marsavian wrote:Pretty conclusive video ! How dumb are these Iranians, do they seriously think the US is going to send something with an airliner RCS e.g. B-52 into the middle of Iran ?!! No they would be the ones standing back with long range standoff weapons, duh ! Only B-2, F-22, F-35 would be roaming over Iran.
I doubt they assumed they'd see any manned platform. Most likely they took it for cruise missile, the flight profile was the best match(well as best as it could), also the weapon they purportedly used in the engagement. Low visibility, poorly networked low tier point defense operating semi independently, relaxed ROE and the psychological pressure. Also given the situation they were probably a little cautious about their RF emission. If they were to get hit it would have been the major C2 nodes and emmiter, might have further reduced their ability to PID.
Though I wouldn't be too surprised if there were a few penetrating ISR platforms roaming over Iranian air space, just to better ascertain their intention and scope of action.