> interception rate yet it's really at the mercy of Iran to not target their most vulnerable sites

And what this site and you don't account for, is Iranian rather low missile accuracy.

If Israel was at the mercy of Iranian attacks, Iran could have simply struck Israeli airbases to the point they cannot be used, and then stop any Israeli attacks on its territory.

It's pretty obvious they don't have the capabilities of doing that

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cheney_2004 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Iran has successfully targeted countless bases around the Middle East, a lot of this news simply isn’t being covered. Most of these strikes are on static assets like radar, depots, and other structures. If you are thinking about the F35s, strikes that hit runways are repaired in a matter of hours. As for the F35s themselves, they are constantly on the move or simply kept in the air. Service and storage is done on remote bases outside of the target zone. This has been standard practice since military aircraft has been introduced.

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breppp 8 hours ago | parent [-]

That's certainly what Iranian propaganda is saying, as if everybody is censoring their great successes. Fact is there is no meaningful reduction in Israeli attacks, while Iranian launching ability had greatly suffered. So these air bases are probably not being hit. Apart from it in the era of OSINT satellite imagery, it is no issue to publicize such damage, I don't know of any such imagery

Regarding the gulf, there the Iranians are having better success as at those ranges intercepting drones is harder and due to the general military ineffectiveness of the gulf nations

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anonymous_user9 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Apart from it in the era of OSINT satellite imagery, it is no issue to publicize such damage, I don't know of any such imagery

Not sure about other providers, but Planet Labs has applied a 14-day delay to satellite images of the middle east.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/satellite...

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tmnvix 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I haven't seen imagery of damage to Israeli airbases, but plenty of imagery showing damage to US military bases. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0cIOMVBSbU . Worth keeping in mind that in the case of Israel, censorship is very effective.

From the Iranian perspective, the overall strategy seems to have been:

1. Deplete intercepter stock and probe US/Israeli defences using large amounts of older less accurate missile stock and waves of drones.

2. Target radar and early warning systems.

3. After 'blinding', make further use of more vulnerable but cheaper and more accurate drones to target specific infrastructure.

Given this approach it makes total sense to see their 'rate of fire' reduced by 90%. This is not necessarily an indication of reduced ability to launch attacks - their attacks are now more effective. They have demonstrated that each time the US and Israel escalate they successfully respond almost immediately. Talk of their capabilities being wiped out is demonstrably nonsense.

Ted Postol makes much the same points. He also claims to be surprised by the accuracy of recent missiles launched by Iran and assumes that his earlier analysis underestimated this because it was done based on the older stock Iran was using.

It seems pretty clear to me that Israel and the US are on the back foot here. Defences are inadequate. Economic pressure is building. Iran still has plenty of options to increase pressure (e.g. Houthi involvement, further infrastructure targeting, additional constrictions on the strait of Hormuz). By comparison US ability to increase pressure now seems limited to threatening major war crimes (wiping out Iran's power grid and putting the country into blackout). Not to say many of Iran's actions haven't also been war crimes.

How much more damage can Iran accept? Nobody is about to be voted out of power there so I would think quite a bit (as unpleasant as that is for the millions of innocent people caught up in this madness). I think the truth of all of this is that the US and Israel have no way to wipe out Iran's missile and drone capabilities. Postol even suggests nukes wouldn't even accomplish that. So now what? Taco or push further for Iranian political unrest or division.

My feeling is that this is going to get a lot worse for everyone involved.

	▲	andrewflnr an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If Iran was having great success with their attacks, they wouldn't therefore tail off the intensity if they could help it. They would just start scoring more hits with the same, presumably maximum, rate of fire. I think the obvious answer is the correct one here, that Iran's launch capacity has been degraded. That's not to say it will ever go to zero, so a lot of your other points still have some merit.

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dlisboa 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're making the same argument I am. If Iran had a small increase in accuracy they could hit targets that'd disable a lot of Israel military and civilian infrastructure. A lot of stuff is getting through. To counter that Israel has to achieve a perfect interception record. The balance is throughly on the side of offensive drone/missile warfare.

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breppp 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think we are arguing the same thing. I am arguing that even without any air defense, Iran would have difficulty hitting its targets in Israel with ballistic missiles due to low accuracy. When adding interception rates they have a real problem in attacking strategic facilities, air bases is a good example, which would be much more important than desalination plants.

You can then see that they shifted to completely attacking large cities, usually with cluster bomblets. The reason is when you are bombing a large area, aim is less of an issue, similar to WW2 carpet bombing

Your post alludes to drones, these do not reach Israel (from Iran) at all and are all intercepted

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YeGoblynQueenne 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Shahed drones have a maximum range of 25000 km [bbc_1]. The distance from e.g. Isfahan to Tel-Aviv is ~1592 km [google]. Shaheds can reach Israrel from Iran.

As to them all being intercepted, in the 12-day war that seemed to be the plan, i.e. force Israel to waste interceptors on cheap drones [bbc_2]. That seems to have changed in the current conflict.

_______________

[bbc_1] With a maximum range of 2,500km it could fly from Tehran to Athens.

[bbc_2] When Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of drones in 2024, the UK was reported to have used RAF fighter jets to shoot some down with missiles that are estimated to cost around £200,000 each.

Both exceprts from:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b3a272f0-3e10-4f95-...

[google] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Isfahan,+Isfahan+Province,...

	▲	gnabgib 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You need an edit on your first range (typo). 25Mm is amazing, nowhere is too far away (except the moon).

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8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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