Air Based Offensive Against Iran- Possible?
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Israel has Patriot missiles, & Arrow anti-ballistic missiles developed by Israel with US help. All subsidised by the USA.
I highly doubt Iran can invent a delivery system that can penetrate so many shields. Only the US and Russia have that kind of technology because of 40 years of cold war that's all they focused on is nukes and how to shoot them and bypass a missile shield. Like I said,so Iran will make a modern effective delivery system and nuke on their first try and it will hit? And also its never been tested? AND there is still no actual proof they have nukes?
Seems too much "what ifs" to start a war if you ask me...
I believe this is a solid discussion and the tactics are adequate-lead with cyber/cruise missile attacks vs C3/AD/anti ship/naval assets thus clearing a flight path for an escorted(fights and ECM G models) for heavies to take out the deep bunkers. Realistically this is a week long air campaign. Netanyahu has the resolve and necessity to make it a go but obviously can't do this without heavy US and ideally Saudi involvement. That said I don't think anything happens till post US election knowing barack obama won't support Israel. Without US support it's a suicide mission done fully conventionally by the IAF. It's a shame they don't have our support.
Why is it a shame? What's good for Israel doesn't neccesarily mean its good for the U.S. Is it your opinion that a strike on Iran will in the long term be productive for American interests? It can be argued that some of the policies undertaken by Israel in the past have actually been damaging to American interests and its overall standing in the region.
Irrespective of whether Obama supported a strike, if Iran retaliated [which country wouldn't if it was attacked?], the U.S. would have no choice but to support Israel - not doing so would be political suicide for Obama and would be contrary to the U.S. policy of providing unconditional support for Israel and guaranteeing its security.
US interest
Col Storm. All due respect. I believe a nuclear armed Iran would threaten our allies and destabilize the entire Mid East. I also believe a rogue state like Iran would become even more dangerous with these weapons. Thus yes. I feels it's in US interests to prevent this from happening regardless of who occupies the WH. My comments regarding obama where that he publically has been very non supportive of this notion
Col Storm. All due respect. I believe a nuclear armed Iran would threaten our allies and destabilize the entire Mid East. I also believe a rogue state like Iran would become even more dangerous with these weapons. Thus yes. I feels it's in US interests to prevent this from happening regardless of who occupies the WH. My comments regarding obama where that he publically has been very non supportive of this notion
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The us needs a coalition. If this sends oil prices sky rocketing an all major economies downward I guarantee you that the us would be blamed by almost every country. I digress. Which bombers and strike fighters are still operational? I believe the f117 and b1 are all moth balled. Correct me if I am wrong. That would leave b52s and b2s. Many countries won't host strategic bombers and b2s need specialized hangers. Where the us even strike from? In the event of actual strike. Would we see 1, 2, 3 or even more carriers in the region( us and allies)
No mention of the Apaches that fired the first shots in the Gulf War, they were the platform that opened the corridors for the strike aircraft.
B1 is still very much in operation. B1, B2 and B52 can, are and have been deployed from the US throughout the GWOT in both theaters and would not require the use of facilities or support outside the US.
Iran can be attacked from the air by the US and or coalition if they so choose. Feasibility is not a question. The decision to do so will be based on the political practicalities ie desired outcomes versus undesirable outcomes.
B1 is still very much in operation. B1, B2 and B52 can, are and have been deployed from the US throughout the GWOT in both theaters and would not require the use of facilities or support outside the US.
Iran can be attacked from the air by the US and or coalition if they so choose. Feasibility is not a question. The decision to do so will be based on the political practicalities ie desired outcomes versus undesirable outcomes.
F117 are now all saucepans (you can google video of the airframes being torn up by an excavator). B1b's are still being flown.
Agreed. 117s are done. All else including a limited (187) number is F22s are available and we do have one(public ally) squadron forward deployed to the gulf Gremlin is correct about the AH64s as well, not to mention all the TLAMs theUSN can send for prep work in the corridor. Perhaps deploy a SSGN holding 154 each. It can be done I agree a 'coalition' is good to have on the political stage.
