Kablammo! and recent events...

Discuss air warfare, doctrine, air forces, historic campaigns, etc.
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by steve2267 » 05 Jan 2020, 04:12

I am not going to wordsmith or psychoanalyze Trumps words. He may simply mean that hiding amongst culturally “important” objects will not protect you.
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by mixelflick » 05 Jan 2020, 14:13

marsavian wrote:It's only fair that Iran is warned as they still seem to be under the misapprehension that it's still business as usual where they commision or perpetrate acts of violence and no real repercussions occur. This President is not playing that game anymore.


Trump is very much like Reagan in this regard. You act up (like Quadaffi), you get 2,000lb bombs dropped on your head. These idiots know there's a new sheriff in town, and he's not afraid to take decisive action.

This is one of the (many) reasons I'll happily vote for him again. If this was Biden, Sanders or (God forbid) Clinton, they'd all want to sit around and talk about their feelings. That crap belongs on The View or Oprah - this is the real world. It's time to take care of business, and thank God we have a president that's doing it..


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by marsavian » 05 Jan 2020, 14:28

Iran was attacking US bases because it wants the US out of Iraq and Syria so it can have an uninterrupted land bridge to attack Israel which according to them has no right to exist. Conflict was always brewing with that warped Iranian mindset.


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by zero-one » 05 Jan 2020, 17:36

Getting pretty annoyed of all the WW3 doom and gloom news everywhere.
Seriously does anyone here think Iran has a realistic chance of making it past Iraq's record of 100 hours in a full scale war with the US?


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by pmi » 05 Jan 2020, 18:08

zero-one wrote:Seriously does anyone here think Iran has a realistic chance of making it past Iraq's record of 100 hours in a full scale war with the US?


I seem to recall there being a good deal more than four days fighting when I went into Iraq in 03.


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by marsavian » 05 Jan 2020, 18:18

Exclusive: Iran's response to US will be military -- Khamenei's adviser

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/05/midd ... index.html

Tehran, Iran (CNN)The military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader said Sunday that Tehran's response to the killing by the United States of its most most influential general will "for sure be military."

In an exclusive interview with CNN in Tehran, the adviser -- Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan -- made the most specific and direct threat yet by a senior Iranian official following the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad. Dehghan said Iran would retaliate directly against US "military sites."

Dehghan is a former defense minister and is now the main military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He told CNN that reprisals would come from Iran itself, not its allied militia in the region. "It might be argued that there could be proxy operations. We can say America, Mr. Trump, has taken action directly against us -- so we take direct action against America."

The United States has a growing military presence in the region. Thousands of US troops have been deployed to Saudi Arabia, and there are some 5,000 at bases in Iraq. The US also has a major air base in Qatar and a naval presence in Bahrain, as well as troops stationed in Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

In common with other Iranian officials, Dehghan suggested that Iran was in no hurry to retaliate and would choose its targets carefully. "Our reaction will be wise, well considered and in time, with decisive deterrent effect."

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani had earlier said that Americans would face consequences for killing Soleimani "not only today, but also in the coming years."
Given the rhetoric of both sides, there is a growing risk of escalation in what has become the most dangerous confrontation between the US and Iran in decades.
Late Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted that "If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way...and without hesitation!" The President continued: "They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!"

Dehghan responded defiantly to Trump's warning. "It was America that has started the war. Therefore, they should accept appropriate reactions to their actions," he said. "The only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow they have inflicted. Afterward they should not seek a new cycle."

At one point in the interview, Dehghan pulled out a picture of Soleimani and held it up to the camera. "All Iranians are Qasem Soleimani," he said, and insisted the Quds force, which Soleimani had led since 2003, would not be weakened by his death. The Quds have been responsible for projecting Iranian influence across the Middle East and beyond and have played a major role in supporting the Assad regime in Syria. "The person who has replaced him has been cooperating with him for two decades. He has the same manner and method," Dehghan said. Iran's will to defend its interests "has increased a thousand times. We don't feel anything. We have a logic, the logic of martyrdom."


