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

cnbc.com

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

#571

Post by greedo »

laughing_man wrote: post #493
throw0101d wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That quite a bit less of an issue than the headline implies. Here's a point that I ran across: these long range missiles are there to take out air defences and such (along with stealth sorties), which allows you go go in with 'regular' ordinance and non-stealth aircraft—of which there is much higher quantities and availability—in later phases. In the early phases of the conflict you use stand-off munitions to reduc…

>Here's a point that I ran across: these long range missiles are there to take out air defences and such (along with stealth sorties), which allows you go go in with 'regular' ordinance and non-stealth aircraft—of which there is much higher quantities and availability—in later phases. Not ATACMS. SEAD is an Air Force/Navy activity.

ATACMS and PrSM would definitely be used to strike air defense systems. The US military is very joint and the boundary you're delineating isn't part of the mission tasking.

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

#572

Post by [deleted] »

freehorse wrote: post #300
WarmWash wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. Nothing. No one has any rank that has bearing on any kind of combat. Just decades of self-congratulatory war games. China has tons of weapons and resources. But it would remain to be seen if they can actually fight when every single person along the entire chain is a total day one rookie.

> China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. I wish people would take a short stop here and contemplate a bit on this sentence.

[deleted]

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

#573

Post by nphardon »

serf wrote: post #331
nphardon wrote: post #315

Anyone have insight into the overlap of techies and armchair military experts? Every thread like this ends up overflowing with comments like "Let me explain to you what's really happening..."

War is one of the most high tech and technologically interesting things humans do, and is often the first place that truly state of the art abilities are showcased. It's not hard for me to understand why techies would be so interested.

That's fine but not entirely what I'm trying to understand. There is an aspect of it that connects back to the Qanon mentality of having insider information and a level of expertise beyond the society sanctioned experts. There are plenty of tech topics that come up here that do not get the same response, so "techies just like tech" isn't the full explanation.

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

#574

Post by linkregister »

freehorse wrote: post #300
WarmWash wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. Nothing. No one has any rank that has bearing on any kind of combat. Just decades of self-congratulatory war games. China has tons of weapons and resources. But it would remain to be seen if they can actually fight when every single person along the entire chain is a total day one rookie.

> China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. I wish people would take a short stop here and contemplate a bit on this sentence.

The PLA has engaged in many battles over the last few decades. There were some as recent as 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army#Eng...

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

#575

Post by swat535 »

SR2Z wrote: post #302
estearum wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is that nobody actually gives a fuck about this war. The reason we don't have industrial capacity dedicated to this war is because everyone knows we're fighting it for no reason, there's no plan, it stops and starts every 4 days, so on. Simple consequences of having actual stupid people leading our government. If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap in…

> If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap into action at incredible speed. I'm gonna push back on "nobody cares." The United States is somewhat unique in that our doctrine calls for wars to be fought on distant shores, and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. That's why we entered WWII, it…

> the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world.

How is US defending liberal democracy?

So far they've killed 3,000+ Iranians. 110k+ causalities in IRAQ and Afghanistan.. don't even get me started on Vietnam.

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

#576

Post by iamnothere »

thinkindie wrote: post #555
iamnothere wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“They didn’t want to” is hiding some of the complexity behind it. Vietnam had turned into a political crisis at home; there were widespread protests and lots of people openly dodging the draft. Grunts would sometimes “frag” commanders who pushed them into overly risky missions. Running up the casualties would have created a real risk of a violent revolt at home and mutiny among the soldiers. The US as a society was l…

Additionally, early success doesn't mean long term success. The US won in Afghanistan initially, then they got dragged in a conflict for 20 years and ultimately Taliban came back.

Exactly, perfect example of tactical victories followed by strategic defeat.

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

#577

Post by rasz »

sssilver wrote: post #277

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…

Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo has 2x official Tomahawk range and payload and costs ~$600K to make with minimal margins.

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

#578

Post by stymaar »

yifanl wrote: post #318
pandinus wrote: post #301

"There's no such thing as public opinion, merely published opinion". While on the one hand we should never discount the impact of incompetence, gross negligence, or deliberate mismanagement there's a reason this story is circulating. 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. Suspicious me likens it to the supposed "wa…

> 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. This is a concerning statement, as it implies it'd be impossible for the United States to lose an engagement regardless of any and all evidence.

Also, the most powerful country of the world, with the most advanced medical science, faling to manage a deadly measles outbreak because a conspiracy theoricist and antivax has been chosen as Secretary of Health wouldn't have been readily believable just 12 years ago. Yet here we are.

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

#579

Post by laughing_man »

greedo wrote: post #571
laughing_man wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here's a point that I ran across: these long range missiles are there to take out air defences and such (along with stealth sorties), which allows you go go in with 'regular' ordinance and non-stealth aircraft—of which there is much higher quantities and availability—in later phases. Not ATACMS. SEAD is an Air Force/Navy activity.

ATACMS and PrSM would definitely be used to strike air defense systems. The US military is very joint and the boundary you're delineating isn't part of the mission tasking.

Sure, it's possible in theory. In reality, the army has other priorities.

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

#580

Post by wat10000 »

overfeed wrote: post #382
joemi wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine What in your view makes these ones proven and other ones not proven?

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.

Iran has survived this war so far because the aggressor hasn't made any attempt to actually defeat them. It's very different from Ukraine, which is holding its own against an all-out invasion. Iran might well be able to withstand an all-out invasion by the US, but it hasn't had to yet.

Right now, the US is half-heartedly trying to bomb Iran into submission, something that in the entire history of aerial warfare has worked exactly once (and even that one time is debatable).

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