I'm well aware of that fact, the reason i omitted it was because the point I was trying to make was that VLO aircraft can, have and will form at least part of the first few waves in any future strategic airstrikes.
the concerned
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Wouldn't a strike by one or two ssgns pretty much kick the door wide open even before the aircraft went in .i Really couldn't see the Iranian airforce lasting much more than 24 hrs if hostilities did break out.
The Israelis are fully aware that a strike on Iran will automaticly bring the U.S., their whole strategy is based on this fact. As much as Obama and senior U.S. military officials are reluctant to be dragged in yet another war, they will have no choice but to provide ''assistance'' to the Israelis. And the Israelis are under no illusion that a single or even a few strikes can cause significant damage to the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, they are banking on the fact that most of the lasting damage will be done by the USAF and the USN.
Not my intention to derail this thread and get off-topic but just to reply to your post....
Why on earth would a nuclear armed Iran threaten anyone if it was not attacked? The last time I checked, it was not Iran that has a history of attacking its neighbours or conducting regime change and Iranian troops do not have a presence in numerous regional countries. Or perhaps you believe that the Iranian leadership is just waiting for the very day when they have nukes so they can wipe Israel off the map [and also wipe out parts of Syria and Lebanon in the process] and risk the complete destruction of their country?
The Israelis off course would have us believe the myth that the only reason the mullahs might want a bomb is so they can immediately destroy Israel and threaten the ''free world''. What the Israelis and American hawks don't tell us is that the only reason that Iran might want a bomb because they feel insecure in the face of American and Israeli military dominance in the region and after seeing what happened to Saddam and Ghadaffi [both former mates of the West] are convinced that only by having a bomb will Iran be spared from regime change. The whole region is already unstable, has not recovered from the after affects of the Arab Spring and yet another war on yet another regional country, launched for dubious means, will actually lead to greater instability.
You do realise that the term ''rogue state'' is a totally meaningless term which was conjured up by Bush Junior and is just as ludicrous as me referring to America as the ''Great Satan''?
And for good reason. Look how well the invasion of Iraq went and its terrible after affects on ordinary Iraqis and the region. With Afghanistan close to being a failure and with secretarian violence on the rise in Iraq, you really think that going after Iran for weapons that we don't really know if they have, is good for American interests? By that logic, North Korea should have been threatened with military action ages ago, but oops I forgot, they actually have a nuclear device, if not a delivery system.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...veals-his-moments-of-memory-loss-8190461.html
True, if the USAF and the USN got involved the life expectancy of Iranian fighter pilots would not be high. The Iranians are relying on their ballistic missiles as one of their main means of retaliation but the question is what will they do if they start to run out of them or if Israeli Arrows and Jerichos intercept most of them. No doubt the Iranians will attempt to carry out their threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, and I suspect we may be seeing a bit of their Fencers. Unlike the Iraqis who grounded most their air force, I truly believed that in a prolonged campaign, the Iranians will makes full use of their air power, even with the knowledge that they will not have much of an air force left after that.
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If the Iranians would really want a bomb (and I'm not saying they don't) and aren't total idiots, this would be a problem that can't possibly be solved by air raids.
In WW2 one of the primary targets of the Allied air raids against Germany was to shut down the production of fighter planes. Even though the raids against big factories were effective they were surprised to see that the availability of German aircraft wasn't as diminished as the calculations had suggested.
Only after the war they found out about a highly decentralized network of small manufacturing facilities that churned out surprisingly high and steady supplies of parts, especially for the Focke Wulf FW-190 fighter, which was specially designed to be easy to produce and to assemble from simple parts.
Imagine thousands of dudes looking like "Master Geppetto" from the Disney Pinocchio movie, working alone or with one or two apprentices in their cellars, sheds behind the house or small shops to produce single parts for fighter aircraft and once a week a truck would come by to collect the parts and bring them to some barn, gymnasium or other kind of hall to assemble the machines there. They even produced engine blocks and the glass for the cockpit that way.
The point of this little historical tangent is that you (the Iranians in this case) could produce nukes the same way nowadays. Just put hundreds or thousands of single centrifuges in cellars and the back of trucks all over the country. Of course that would be hard to keep secret from spies in the long run, but what could they do with that information?
So even if the facilities are centralized now and can be bombed, what would stop the Iranians from going to Plan B after that and doing it all the more determined?
