Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Historically, the opposite is true.
It's true in recent times.
Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
61–70 of 86 posts
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Historically, the opposite is true.
It's true in recent times.
Since WW2 maybe, with a very, very small sample. But historically, if you have a minority religion/heresy, you better live under a Muslim caliphate than a Christian monarch not that it's great by any mean, but the moors are a great example, they got what, a generation after the reconquista? Two? Hussites and especially cathares are probably the first religious genocide, with public rape of one of their leader and her daughters, and the destruction of all Cathare littérature and religious text.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those nations do not have the ability to defend civilian infrastructure - it's the weak point we see in Ukraine. Nobody does. These are large regions, AA coverage is narrow, using F16s to shoot down Shaheds wears down fast. If Iran has stockpiles, and the wherewithal for mission planning, they can steer them around AA and hit the 'back office' at will. Those states also have no practice coordinating the in-between me…
> If Iran has stockpiles And launchers. > of those drones can be used to hit Oil Tankers ... if there are enough muntions, it will be bad Not really. During the Iran-Iraq war hundreds of tankers were sunk, including in the Strait [1]. Iran's supposed 'nuclear' option was mining the Strait. But for whatever reason, they weren't able to or chose not to do that. > this is going to be an interesting form of attrition on…
The factories are the weak link to all munitions.
The Iran-Iraq war was decades ago, every weapon system has changed.
Iran has anti-ship missiles they can fire with impunity at tankers - and - as I said Shaheds.
Shaheds are not yet used against moving targets, but it's plausible they are ready for that.
If they are, then they can close the straits.
The reason they would not likely close the straits is that China is the primary recipient of that Oil, and it's a bit of a client state. China paradoxically provides parts for those drones. And they are the 'last remaining frenemy ally of Iran'.
So the nuclear option is very nuclear.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#64Shooting down $40k drones with $4mil interceptors is a problem. Hoping at some point this wake up call is heard. One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).
The Ukrainians have a lot of experience taking these things down with interceptor drones and similar like he sting which is about $2100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(drone)
It's an arms race with each side constantly updating the tech.
The Ukrainians have offered to help out in the Gulf but for some reason Trump is kind of dismissive.
There's a new UK/UKR one called Octopus coming shortly https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-and-uk-success...
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#65It's fascinating to me that Iran was able to develop this nascent drone industry on their own, while under a very aggressive sanctions/embargo system. It reminds me a bit of Soviet Union and how they were able to come up with, essentially, parallel industry with different flavors. How were they able to do this? Presumably PRC and Russia were supporting this industry either directly or indirectly with material and sup…
It's the Persian Empire, a titanic object, with an advanced civilization, quality scientific culture and a highly educated population (.... in the Persian-Azeri core, not the brutalized ethnic periphery). There are sanctions, but relations with Russia and China make up for the few inputs that the sheer extent of the Persian empire cannot yield. (Israel is a bit over 1% its size and mostly intractable desert but has more convenient external supply.)
The ingenuity is kind of astonishing, there is something of a mad febrile energy to it. Thus Houthi and Hamas mostly did not need external supply chains for rocketry etc.: a complete industrial chain could be devised in Iran and deployed on site. Part of it seems to be that a chief objective of design is minimizing what seems to us as inevitable external supply chain dependencies.
The product is indeed largely replication of external industry: as I understand, they seem to have done a lot of reverse engineering of enemy drones. But none of these can bee too much like the shahed, I think, as is evidenced by the fact that Uncle Sam has reverse engineered versions in production and appearing in the Gulf now.
Similarly, I suppose, the Chinese AIs that to some extent mirror US AIs, but on the cheap and with way less computing power, will be replicated in US.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#66Shooting down $40k drones with $4mil interceptors is a problem. Hoping at some point this wake up call is heard. One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).
Israel, United States, United Kingdom, China and Russia have HEL high-energy lasers that can shoot down fast drones. Several other countries are working on HEL development. The numbers of operational HEL systems are still very small but growing. I believe that Israel have the most of them in operation today developed primarily by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 10kw to 50kw on trucks, 100kw ground based. Range: 7-10…
Its not clear to me that this is generally worthwhile, even if it is very cheap per-shot; 6 targets at ~100m/s are already enough to overwhelm if the laser gets to engage those targets over 2km of their flight path (with a 4s dwell time).
If your laser emplacements are somewhat expensive and only lightly armored, you might end up in a situation where your opponent happily throws cheap drones, 10 at a time, straight at your defense and still comes out way ahead financially.
Israels situation is quite unique in that it is very small, but gets exposed to imprecise indirect fire a lot, so what works for them might be a really bad investment for the restt of the world.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#67Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, certainly the surviving leadership are backed into corners, but they are individual people. The nation-state is not backed into a corner. For one thing, the west has refrained from using CBRN weapons on urban centres.
Israel will not tolerate an economically developed or at all democratic Iran. They want Iran to be where Gaza is and Libanon is heading. It's not just the leaders who have nothing to lose.
Israel doesn't have the power to choose here though, Israel is far from strong enough to invade Iran so it doesn't matter what they think.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, certainly the surviving leadership are backed into corners, but they are individual people. The nation-state is not backed into a corner. For one thing, the west has refrained from using CBRN weapons on urban centres.
Israel will not tolerate an economically developed or at all democratic Iran. They want Iran to be where Gaza is and Libanon is heading. It's not just the leaders who have nothing to lose.
You would think the hebrew population is just exhausted and hardened and driven a little crazy by several generations of 'deathtoisrael' 'deathtoisrael' drilled into the brains of millions of schoolchildren every year - each /year/'s school intake of impressionable brains is larger than the total world Jewish population. In the end the hebrew-speakers' response will not be simply rational as they are as much mentally affected as the iran citizenry, which is orders of magnitude larger.
It's typical the world community has put up with the naked genocidal intent of the Iran government - which is by now in a sense woven into its constitution and mystical-apocalyptic self-conception - as if it were a musical curious style -- as they build militias saying the same on every border, financing the bizarre suicide campaigns of early 2000s etc. to stop a 2 state solution and keep the party going.
With 'deathtoamerica deathtoamerica' noblesse oblige requires us to pretend it is merely comical. But the 'uppity, arrogant' jewish state is microscopic by comparison with titanic Persian Empire. The disproportion (80x) is far more extreme than even USSR or USA v Afghanistan or USA v Vietnam (30x.
Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not making sense. There's no reason to strike a deal with the US as the US can't be trusted to uphold their deals as they have demonstrated directly to Iran previously and to their own "allies".
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You should be banned for your personal attack which is in violation of site rules.