[9cb14c1ec0]

To be clear, that F35 was being incredibly careless, flying low in broad daylight. All the stealth features of an aircraft are useless if you can look at it with your own eyes. In any conflict with China, F35s would not be flown that way.

[iso1631]

You're holding it wrong?

How many cheap-ass drones could you buy for the cost of one F35. 100k? A million?

[breppp]

None of these reached Israel from Iran this war, so maybe their superior quantity is not enough

[don_esteban]

Iran does not have a million of them, the numbers they have are better utilized on targets in Gulf states.

If Iran launched 10000 Shaheds towards Isreal, you can be sure quite a few would get by.

Maybe Ukrainian drone interceptors can be made cheap enough to be good enough against massed Shaheds.

We are still early in the new paradigm, there will be significant developments.

[fpoling]

APKWS interceptor is about 35K USD and works much better than drone-based interceptors. The problem is to scale the production, training and deployment. Another problem is detection. One needs wast multilayered system that US military missed to build as big stationary radars are very hard to defend.

[don_esteban]

Air-launched interceptors like this have the problem on relying on a super-expensive manned carrier (fighter or helicopter).

The intercept cost is now not only the cost of the interceptor, but also the cost of the flying hours of the launching platform, and the risk of losing the launching platform.

If you equip even some of your Shaheds with AA missiles (cheap manpads with autonomous IR target acquisition and guidance), like is already happening in Ukraine, the feasibility of APKWS becomes problematic. The technology is developing fast these days.

[fpoling]

APKWS launching from air is a stop-gap measure in any case. The detection range for Shahed-type drones is tenths of kilometers, not hundreds, like with fighter jets or big missiles. One cannot have that many fighter jets in the air all the time even without the threat of manpads.

But ground-based platforms work just fine and cheap enough to scale up the deployment to cover the big area.

The big advantage of APKWS over interceptor drones is the rocket engine, they are much faster and can catch Shaheds within much bigger radius or within much smaller timeframe than interceptor drones.

[pjc50]

In a direct conflict with China, the ICBM exchange would destroy the F35s on the ground.

[mrguyorama]

China doesn't seem to think so. China believes they need to fight those F35s in the air.

Why would the opening salvo be ICBMs?

[don_esteban]

To deny the US the use of any nearby airfields (Okinawa, several others in Japan an Philippines). This will limit US airpower to carriers, which are few and sinkable.

Of course, China wants to be able to fight those F35s in the air - to mitigate the damage they can do to them (while the F35s still have airfield/carriers to land on) - also in order to make it easier to sink those carriers.

Still, you can bet that all US nearby airfields would be peppered very early in the conflict.

[elzbardico]

There won't be a direct conflict with China, at least not in the last 10 years, because the US first needs to complete de-coupling his economy from China more, re-industralize in-shore or at least near-shore, and dramatically build up its military and logistic capabilities to fight an expeditionary campaign on China shores.

China also is not stupid, and no matter how much they posture, they won't invade Taiwan.

[bilbo0s]

This analysis is insane.

No one is invading China. Coupled or de-coupled is a completely irrelevant consideration. People think MAGA are crazy, but no one is suicidal. A war with China would be over in a matter of hours. And anyone who did not manage to get to Africa or extreme South America before the outbreak of hostilities would have a great chance of dying. The only question is will death be quick in a blast, or slow as you try to walk out of the US.

[nerfbatplz]

To be clear, Trump announced that the US had destroyed Iran's air defenses, missiles and missile launch capabilities. Trump also said that the US enjoyed air supremacy over Iran and were flying when and where they wished.

Maybe one of these days we'll see a B-52 take off with JDAMs and not JASSMs but probably not, kind of scary to try and drop gravity bombs on a country that your stealth fighters can't fly over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU

[breppp]

B-52s takeoff with stand-in weapons when attacking Iran, as their air defense is largely destroyed

https://theaviationist.com/2026/03/23/b-52s-launching-from-r...