lifetimes (except maybe for a retreating 5th fleet).

Not really, if you're entering Iranian airspace from the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or Europe, you're flying over either the Zagros Mountains or the Alborz Mountains. Unless you crash/eject in a city, you're almost certainly going to be in the mountains. Look at a map.

some enlisted air crew go to SERE. loadmasters, airborne intelligence, and SMA (Special Mission Aviators).

As an added benefit, enlisted air crew have no restrictions on mustache length or on professional wear of the uniform.

Spokane is in the Eastern arid region of the state.

Every war since Korea, we’re very used to this.

As he said. Military members are pretty clear eyed about things.

... But conducted by the self proclaimed Department of War.

Yes, he said it in front of reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4434...

> Our response? We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.

Actually even just declaring no quarter is itself a war crime.

We've already committed several war crimes.

In case anyone else doubted this, I will save you the time to look it up. Yup, it's sadly true.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/hegseth-no-quarter-interna...

The person you’re replying to is very explicitly not expecting them to honor the International Convention…

Does the US have any prisoners to exchange? Wouldn't we need boots-on-the-ground to capture enemy combatants?

I would note ISIS put out some high res, professionally edited video of burning a (Jordanian?) pilot to death while inside a cage. Quite savage, but the propaganda effect is more profound than about anything else I've seen.

If you throw away your principles because you are fighting an unprincipled enemy, you are no better than them.

America has never played by the rules.

US exceptionalism is a prominent feature of every republican and democratic president since decades.

It's sad, because if US did, and led by example, it could've pulled serious weight internationally on plenty of matters.

Instead it can only do so by economic or military leverage, which, at the end of the day is not enough of a leverage to avoid confrontation.

Or Hegseth running his mouth about exactly this issue...

Reprisals are legally permitted to a limited extent if you're a victim of war crimes, as Iran is.

First: count the responses to my thread of people suggesting Iran cannot/should not be held to the Geneva convention: 4,5 (I'm counting the Hegseth comment as 0.5)

The point is there are a great deal of people, even in the US, who advocate that it is unreasonable to hold people fighting the west in general and US in particular to the Geneva conventions. I don't know where this idea comes from, because morally it is of course indefensible, but there you go.

I would expect the number to be bigger in Iran. I would expect the number among IRGC extremists to be even higher than in Iran in general.

Second: war crimes have 2 interpretations. First as violations of the Rome treaty which require that the state where the warcrimes happen has signed the Rome treaty. Iran hasn't.

The second interpretation of warcrimes is that they are violations of the Geneva conventions, and the reaction would be that the UN security council intervenes. Well, the UNSC has preemptively declared they will not hold Iran to account for warcrimes (to be exact: France, Russia and China have declared they will veto). So at minimum you can say that Iranian warcrimes will not have any "official" consequences.

The world and the UN have decided that warcrimes "don't count". As in there will not be any consequences unless the government of the country where they happened implements those consequences.

Third: Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention. They have also kidnapped hundreds of foreign nationals of other nations and are also holding them for ransom, which is also a violation of human rights, ie. a warcrime.

So those are my three reasons Iran won't hold itself to human rights standards.

I didn’t downvote you, but a terse “well actually it’s prisoner of war” doesn’t really add to the conversation. Imagine doing that in person, you’d annoy everyone around you. If you explained why it’s distinct and what that might mean for downed crew I think it wouldn’t have been down voted

Because almost all of the people inside Iran have been disconnected for the past 35 days [1]. And believe it or not, they are texting these news live to all mobile phones on a daily basis as well. Some regime supporters believe it, because the want to believe it, they need to believe it. Just in the past 24 hours I have received 5 different messages from different organizations claiming victory and damage to US / Israel assets.

Just for a quick laugh, look at the official (Iranian) president's letter to the American people published yesterday [2]. The font changes between the paragraphs!

[1] https://mastodon.social/@netblocks/116339631989805542

[2] https://x.com/drpezeshkian/status/2039418009052119190?s=20

The claim being addressed is a shootdown over Qeshm island, which is the biggest island just west of the strait of Hormuz. The current CSAR operations are happening somewhere in the Khuzestan province. Probably somewhere within the 150 km radius of [1] based on online footage of the C-130 flying over.

[1] 31.941606, 50.311765

It's known as the Air National Guard. Work for United during the week, and fly F16's one weekend a month.

You should never trust this administration. The US government in general has a spotty history, but this administration does nothing trustworthy.

Regardless of whether it's a "perfect setup" or not, the facts speak for themselves.

Most competent governments don't say things that are outright wrong. They may use double speak, or not comment on a topic. But this government (and unfortunately it's this specific adminstration/president) has acted time and again in a way that both of us know very well.

Do you have some reasons for hope for the cynics in the crowd?

Has there been a time where (after later facts came out) they were wrong?

Or the bootlicker olympics for those who want everyone else to ignore the constant lies because they think bigger, more powerful government is utopian.

Right on cue!

> Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority party right now.

By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the donor class? Money is speech, after all.

The Democratic party has an identity crisis: it's failing to balance special interests and their traditional constituents - post-Goldwater/ southern-strategy. Instead of activating their base, they seem to be courting the political center that has been hollowed out by Maga and polarization, incidentally matching the desires of their donors who abhor any kind of populist leftist politics, including anything in instituted by FDR.