Sounds like BM and CM attacks which will test the Patriots, Aegis and Thaads. After that though the stealth fighters and bombers go in to start the process of degrading their military to the point of regional impotence which will be a few maybe many months job.
Last edited by marsavian on 05 Jan 2020, 18:21, edited 1 time in total.


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by steve2267 » 05 Jan 2020, 18:20

pmi wrote:
zero-one wrote:Seriously does anyone here think Iran has a realistic chance of making it past Iraq's record of 100 hours in a full scale war with the US?


I seem to recall there being a good deal more than four days fighting when I went into Iraq in 03.


I took his quote in the context of the spanking Saddam took in '91 and how long hostilities continued after the ground invasion began.

Personally, I hope a ground war does not ensue in Persia, rather that that regime is ground into dust from the air.
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by steve2267 » 05 Jan 2020, 18:36

marsavian wrote:Sounds like BM and CM attacks which will test the Patriots, Aegis and Thaads. After that though the stealth fighters and bombers go in to start the process of degrading their military to the point of regional impotence which will be a few maybe many months job.


It may be limited to two months (60 days) due to the War Powers Act given the way one political party in the US appears to be defending the Iranians and attacking President Trump. It is unclear to me if the "authorization of force" passed by Congress back in 2001 (or that time frame) still applies in a "new" (?) conflict with Iran. I am fairly certain Obama claimed that 2001 authorization as the legal basis for the 2800+ missile attacks the US reportedly conducted under him.

On the other hand, if the Iranians directly attack US military forces in the Middle East, it would seem to put the Democrats in the untenable position of tying the hands of a sitting US President.

If "open" hostilities commence, I am not sure anyone can foresee how it plays out. It does appear that Iranian infrastructure could be ground into dust from the air if the US military is turned loose.
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by pmi » 05 Jan 2020, 19:03

steve2267 wrote:Personally, I hope a ground war does not ensue in Persia, rather that that regime is ground into dust from the air.


I know this won't be a popular opinion on this board, but that isn't a realistic hope. Not that ground war will be avoided (it probably will), but about the relative effectiveness of air power outside of combined arms operations.


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by steve2267 » 05 Jan 2020, 19:25

I am not seeing anything in open sources about THAAD having been deployed to the Gulf region. THAAD was deployed to Deveselu in southern Romania over the summer of 2019 while Aegis Ashore was down for maintenance. I presume that THAAD unit has returned to Texas by now.

Aegis Ashore has been deployed (installed?) in Romania and in Poland. Poland was slated for Aegis in 2018, but some articles I found suggest it is not yet operational in Poland?

I recall the US Navy NICS test where an F-35 cued / guided an Aegis intercept at White Sands New Mexico. Was that only an aircraft target though?

Patriot PAC-3 seems to be deployed by multiple nation-states along the Persian Gulf. I do not know how many US PAC-3 deployments there are up and down the Persian Gulf. PAC-3 is supposed to be able to receive track information via Link-16, or at least search cueing from Link-16.

Has F-35 been used to successfully test actual ABM intercepts in tests? Is it operational? Or is the F-35 cueing air defenses operational, or still a notional Block 4 capability? Is F-35 cueing of PAC-3 via Link-16 operational yet?
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by steve2267 » 05 Jan 2020, 20:04

pmi wrote:
steve2267 wrote:Personally, I hope a ground war does not ensue in Persia, rather that that regime is ground into dust from the air.


I know this won't be a popular opinion on this board, but that isn't a realistic hope. Not that ground war will be avoided (it probably will), but about the relative effectiveness of air power outside of combined arms operations.


I acknowledge and respect your opinion. On the one hand, we have not seen that sort of success -- short of strategic air campaigns -- in the past. On the other hand, much like GPS changed land warfare in '91 what with the Iraqi's inability to comprehend large scale maneuver warfare across a featureless desert, could not the F-35 have a similar effect on tactical air warfare with its system-of-systems capabilities in terms of automatically detecting, classifying, sharing, and prosecuting targets?

