F-15E jet shot down over Iran • Hacker News Board

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#551

Post by grafmax » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #458

bijowo1676 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ad…

> Government obviously pretty silent on all these failures and media doesn't want to dig and ask hard questions Some analysts are sure drumming up the severity [0]. In the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's exaggerated and what's not. The proposal by the current US Admin to increase defence spending by 40% to $1.5t is not a welcome sign for those opposed to heavy spending, for any number of reasons. [0] https://sh…

> In the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's exaggerated and what's not.

Honestly it's more than that. Propaganda and lies put out by ALL actors in this conflict. If you want to understand what's going on I think you have the expose yourself to as many competing sources as you can find. And still you're going to end up with a very shoddy picture. The term for this is epistemic collapse.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#552

Post by derwiki » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #421

JohnTHaller wrote: post #155

Let's hope Iran doesn't follow the "no quarter, no mercy" policy laid out by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. For the unfamiliar, it means executing survivors and surrendering combatants. Aka war crimes.

[flagged]

I think the Great Leap Forward famine killed a lot more, but I guess it wasn’t a massacre: just super weird and bad leadership from Mao.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#553

Post by Brendinooo » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

carefree-bob wrote: post #152

roadbuster wrote: post #116

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.

In the first Iraq war, the KARI system in Iraq, which was built by Thompson-CSF, had its specifications leaked and the US obtained access to back doors and codes that allowed it to bypass and/or disable much of that system. You need to remember that the US and much of the West had friendly relations with Iraq and provided some infrastructure assistance and military support because Iraq invaded Iran. No such analogous…

I have a friend who flew in Desert Storm, and he talked about how incompetent the Iraqis were. Like

- De facto language of aviation (i.e. manuals) is English, and the regime had just purged most of the English speakers before the thing started

- They had these advanced ground defense systems and...didn't use the targeting, they were just spraying in the air

I don't know how well the Iranians can use their tools but I bet they're better than that.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#554

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

overfeed wrote: post #537

rootusrootus wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dems have no power against a unified GOP front, and they already look pretty weak on issues like this. They are trying to figure out how they can mollify their base while attracting enough centrist voters to retake Congress later this year. I don't care for the dem leadership but I feel a little sympathy for them. Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority party right now.

> 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 polit…

> By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the donor class?

No, I don't believe so. I'm talking about the people who convinced them that culture wars were the right way to do battle with a conservative opponent despite that being automatically an uphill battle. The dem leadership focused on issues that polled well with a small group of loud people on a crusade, and largely ignored bread & butter issues that resonate with people less politically inclined. But centrist votes are counted just the same as partisan ones, and more plentiful.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#555

Post by CamperBob2 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

rustyhancock wrote: post #330

YZF wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the reliability of this reporting? What we can tell though is that Iran is still firing missiles (including cluster munitions) at Israel's civilians and at gulf states. So the ground facts are that it can still do that. We also have to remember that Iran has a large number of different missile systems for different ranges. It's mostly not the same missiles they are firing at the nearby gulf states as they are…

I don't think we'll see anything close to reliable reporting any time soon. The story of whether Iran had a nuclear program has been reported every which way but loose for the past 6 months. By the time Trump started pushing that they were close to a nuke again, those that claimed he was wrong 6 months ago and the nuclear program was intact. Had started claiming it was in fact destroyed. Gosh that sentence is hard en…

That Iran had a nuclear program was not in dispute. It was regulated under international supervision based on the terms of Obama's agreement with Iran, which Trump promptly tore up because he has the mental capacity of a fourth-grader.

That Iran was on the verge of building bombs was far from clear. Khameini had previously issued a fatwa against doing so, on the grounds that it would be haram, or un-Islamic. All signs suggest that the IRGC was operating in full compliance with that fatwa.

I'm sure the remnants of his administration regret that now.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#556

Post by dontlikeyoueith » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:12 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #432

nielsbot wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plot twist: The Dem leadership (Schumer, Jeffries, et al) also supports this. That's why their main complaints have been procedural: "Why didn't you come to us first with your plans?". And why they slow-walked the vote on a war powers act.

The dems have no power against a unified GOP front, and they already look pretty weak on issues like this. They are trying to figure out how they can mollify their base while attracting enough centrist voters to retake Congress later this year. I don't care for the dem leadership but I feel a little sympathy for them. Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority party right now.

> Catering to their loudest supporters

Name one instance of this actually happening. I'll wait.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#557

Post by greedo » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:12 PM UTC

jwilber wrote: post #262

zabzonk wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US did it all the time in Vietnam.

…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.

You're conflating the Viet Cong with North Vietnam.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#558

Post by outside2344 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

bijowo1676 wrote: post #357

ttul wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the multiple THAAD radars taken offline. Those are $500M assets - and only 8 exist in the world. 24,000 precise transceivers all liquid cooled… not available on Amazon for next day deliver either.

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 ad…

And running out of Patriots

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#559

Post by greedo » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

PearlRiver wrote: post #517

fooey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New reporting that an A-10 ~was also shot down~ has also gone down (unconfirmed if it was shot down) https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/03/world/iran-war-trump... > A second Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region on Friday, and the lone pilot was safely rescued, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The A-10 Warthog attack plane went d…

I always wondered why China doesn't flood foreign war zones with weapons to field test their fancy new gear against the USAF. Seems like a no-brainer.

They sell them. Military gear (at least aircraft and missiles) aren't cheap like an AK47. They have enjoyed watching India and Pakistan in their latest air battles. Lots of operational intel gleaned from that.

Re: F-15E jet shot down over Iran

#560

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

feb012025 wrote: post #504

rootusrootus wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approximately never. We are in a situation where Congress is unusually beholden to their constituents for once, because those people care deeply about Donald Trump. So this is what they want; not just the war, but everything -- they want all the power to rest with Trump.

I think you're mistaken about who congress is beholden to at this particular point in time... The war has record low approval ratings, even among Trump's base.

> The war has record low approval ratings, even among Trump's base.

The war does, Trump does not. He maintains very strong support among the base, and that is the part keeping the GOP politicians in line. It is why some of them just resign instead of enduring the threats from his supporters.