Live data from Hacker News

U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

cnbc.com

431–440 of 769 posts

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a tactical failure of the US; it's a strategic one. The US operates a tremendously powerful military, but that doesn't change the fact that the war with Iran was a tremendous strategic blunder. "Moronic" is a pretty fair characterization.

But running out of missiles—which is the accusation being made above—would be a tactical and logistics failure, not a strategic one.

Is executing a strategy that you (should) know to be impossible to implement because of logistical limitations really a logistics failure?

It’s not as if the US, a few years ago, said it needed way more long-range precision weapons in 2026, and didn’t get them, despite promises to the contrary.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#432

>The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts. >The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “v…

Two birds with one stone for benefit of Putin. Likely son of Ayatollah wanted to get rid of his weak father and Putin wanted the US to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. So Putin asked Krasnov to get rid of Ayatollah and empty the stockpile of weapons. Trump always delivers for Russia.

I don’t know if I am convinced. Russia also uses a lot of Iranian drones, which presumably are going to have supply troubles because of this war.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#433

I'm always confused by prices of "highly regulated" goods in the United States. When I get a $150,000 bill for a 15-minute hand-reconstruction surgery, how much of that bill is the total margin vs self cost? And how much of that is warranted / acceptable? When a single Tomahawk missile bills the taxpayer $3,600,000, how much of that bill is the total margin? When I say "total margin", I mean not just the margin of th…

Those margins are the cost of Capitalism.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#434
Not an American but live here.

But I don’t understand the fixation of US in middle east theatre. With the abundance of onshore oil through fracking revolution, presumably US doesn’t need to police the Middle East. The president himself said US doesn’t need their oil.

So what is this conflict all about? Is there bigger geopolitical price tag attached to victory in Iran? Or US is just besieged by corruption to the extent campaign finding from Israel lobby as they say dictated much of the foreign policy than national interest?

It’s just baffling and public seems largely fine with this with the lack of widespread protest that this should have caused (vaguely remember living across the bridge from Michigan all the protests there post Iraq war).

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Wow, yeah, you'd need to have morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out in order for something like that to happen. Nothing like the US government today at all.

(Not American, need to preface with this) I think the US military has shown itself to be extremely competent in the last war. Reading about Desert Storm and later the invasion of Iraq it's just insane. It's still possible they miscalculated how rapidly warfare would change, but to call them morons... As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine, and the US is or…

Desert Storm was 35 years ago. Almost everyone who fought in it is out of service or dead.

Iraqi invasion was 23 years ago. Again, almost everyone who was part of the initial invasion is out of service. I wouldn't call the occupation of either Afghanistan or Iraq "extremely competent." More like the exact opposite.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#436
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how US conquered all of Vietnam and Afghanistan. US would lose a land war with Iran. They’d lose it spectacularly too.

Iran is on a level so much worse than even Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there are some mountains, but they are in the middle. The Taliban fucked off into the mountains and they couldn't do jack. Iran on the other hand is a plateau fortress lined by mountains on all (accessible to US/western allies) sides. A land invasion of Iran means no supply lines and no way out. The words "one does not simply" come to mind. It is…

The land of Iran has changed hands many times throughout history. I think we need to avoid some level of historical / geographical determinism. The terrain is a problem but a solvable one for a sufficiently committed power / alliance. We can look back in history at e.g. the Anglo-Soviet invasion.

But the commitment does not exist at present. No one wanted this apart from a few hawks and the Israeli security establishment.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the US has shown itself as to be extremely competent in the Iran war? If you were talking about Iraq, that was completely different leadership.

The US killed almost the entire Iranian regime leadership with minimal cost. What definition of competence are you going by?

Minimal cost? We’re at about a billion dollars per primary target and rising. Not to mention north of 250 US casualties. I’d hardly call that minimal cost.

Our ability to defend our allies in the region is non existent, and we lost almost all of our radar capabilities which will take a decade minimum to rebuild. That’s assuming hostilities end tomorrow.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not American, need to preface with this) I think the US military has shown itself to be extremely competent in the last war. Reading about Desert Storm and later the invasion of Iraq it's just insane. It's still possible they miscalculated how rapidly warfare would change, but to call them morons... As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine, and the US is or…

It's not a tactical failure of the US; it's a strategic one. The US operates a tremendously powerful military, but that doesn't change the fact that the war with Iran was a tremendous strategic blunder. "Moronic" is a pretty fair characterization.

A bit disparaging of morons. It takes a special kind of imbecile to ignore decades of war planning that pointed out the vulnerability of the strait.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was left scratching my head why Ukraine would be there, but not Iran, on the basis that it too has stood its ground in what the superpower aggressor planned to be short and decisive conflict.

Have they? Obviously there have been a ton of issues due to the US’s strategy in Iran. But almost nobody in the US has any affect from this war. Gas prices are up a bit. Mildly inconvenient for the majority of people, and that’s the biggest failure people are mad about. Meanwhile Iran is in rough shape

Gas prices are up a bit? In my area it’s gone up at least $2 from before the war. Which is just another way that everything has gotten so much more expensive recently (not that all of that is caused by the war).

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#440
post #383

>The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts. >The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “v…

PrSM has been in production for only a short time, and ATACMS stocks were never high. Neither of these are the backbone of US long-range precision strike weapons. Article is misleading.

It IS an issue if stand-off war is your only war, and it seems to be the exclusive approach here. If you run out of long-range precision weapons, what do you have left? Boots on the ground? That's not going to happen, and that means you will never win this on and off war.
Post reply on HN