Would limited combined arms operations where ground elements are used to help find and fix targets for prosecution from the air address the shortcomings to which you refer? (I could be entirely full of sh*t on this point.) An application then, for Special Forces + V-22's? Maybe even for USMC rapidly moving, expeditionary FOBS? For the Marines to really make that work, though... I think they need Bees... Harriers don't have the network tie-ins, do they? The USS Bataan, presently heading towards the Gulf, only carriers Harriers. The logical choice would seem to be LHA-6, USS America, but she is reportedly still docked in Japan. She last exercised the Lightning Carrier concept with thirteen Bees in October '19. I found mention of sixteen Bees deployed to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, but if you took all those, plunked them on USS America and set sail to the Gulf, you leave a "hole" in terms of F-35 force deployment in the Far East. It would also take at least two weeks for the America, steaming at 20kts (near max speed reportedly of 22kts) to get to theater.

(On the other hand, this means boots on the ground, and if operations went sideways, the prospect of prisoners, already a possibility when flying aircraft over another nation's sovereign ground, could lead to worsening escalation.)

I did see that the USAF tested the rapid, forward deployment of an F-35 squadron to an undisclosed location in the Middle East within a 3-day time period during 2019. An additional twenty-four -A model Stubbies within 3 days could be a significant "stealth" addition, even if USMC F-35B-equipped MEUs (or larger) were not utilized. The US accomplished an awful lot with forty-two F-117s in '91. A second squadron would put upwards of forty-eight F-35A's in theater. I suppose if the US deployed the USS America as a Lightning Carrier with USMC elements for a forward deployed scouting element from the sea, Japan could be backfilled with F-35s from Hill AFB.

F-35's as ISR scouts could lay a net over Iran, able to prosecute pop-up targets either with a BLU-109 JDAM or SDB, and separately F-35 twoships could escort Strike Eagles or Bones on specific strikes much the way the Dutch demonstrated in that exercise in Arizona.
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by marsavian » 05 Jan 2020, 20:14

THAAD is on standby to go to Saudi Arabia but no doubt it could be put elsewhere in the region if needed urgently. AEGIS will be on the destroyers/cruisers of any carrier battle group sent there.

viewtopic.php?p=427416#p427416
Last edited by marsavian on 05 Jan 2020, 20:50, edited 1 time in total.


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by wrightwing » 05 Jan 2020, 20:27

magitsu wrote:
marsavian wrote:It's only fair that Iran is warned as they still seem to be under the misapprehension that it's still business as usual where they commision or perpetrate acts of violence and no real repercussions occur. This President is not playing that game anymore.

Goes a maybe bit too far to suggest willingness to engage in war crimes. Cultural sites can't be targeted.

He didn't say cultural sites were targeted.


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by marsavian » 05 Jan 2020, 21:13

Iran Ends Commitment to Landmark Nuclear Deal

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/worl ... trump.html

Iran’s government said it was ending all its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal and that it would no longer limit its enrichment of uranium.

The announcement came after Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani’s assassination.

The statement said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will end its final limitations in the nuclear deal, meaning the limitation in the number of centrifuges. Therefore Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion.”

But the government said Iran would continue its cooperation with International Atomic Agency and return to the nuclear deal if the sanctions against it were removed and Iran’s interests were guaranteed.


... so in all likelihood these nuclear facilities will be on the target list if full scale hostilities break out.


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by charlielima223 » 05 Jan 2020, 21:56

I hope the US Israel and Iran doesnt go to full scale balls to the wall war.

However IF such an event were to happen, no doubt US and Israeli F-35s will be used. What I wonder are the differences in capabilities (if any) between US F-35s and their Israeli kin. From my understanding, F-35Is have their own home grown software and hardware, most likely driven by Israel's own unique requirements. Could it be that F-35Is have a more "beefy" ISR or EW capabilities compared to other F-35s?


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