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the last time US wanted some country to reset back to Stone Age the same thing happened. turn out those aircrafts are not undefeatable at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only for someone breaking the guideline of "Assume good faith".
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
Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special forces) and there is a special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they’ll get the aviators back quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
Prisoner of war, not hostage. edit: I'm baffled by the amount of downvotes pointing out the objectively correct terminology can get. Its not a matter of opinion, military personnel captured by the enemy are pow no matter their treatment. A hostage, by definition, has been abducted.
During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any city in the world. An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/iran-missiles-us-mil...
Doesn't break out anti-air, but Iran absolutely has a lot of teeth left.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they train for a “no quarter“ conflict where injured or surrendered combatants are killed?
Hegseth is not in charge of the Iranian military.
the last time US wanted some country to reset back to Stone Age the same thing happened. turn out those aircrafts are not undefeatable at all.
It's pretty normal for planes to go down in a war. They've flown 5000+ sorties, it's a pretty huge accomplishment this is the first one lost over Iran. Especially considering all of the last decade's speculation about how tough attacking Iran would be. You'll never be able to fully suppress all of their manpads. Even if you destroy the bulk of their air defence network.
- 3x F-15 friendly fire
- 2x KC-130 refuel mid air collision (1 loss, 1 damaged)
- 1x F-35 damaged
- 1x AEWACs base strike
- 3x KC-130 base strike (same)
- 1x F-15 (this one)
2-3 a week is not great for the greatest military, more than half attributable to Iran.
With 300+ US casualties, that's ~10/day, a fatality every ~2 days. No boots on the ground (that we know of, sure there are some elite ops in the country)
During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any city in the world. An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iran has systems they can pull out of a cave and deploy in a couple hours or less. We will never get all their anti air out.
With the altitudes they've been flying at, shoulder mounted MANPADs are a viable option.
You saw the same pattern where Ukraine and Russia both constantly adapted on the battlefield and the war changed rapidly over the first year.