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Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

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71–80 of 166 posts

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#71
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the US fired missiles from other countries? It's not a game of mounted tag.

Do you believe Iran should not be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons? Why do you think this entire conflict started?

It started because Trump abandoned the agreement Obama signed and that was working, then sanctioned Iran for no good reason.

At this point, every country with the ability to do so should be procuring nuclear deterrence capability, if for no other reason than to defend themselves from the US.

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#72
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has opti…

> The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC That is beyond absurd claim. But, if it was true, then the USA is loosing even more badly. This war is helping exactly two countries - Russia and China. > The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. This is copium and in both cases. If Russia could win that conflict, if it could take over, it would do it. If USA c…

> [The claim that the US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC] is a beyond absurd claim.

It's easy to list these off the top of my head. There are multiple. Obviously the Korean War, China sent over a million personnel to aid the DPRK and directly battled the US. The Vietnam war was a proxy war, China had over 300,000 troops in North Vietnam, preventing the US from invading the north and ending the conflict. The Russia/Ukraine war is a double-proxy war; both the US and China are arming their respective sides.

The current conflict is also a proxy war. Without China's support for Iran, this war could not have happened. China provides the precursors for Iranian missile fuel, Iran purchased tons of sodium perchlorate from China; China provides the chemicals that are needed for yellowcake and Iran's nuclear program; China provides the parts for Iran's drone program. China also provides the anti-aircraft systems that Iran uses, though so far these have proven to be questionably effective. China has an active part in this conflict, there are Chinese military personnel in Iran actively maintaining their radar systems.

Without China, there are no missiles, there are no nukes, there are no drones. There is no war.

And claiming China benefits from this war is myopic. China has massive investments across the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The war in Iran directly affects the value of these investments, and China's support for Iran is alienating Middle Eastern countries. China is trying to play both sides, but that is not a viable long term strategy.

The previous poster is claiming the US is 'inable' to end the war with Iran; this is trivially false, the US has ICBMs, and can trivially end the war. You have listed the consequences of doing so, yet I was responding to their claim, which is separate matter.

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was targeted, my understanding is that that action would fit the technical definition of a war crime

It would also be a war crime even if it was merely reckless rather than deliberately targeted.

This is all wishy washy without an actual court, but I’m dubious this would rise to that standard.

From what I can tell, international law requires attacks to be distinct and proportional. Distinct meaning they distinguish between civilian and military targets (you cannot intentionally attack civilian targets), and proportional meaning that the collateral damage to civilians is proportional to the military value of the strike.

This probably doesn’t meet that bar. Cutting off water is bad, but 20k people is a fairly small population for this kind of thing and presumably the US won’t stop them from repairing it (that probably would be a clear cut war crime). Presuming Irans government is functioning, this should be extremely hard for those people but probably not lethal. Trucking water around is an option, even if it’s not great.

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#74
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has opti…

> The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC That is beyond absurd claim. But, if it was true, then the USA is loosing even more badly. This war is helping exactly two countries - Russia and China. > The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. This is copium and in both cases. If Russia could win that conflict, if it could take over, it would do it. If USA c…

[dead]

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#75
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people might not like it if it was targeted, but if it got slightly damaged (and currently functional) as collateral damage to a military target, I assume more people would be okay

The countries currently bombing Iran have boasted for years of their precision targeting systems. They've also made countless statements that show a willingness to targets civilians and infrastructure [1]. At this point, every direct hit on a school or a water source or a charity being accidental collateral damage just doesn't ring true. Either they've been lying about capabilities (and all the precision strikes were…

... and Iran's islamist regime has for 5 decades boasted of committing warcrimes, inside and outside of Iran.

Btw: hitting water reservoirs is only a warcrime if the purpose is to kill (or at least replace) a civilian population from a large area. I don't see how this even qualifies that definition.

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#77
post #20
post #13

Don't those Shaheds run on nVidia Jetson? Jensen cashing in again. Funny that most of the hardware in those drones is designed in the US. Stop hitting yourself.

I don't know why you think that Russia is able to get GPUs when the entire rest of the world can't. The drones run on literally whatever is available because any Western-built one is restricted to Iran or Russia.

US export controls are terrible. It's how they got all of their Ubiquiti gear.

https://hntrbrk.com/ubiquiti/

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#78
post #70

So, the US relearns all the lessons of the Russo-Ukrainian war the hard way? Choppers proved very vulnerable already in 2022. History often repeats itself. In a similar way, Great Powers like France refused to study the lessons of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 because it was something that happened in barbarian lands far away from glorious Europe, so it was obviously irrelevant to them, right? And then the shock o…

The French 75 was the best mobile gun in Europe. They entered the war expecting to be mobile and were the first to use poison gas. Compared to the Imperial Russian Navy? I don’t see it. The most dramatic lesson was that Japan prefers surprise attacks.

The most important lessons of the Russo-Ukrainian war weren't the naval ones. The siege of Port Arthur was an almost perfect pre-image of future trench warfare in WWI.

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#79
post #23

Jokes on them: the US has an infinite supply of $25M thanks to its servant population.

More or less, but "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." And also that the sticker price is a good indication of how easy it is to get an new one quickly.

The side with $25M helicopters and $4m patriot missiles is at a big disadvantage to the side with $40K shaheeds here. Attrition favours the latter side. Assuming that both sides have stockpiles, the latter side will have more items in the stockpile, and will replenish it sooner. What happens when the air defences run out?

Re: Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously don't understand US doctrine, since earlier you were complaining how the US hasn't adapted its arsenal regarding drones in just four years. Iran would not be able to pursue nuclear weapons nor missiles without China's assistance. The precursors of the missile fuel, the precursors of yellowcake processing, the chips and hardware of Iranian drones, all come from China with its assistance and blessing. Chi…

" that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. " You seem to be stuck on repeat with "don't understand, don't understand, don't understand". Yet it seems to me that it is you who got sucked into some bizarro understanding of war being fundamentally an annihilation contest between the two parties involved. This very shallow understanding is now somewhat widespread in the blogosphere and pushed…

The US has a straightforward option to "win" the war via a ground invasion.

First, a large scale bombing campaign, targeting Iranian infrastructure.

Dropping bombs on every power substation, fuel plant, and generation plant would cripple the economy, and grind the country to a halt. A similar strategy was applied to Japan and Germany in WWII. If these facilities have military purpose, destroying these facilities is not necessarily a war crime.

A modern economy cannot function without fuel and electricity. The economy will quickly grind to a halt, and Iran will be forced to confront internal problems before mounting a concerted response.

After 2-3 weeks of chaos, the US would launch a ground invasion, though Pakistan and Iraq. It would then remove the nuclear material, clean up Iranian missiles that target ships in the strait, and the US would leave.

It achieves the primary, secondary, and tertiary goals of the war: no more nuclear weapons, removal of nuclear material, and reopening of the strait.

Combat losses to the US would be minimal. The cost for Iran, though, is astronomically high. It would take years for the country to rebuild, and set back the nation economically for decades.

Trump is trying hard to avoid this option. Many other presidents (I'd wager Kamela) would have gone down this path by now.

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