Iran has some of the biggest natural deposits of Uranium and Plutonium on the planet, so you also can't cut off their supply of raw materials.
This genie can not be put back into the bottle and there is no real military solution short of just wiping out a country.
In WW2 one of the primary targets of the Allied air raids against Germany was to shut down the production of fighter planes. Even though the raids against big factories were effective they were surprised to see that the availability of German aircraft wasn't as diminished as the calculations had suggested.
Only after the war they found out about a highly decentralized network of small manufacturing facilities that churned out surprisingly high and steady supplies of parts, especially for the Focke Wulf FW-190 fighter, which was specially designed to be easy to produce and to assemble from simple parts.
Imagine thousands of dudes looking like "Master Geppetto" from the Disney Pinocchio movie, working alone or with one or two apprentices in their cellars, sheds behind the house or small shops to produce single parts for fighter aircraft and once a week a truck would come by to collect the parts and bring them to some barn, gymnasium or other kind of hall to assemble the machines there. They even produced engine blocks and the glass for the cockpit that way.
The point of this little historical tangent is that you (the Iranians in this case) could produce nukes the same way nowadays. Just put hundreds or thousands of single centrifuges in cellars and the back of trucks all over the country. Of course that would be hard to keep secret from spies in the long run, but what could they do with that information?
So even if the facilities are centralized now and can be bombed, what would stop the Iranians from going to Plan B after that and doing it all the more determined?
Iran has some of the biggest natural deposits of Uranium and Plutonium on the planet, so you also can't cut off their supply of raw materials.
This genie can not be put back into the bottle and there is no real military solution short of just wiping out a country.
Would such a decentralised production of nuclear weapons even be possible, though? I really don't think it's as simple as "just put a bunch of centrifuges in a bunch of cellars", and even if you did that you still need specialised equipment/facilities to actually produce a warhead, do you not? Along with platform/launch facilities, and all the infrastructure to support this?
Even if the production of plutonium was somehow decentralised (and I'm not certain it could be done in any practical way, happy to stand corrected by someone who knows more about it, but it seems like it would be very difficult and very costly to me, if it were possible), the infrastructure required for actual use of weapons would still be open for attack, and I imagine this would be some of the first stuff to be targeted in any event, to close off the potential for any WMD launch.
Which is rather a tangent really, as it stands I have no idea how much emphasis Iran is putting on the acquisition of nuclear weapons, and I agree with Sturm that they're hardly likely to just scream Allah Ackbar and push the button when/if they get a working one. They're not stupid. They want deterrence, not a war. And I still think normalising relationships between Iran and the United States is in the best interests of the world at large. Another war in the region certainly isn't going to help anyone in the long term.
Even if the production of plutonium was somehow decentralised (and I'm not certain it could be done in any practical way, happy to stand corrected by someone who knows more about it, but it seems like it would be very difficult and very costly to me, if it were possible), the infrastructure required for actual use of weapons would still be open for attack, and I imagine this would be some of the first stuff to be targeted in any event, to close off the potential for any WMD launch.
Which is rather a tangent really, as it stands I have no idea how much emphasis Iran is putting on the acquisition of nuclear weapons, and I agree with Sturm that they're hardly likely to just scream Allah Ackbar and push the button when/if they get a working one. They're not stupid. They want deterrence, not a war. And I still think normalising relationships between Iran and the United States is in the best interests of the world at large. Another war in the region certainly isn't going to help anyone in the long term.
I don't know why this would be a surprise to the Allies, since this was exactly what we did here in the UK. In this town, fighters were built in small batches in a car repair works near the town centre, for example. The old signs stayed up, & the completed aircraft were shipped out covered, with the wings & tails removed, to be assembled at an airfield several miles away then flown out.
That went on all over the country, & parts suppliers the same. The critical, not easily dispersed, stuff was mass manufacture of small precise parts such as bearings, or the aluminium rivets made in the (never bombed - newly set up in a country town at the start of the war) factory my grandfather worked in for most of the war.
So . . . why would the Germans doing the same be a surprise?