Where trumps Republican Party have spent the last 10 years not catering from their loudest supporters?

Either the majority of Americans want this war, in which case the Dems have to be quiet, or they don’t, in which case the dems should be making it the number one issue.

Sadly I suspect the answer is not in the side of the Hollywood version of post ww2 America.

Now is the time to insert the “are we the bad guys” meme.

Can you justify that assertion? How would they do it again, more publicly?

It's not like a blackmail ring is that easy to set up, it seems to have taken a lot of heavy lifting to get this one going.

But why are we focusing on the raping, and not on what the American government is doing that has no clear rational motive without “Israel has captured the government” and a very clear rational motive with “Israel has captured the government”?

If the American government continues to perform actions that are blatantly against the interests of America and Americans, the impact of that on Americans is going to be (and may be already) massively massively worse than the person to person level crimes we are focusing on.

Does it just feel so bad thinking about it that a lot of people have a hard time even going there mentally? I really don’t get it.

A sneak attack where they warned them twice first? Come on.

No I’m not "seriously trying to say" anything you say.

I am saying: This regime murdered 45,000 unarmed civilians simply for protesting.

By the way, today they executed an 18-year-old, also unarmed.

The missiles have what’s effectively a flak shotgun shell at the tip, when they’re pointed at an object and close by it shoots flak in a tight cone towards the front.

Flak spreads the damage better and does more kinetic damage than trying to ram a plane with a missile and hoping the concussion from a the resulting explosion damages something.

You're talking about a single "dash" on the frame before it goes all white. First question, if it were a laser, would be what exactly are you seeing there? A laser from the side is invisible, there'd need to be dust there, or the air would need to have turned into plasma. I don't think either makes that much sense. Second question/problem would be… it would have failed/be malfunctioning because —

— pretty much all AA munition works by exploding in close proximity to the target and showering it in shrapnel. So this might even have "helped" the missle/shell against malfunction in its fuse. And considering that this is designed to work like that, and it's likely not the greatest quality work on the Iranian side, it's also possible that the thing is already exploding and just ejected some piece of intentional shrapnel (or unintentionally itself) early, ahead of the actual detonation.

Or the Iranians edited that "dash" into that one frame, it's not exactly like it's a reputable source and it's in their interest to confuse things. Maybe they want the US to believe that the countermeasures are malfunctioning and helping their attacks, so they turn it off…

> The main issues with this war are strategic questions

That's an exceptionally nice way of saying we invaded a country for no valid military reason, starting a war of aggression.

We're no better than Russia now, with their invasion of Ukraine.

> ... and people mocking the presidents inconsistent communication.

Well-deserved mockery. He continues to lie about what's happening, every other sentence.

the big difference with Iran is the strait of hormuz. It doesn't matter how "well" it goes if it stays closed and torpedos the global economy

> inconsistent communication

I feel like "inconsistent communication" is putting it lightly, with trump going back and forth between "we won", "we'll take the oil", and "whatever we'll leave" often within the same day.

Pretty much.

US military is performing quite well. US political leadership is the questionable part of this war.

It would sure be nice if White House gave a reason to believe that there's an actual plan for dismantling Iran's regime, or Iran's influence, that goes beyond "wing it".

And that’s exactly why sharing a video might lead to prison sentence somewhere?

I wouldn't draw comparisons to Desert Storm, 36 years ago and a differently composed US military, along with all the ISR advancements since then.

> They should be able to do much more to regional military bases.

Could, they are not going all out, but they do keep striking gulf states on the regular

> people mocking the presidents inconsistent communication.

Asking questions, we the people deserve some clarity instead of half a dozen changing reasons and being told we already won, but still need to win, and that we'll be done in a few weeks a few times now. We the people have to pay for this, we deserve answers, especially what's the plan for when the shooting stops?

Israel, or at least Bibi, seems to be the only one who is very clear about the goals and intentions.

> They should be able to do much more to regional military bases.

I don't see why they couldn't. The obvious strategy for Iran right now is to use cluster munitions and Shahed waves to expend as many interceptors as possible before sending in the high-throw unitary (or nuclear) warheads. It makes sense that we saw the smaller MRBMs first since they're the cheapest minimum-viable threat.

> this has been about as good as one could expect - within the limits of what an air-only campaign can do.

We're deep in the missile age. Air campaigns like this sucked during the Scud hunt, and it triple-sucks now that America has to contend with drone warfare. The limits of an air-only campaign have been constricting for the past three decades, and the death toll can only climb if the air war fails.

You do have a point. F-18 narrowly missed a MANPAD recently too

The government would never lie: the "damaged" plane was already accounted for, just in the ground, in enemy territory.

The use of "a" instead of "the" pilot suggests more than 1 personnel on the plane, considering F15's carry 2 people (unless it's some magical F15 I haven't heard of), it means there's still 1 guy missing out there.

Or he (I assume) could also have been found dead, and is not being mentioned before his family is notified of the sacrifice Donald Trump made of his life.

War was not the only option to respond to the crime.

FWIW I'd agree your question wasn't what-about-ism.

I don't see how a single tank could win against 12 cavemen, but I digress. It's a video game.

Weapons are designed with an opponent in mind, and guarded against the expected threat models from that opponent. Everything breaks down when the opponent does not what you want them to.

The prototype E-7 cost $2 billion. It's a 737 with some radios.