A whole lot of slop when the article should’ve started from the get go with this point here
According to the Times, Israeli officials estimate that they have destroyed 50 percent of Iran’s missile launchers.
If that number is remotely true, then its an insane number.
Maybe Israel is lying, wouldn’t be the first time. Let’s halve it to 25%. Even with that number, removing 25% of Iran’s missile launch capabilities in a couple of days is fucking crazy.And its that kind of thing that completely changes the military calculations. Sure, they’re a lot more expensive, but if you fuck up your enemy’s capability to launch missiles, they’re very much worth it.
And missile launchers cannot be built at the same fast rate, it goes without saying.Its things like these that make me (extra) distrustful of western media. Do an actual genuine effort at estimating capabilities and stop it with the clickbaity slop, I’m tired.
Iran’s “missle launchers” are box trucks with some metal rails bolted in. They probably cost about as much as one or two missiles.
Those are for Shahed drones. I’d imagine the ones capable of launching ballistic missiles are at least a little more complicated, but I don’t know well enough to say with certainty
You’re right; I was assuming the story was casually conflating flying drones and ballistic missiles the way some other media does.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, to be honest.
your guess is correct. at minimum, truck needs to transport several meter long, couple to couple tens of tons heavy tube without destroying it, then put it upright, at some point input target location and launch, which requires some kind of communication with missile. solid fueled missile can be stored ready for launch, but liquid fueled missiles also require infrastructure to handle incredibly toxic and corrosive fuel
Great post, thanks for the summary!
I treat numeric estimates of launchers destroyed very skeptically. The US has a history of double-counting and counting decoys.
I do expect that a lot are being destroyed, but its a very far cry from that to claiming that the Iranians won’t be in a position to have a lot go through in a few days
variety of guided weapons like jdam or hellfire are generally much cheaper (easily 10x or more) and more available than air defense interceptors, not even mentioning lead times for them (usaf has effectively unlimited jdams). what is happening now is bigger version of desert storm scud hunt. does it work? if you accept proxy measures, according to some randos on twitter that tally them, then missile-related air raid alerts in israel dropped significantly in first four days
Nobody wanted this, the way wars are waged has changed and I think it’s only a matter of time until there are strategic drone attacks at home that we’ll call terrorist attacks.
Iran has every right to defend itself. I don’t want Americans to be killed, but ffs what did this administration expect?
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