Quote: Originally Posted by Ranger25 I also believe a rogue state like Iran would be
As far as I can determine, references were made to 'rogue states' in the US press in the
early 1990s. But the term began to make its way into official lexicon in 1994 when it was
used by Clinton National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in an article in the journal 'Foreign
Affairs', in March/April 1994 entitled “Confronting Backlash States” Lake argued that these
'backlash states', because they ‘bucked a worldwide trend toward democracy, free
markets and civilized conduct, posed a threat to U.S. interests and ideals'. He further
argued that 'the United States had to devise strategies to contain and eventually transform
these ‘rogue regimes’, naming Iran and Iraq as particularly troublesome.'
Clearly not Either President Bush's creation.
As far as I can determine, references were made to 'rogue states' in the US press in the
early 1990s. But the term began to make its way into official lexicon in 1994 when it was
used by Clinton National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in an article in the journal 'Foreign
Affairs', in March/April 1994 entitled “Confronting Backlash States” Lake argued that these
'backlash states', because they ‘bucked a worldwide trend toward democracy, free
markets and civilized conduct, posed a threat to U.S. interests and ideals'. He further
argued that 'the United States had to devise strategies to contain and eventually transform
these ‘rogue regimes’, naming Iran and Iraq as particularly troublesome.'
Clearly not Either President Bush's creation.
The short answer is yes a air campain is somthing that can be accomplished against iran. The big question is can it be contained to only a air operation? and what if the iran leadership just rebuilds?
Iran has alies in the u.n that would limit the size of a coalition the u.s could bring as eroup and the british (aswell as the amricans) dont seem to be all that eager for more war in the m.e
By not doing anything crazy like using chem, bio weapons or closing the straits one can be fairly certian the u.n is not going to war with iran.
Attacking isreal in retaliation will proboly be a popular move in the muslim states and make it difficult for countrys that are hostial to iran to overtly suport a israile/american attack on a muslim nation that is seen as defending against american attacks and striking isreal
A campain from the air alone will also leave u.s bases close to the iranian border vunrable to attack, i would think that iran would have the ability to strike perhaps a 100 miles deep in raides against u.s intrests with any chance of ariving and fighting as a creadible force thoe ill admit that may be a streach for them in the face of u.s air power
Either way if iran chooses it can escilate the situation well keeping the u.s /isreal isolated to a few alies forceing the u.s to either extend the air campain indefintly or invade somthing imop they have no intrest or populer suport for
There is also other issues that will affect wether the u.s will bomb iran such as any pilots downd would be iranian hostages somthing i think no u.s president wants to have to deal with
not to mention the big question of wether or not to attempt to decapitate iranian leadership. With the ayatollah's its hard to imagian any regime change leaving them in power but its almost imosable to predict how intence,widspread and long lived the violence resulting from such a act would be.
This is why i dont see the u.s wanting to attack iran at least untill they have concret and tangable evidence that iran is building the bomb
Iran has alies in the u.n that would limit the size of a coalition the u.s could bring as eroup and the british (aswell as the amricans) dont seem to be all that eager for more war in the m.e
By not doing anything crazy like using chem, bio weapons or closing the straits one can be fairly certian the u.n is not going to war with iran.
Attacking isreal in retaliation will proboly be a popular move in the muslim states and make it difficult for countrys that are hostial to iran to overtly suport a israile/american attack on a muslim nation that is seen as defending against american attacks and striking isreal
A campain from the air alone will also leave u.s bases close to the iranian border vunrable to attack, i would think that iran would have the ability to strike perhaps a 100 miles deep in raides against u.s intrests with any chance of ariving and fighting as a creadible force thoe ill admit that may be a streach for them in the face of u.s air power
Either way if iran chooses it can escilate the situation well keeping the u.s /isreal isolated to a few alies forceing the u.s to either extend the air campain indefintly or invade somthing imop they have no intrest or populer suport for
There is also other issues that will affect wether the u.s will bomb iran such as any pilots downd would be iranian hostages somthing i think no u.s president wants to have to deal with
not to mention the big question of wether or not to attempt to decapitate iranian leadership. With the ayatollah's its hard to imagian any regime change leaving them in power but its almost imosable to predict how intence,widspread and long lived the violence resulting from such a act would be.
This is why i dont see the u.s wanting to attack iran at least untill they have concret and tangable evidence that iran is building the bomb