[cheney_2004]

Iran has successfully targeted countless bases around the Middle East, a lot of this news simply isn’t being covered. Most of these strikes are on static assets like radar, depots, and other structures. If you are thinking about the F35s, strikes that hit runways are repaired in a matter of hours. As for the F35s themselves, they are constantly on the move or simply kept in the air. Service and storage is done on remote bases outside of the target zone. This has been standard practice since military aircraft has been introduced.

[breppp]

That's certainly what Iranian propaganda is saying, as if everybody is censoring their great successes. Fact is there is no meaningful reduction in Israeli attacks, while Iranian launching ability had greatly suffered. So these air bases are probably not being hit. Apart from it in the era of OSINT satellite imagery, it is no issue to publicize such damage, I don't know of any such imagery

Regarding the gulf, there the Iranians are having better success as at those ranges intercepting drones is harder and due to the general military ineffectiveness of the gulf nations

[anonymous_user9]

> Apart from it in the era of OSINT satellite imagery, it is no issue to publicize such damage, I don't know of any such imagery

Not sure about other providers, but Planet Labs has applied a 14-day delay to satellite images of the middle east.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/satellite...

[breppp]

There are chinese and russian satellite imagery, but we can also wait two weeks for western sources

[tmnvix]

I haven't seen imagery of damage to Israeli airbases, but plenty of imagery showing damage to US military bases. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0cIOMVBSbU . Worth keeping in mind that in the case of Israel, censorship is very effective.

From the Iranian perspective, the overall strategy seems to have been:

1. Deplete intercepter stock and probe US/Israeli defences using large amounts of older less accurate missile stock and waves of drones.

2. Target radar and early warning systems.

3. After 'blinding', make further use of more vulnerable but cheaper and more accurate drones to target specific infrastructure.

Given this approach it makes total sense to see their 'rate of fire' reduced by 90%. This is not necessarily an indication of reduced ability to launch attacks - their attacks are now more effective. They have demonstrated that each time the US and Israel escalate they successfully respond almost immediately. Talk of their capabilities being wiped out is demonstrably nonsense.

Ted Postol makes much the same points. He also claims to be surprised by the accuracy of recent missiles launched by Iran and assumes that his earlier analysis underestimated this because it was done based on the older stock Iran was using.

It seems pretty clear to me that Israel and the US are on the back foot here. Defences are inadequate. Economic pressure is building. Iran still has plenty of options to increase pressure (e.g. Houthi involvement, further infrastructure targeting, additional constrictions on the strait of Hormuz). By comparison US ability to increase pressure now seems limited to threatening major war crimes (wiping out Iran's power grid and putting the country into blackout). Not to say many of Iran's actions haven't also been war crimes.

How much more damage can Iran accept? Nobody is about to be voted out of power there so I would think quite a bit (as unpleasant as that is for the millions of innocent people caught up in this madness). I think the truth of all of this is that the US and Israel have no way to wipe out Iran's missile and drone capabilities. Postol even suggests nukes wouldn't even accomplish that. So now what? Taco or push further for Iranian political unrest or division.

My feeling is that this is going to get a lot worse for everyone involved.

[stickfigure]

I suspect you're giving the Iranian response too much foresight and credit here. With the decapitation strike, it's unlikely that a coherent plan of "launch all the cheap stuff first" remained intact. The upside of decentralized control is that it's hard to shut down; the downside is that it's hard to do exactly this kind of coordination.

My guess (which seems to be borne out by the numbers, at least as gets reported) is that the bulk of the IRGC's missile capability has been launched already. Certainly not all, but it will continue to diminish over time rather than increase. Still, that doesn't mean the remaining stock isn't incredibly dangerous.

> My feeling is that this is going to get a lot worse for everyone involved.

There I agree.

[andrewflnr]

If Iran was having great success with their attacks, they wouldn't therefore tail off the intensity if they could help it. They would just start scoring more hits with the same, presumably maximum, rate of fire.

I think the obvious answer is the correct one here, that Iran's launch capacity has been degraded. That's not to say it will ever go to zero, so a lot of your other points still have some merit.

[watwut]

> f Iran was having great success with their attacks, they wouldn't therefore tail off the intensity if they could help it.

They would for pragmatical reasons - they do not want to spend more ammunition then necessary. They very clearly do eye for eye thing - when something is attacked inside their territory, they attack similar thing outside.

They are not running the "operation epic fury to prove we are manly men" thing. They are running the "operation regime survives in a long term" thing.

[fc417fc802]

That assumes they want to escalate. So far at least their official statements have been clear about tit-for-tat.

It could also backfire spectacularly. If a bunch of civilians suddenly get killed or other war crimes committed unilaterally by them (such as targeting energy infrastructure) their adversaries could gain political support for the current effort. Whereas gradually forcing all interceptors to be expended is a massively expensive slow bleed and gives the opponent little to nothing to spin in their favor.

[andrewflnr]

The strategy of throwing ballistic missiles at all of their neighbors doesn't seem like one that's overly concerned with political support among their adversaries. And a fast bleed of interceptors works for them too, maybe better since it spends less time in this phase of the conflict. I don't buy it. The Iranians aren't stupid but I don't think they're playing 5d chess either.

[fc417fc802]

I agree that it's probably not 5D chess. But I have to contest that speed is to their advantage given such asymmetric military strength. A slow bleed prolongs the process while the world looks on and energy prices steadily rise. They certainly aren't endearing themselves with their neighbors but at the same time by only striking a minimum amount of infrastructure they avoid mobilizing the sentiment of the broader US or EU populations against them.

My impression is that an overly intense or otherwise disproportionate attack would risk inviting a significant increase in political support. Whereas so far it seems to be a wildly unpopular military campaign.

IMO the US botched this quite badly. I'm almost certain we could have found a way to go about disposing of someone who guns down protesters en masse and funds terrorism without inviting so much negative sentiment or economic volatility.

[bigfatkitten]

One of the things Iran figured out fairly quickly about Israel is that reducing their rate of fire is more effective for wearing down the population, and eroding political support for the war.

The longer Iran can keep the air raid sirens blaring in Israel, the better.

[breppp]

> comparison US ability to increase pressure now seems limited to threatening major war crimes (wiping out Iran's power grid and putting the country into blackout). Not to say many of Iran's actions haven't also been war crimes.

US can destroy the entire Iranian economy that rests on oil. The only thing that stopping them right now seems like a fantasy by Trump that post-war Iran will become a Venezuela. Iran could then damage the Gulf oil facilities but does not have the same capabilities to completely destroy the facilities, due to problems getting the ammunitions to the targets

> I think the truth of all of this is that the US and Israel have no way to wipe out Iran's missile and drone capabilities

Everyday Israel is bombing the entire supply chain for drones and ballistic missiles in Iran. That means the companies making the explosives, optics, fins, stabilizers, engines, etc. The amount of destruction will greatly set back the Iranian ability to replenish their stockpiles and should also affect the war in Ukraine.

Iranian ballistic missile capability, at least the long range one is limited by its amount of launchers, and these are also hunted rather effectively.

I wouldn't underestimate complete air superiority, as the ability of the US and Israel to cause damage to Iran is far greater than otherwise, and Iran entire economy is concentrated on a very small number of targets

[esseph]

> Iranian ballistic missile capability, at least the long range one is limited by its amount of launchers, and these are also hunted rather effectively.

The island tunnels holding many of these are problematic, which is why we are deploying troops to go tunnel hunting on the islands in the Straight.