Tens of thousands of quid for Martlet rather than hundreds of thousands for CAMM & millions for Aster, Standard, Patriot, ESSM etc.
Maybe they just want oil prices to go up after prices went down. It doesn‘t seem like they have a Hortsge of missiles or drones. Tonight they sent more missiles than the past few days. This is either going to be a long war or a humiliating TACO that could cost the Us the entire middle east.
www.theatlantic.com
It wouldn't be a missile shortage. It would be a targeting issue, I think.
Ships sre being hit by projectiles. I don‘t think there‘s any problem with targeting.
Also worth noting that many of the ships on either side of the strait either have there a.i.s turned off or are using it in ways that spoof there actual locations. But in all honesty it's fairly possible that between agents in the Gulf states and positions in Iran proper they have actual eyes on large chunks of the strait. That does provide targeting options not generally available and harder to counter. Provided they have adequate communications available. That said I would think that radars for Iran on the coast are no doubt seriously degraded or simply turned off untill something like a u.s warship is the target
It's not really a surprise. Ukraine has lost multiple aircraft including an F-16, in scenarios not too different from what we've got in the Middle East. On top of that flight hours for jets are quite expensive and their availability is limited. Every jet hunting Iranian drones, is a jet not available for operations against Iran itself. Now if the US can lean on allies for defensive work, then it might not matter. But if the drone threat becomes robust enough to force some US and Israeli jets to play defense, that would impact the op-tempo of the strikes against Iran.Tracing the US military's learning curve on fighting Iran's drones: What to know
The Iran war quickly tested America's ability to combat the swarms of cheap drones that have become a staple of the modern battlefield after Ukraine and Russia demonstrated how effective they could be.www.castanet.net
Part of the article discusses how the u.s is using attack helicopters to hit drones more cost efficient. I'm wondering how long untill we start to see drones armed with air to air interceptors like in Ukraine. Personally i understand the u.s position is difficult here but getting withing machine gun fire of drones seems to me to be a bit short-sighted and likely to at some point prove disastrous
Edit.
Just a add on here showing how using f-16s for the same task brings more risk then one would think. Video shows how slow plains have to slow down to target drones
I'm regards to flight hours for all the other probloms the u.s has with a aging fleet. I think the air to air refueling is the real weak link here IIRC the backbone of the fleet is neering it's retirement and the new ones have both limited numbers and issues wit both the plane itself and the probe for the actual refuelings design
The environment in Ukraine is very different from the Middle East. So in the Middle East where Iranian jets aren't much of a threat you can probably get away with a UAV drone hunter, over Ukraine it would be trickier. That drone hunter would have to stay well away from the front line, especially with the RVV-BD being part of the threat. You could probably get away with something like that over Kiev, but further east would get problematic fast.
Yes it appears no problems there.
Oh, absolutely - the MALE idea needs a permissive environment with depth to work from -but I'm sure the Ukrainians have plenty of thoughts on other measures.
They should never have "left" fashion. Something like Russia's Pantsyr system is relevant to just about everyone. I say something "like" because there were choices made with that system. I think future AAA needs to be able to use EO or radar alternatively or in combination, and needs to be able to combine gun and missile options, and I think future AAA will need to be integrated both into ground combined arms formations and air force/air defense as companion SHORAD/drone defense for facilities.
t.me
Of all the wishful thinking going on right now (invading the Iranian coastline, escorting tankers, etc) I think this one takes the cake. I love the idea of sending in 1,000+ SOF guys on helicopters (plus paratroopers?) 500km into Iranian territory to take on a tunnel complex that is likely completely unmapped and filled with completely unknown numbers of IRGC. Of course the Iranians will know as soon as they arrive, if not sooner, and be able to throw drones/artillery at them. Oh yeah and then, should they somehow complete the insane mission, they have to get out, once again across Iranian airspace no doubt teeming with MANPADS.