Active Users:357 Time:15/07/2025 10:53:21 PM
Re: But... SilverWarder Send a noteboard - 25/02/2010 05:52:07 PM
The Iranians will be fighting on their home turf, while Israel's jets will be at their limit.


There's this thing called mid air refuelling. No, they won't be at their limit. Besides, they don't need a long time to launch a few missiles and sweep the skies. F-4s are pigs and can't dogfight a modern fighter to save their souls and their avionics aren't up to modern missile combat.

The F-5s are good little light fighters. Iran has a fair number of them and they are decent dogfighters but they are old and outmoded. The Israelis won't bother to dogfight them, they'll just wipe them out with standoff ordnance.

No, what passes for the Iranian airforce won't stand a chance. A lot of it would probably get blasted on the ground as it's so old and in many cases badly maintained.


Second, The Jericho 2 and 3 missiles have been developed in the 60's. No noe knows if they still work. You just mentioning them irks me. Israel has focused it's energy on the air force and neglected the missile option. Though it's true the Shavit satelite launcher is based of Jericho missiles.


That's for political reasons. As you say, the Shavit is based off the Jericho. This is Israel, they'll work. They'll be well maintained and their crews will be well trained. Israel's right to focus on aircraft anyway - ballistic missiles aren't the most accurate things in the world and really aren't what is needed for the kind of wars Israel fights. You want to hit an individual building, not a whole town.

What about chemical and biological weapons ? Doesn't Iran ahve those ? How many flights would be needed to destroy all those bunkers ? If Israel can't take the heat and bomb Gaza properly how will it commit to an attack on Iran ?


Entirely different things. Gaza is a kind of insurgency war (kind-of). They don't bomb it properly for political reasons, not military ones. They could bomb it utterly flat if they wanted to, and I'm sure they've been tempted, but the political fallout would be too high so they don't. Basically, they don't want to look like bullies.

Now if Iran started tossing NBCs around at civilian targets? NOW who's the badguy? All the political clout will be behind Israel, even including most of the Arab nations.

Keep in mind too, that they'll be shooting those missiles over Iraq and Jordan or Northern (Kurdish) Iraq and Syria in order to get to Israel. Guess how much those nations are going to like that, particularly when the ones that fail start dropping their ordnance in the hinterlands.

Keep in mind too - Iran doesn't have that great a ballistic capability. Have a read here:

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/39332.pdf

And Israel has the Arrow counter SAM which has been successfully tested.

It's likely at this date that Iran has probably around a hundred Shahab's. Might be higher, might be lower - that's not the kind of info that Iran likes to get out easily. That's not enough for any kind of sustained attack. It would be enough to do a lot of damage on a first strike depending on how many get through Israel's defences and depending on whether Israel let them deploy and fire first. Keep in mind that the Shahab is bigger than a SCUD and while it is still road mobile harder to hide and slower to launch as it is liquid fueled.

Sorry. The only way to stop it, would be to send Marines in on foot, find their scientists and shoot a bullet between their eyes. Then blow up the installation from inside and from outside, for good measure.


You honestly don't get how BIG these installations are. They are large, they are vulnerable and they are quite easily destroyed by air. What you don't realize is how much work nuclear refinement is. In order to describe the discovery of Uranium (238 I think) Madame Curie had to produce a gram of it - that being the rule at the time. She started with twelve BOXCARS of pitchblende and wound up with a beaker that glowed in the dark. She still didn't have a gram of Uranium. They wound up changing the rules for her in order to allow her discovery.

In order to get basic Uranium that is fissionable you need to refine the Uranium to 80% purity, but that still won't go boom. You then need to refine THAT to something like 98% purity in order to get low end weapons grade.

This isn't something you do in a garage. You need a massive infrastructure doing the refinement THAT is why they are vulnerable to air attack. They're big and they are soft.

How can Iran have such a puny air force with all those petrodollars ?


Politics. Iran has been a pariah state for a long time. Russia got in extremely hot water even for selling them those MiGs. Dollars are all well and good, but spending on an air force is easy to check. Planes have to fly out of someplace and you need to fly them in order to train with them. So it's easy to monitor even with nothing more than satellite photos.

Russia and China have had their hands full with the rest of the world trying to do what little they can with Iran because of all those petro dollars, but at the end of the day, it's not worth pissing off the US and Europe just for a few more bucks and who else is going to sell to them?

It probably explains why Iran is building their own aircraft - but all those petrodollars only help so much without a lot of background infrastructure and skills that they just don't have a lot of. That's why they only have a dozen or so Iranian developed and produced planes in their air force.


May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

Old Egyptian Blessing
This message last edited by SilverWarder on 25/02/2010 at 05:54:56 PM
Reply to message
Why Iran's dictators can be deterred - 23/02/2010 01:31:52 PM 815 Views
Not sure he showed us how they can be deterred - 23/02/2010 01:56:42 PM 358 Views
Er yeah, that's totally the argument I was going for. - 23/02/2010 02:06:52 PM 401 Views
No Palin was simply cover for the "we just have to accept Iran will get the bomb argument" - 23/02/2010 02:26:45 PM 426 Views
She wasn't cover for anything, but I like how this argument keeps going that way. - 23/02/2010 02:36:47 PM 407 Views
As I have noted it isn't conseratives that keep bring her up - 23/02/2010 03:26:11 PM 353 Views
and I tried to take her out of the argument. But here we are. - 23/02/2010 03:39:29 PM 386 Views
dealing with the repercussions of attacking another Islamic country may be our best option - 23/02/2010 04:25:47 PM 484 Views
The world needs to decide how it feels about non-proliferation. - 23/02/2010 07:11:51 PM 324 Views
yes American used the bomb so now we should let everyone else take a turn *NM* - 24/02/2010 06:22:23 AM 213 Views
It would certainly demonstrate the folly of that view. - 24/02/2010 06:49:56 AM 377 Views
well hell then why not just sel them nukes and get it over with - 24/02/2010 02:33:00 PM 377 Views
I really don't think the folly need be demonstrated more than once. - 28/02/2010 02:49:30 AM 312 Views
No I never played Civ - 28/02/2010 06:02:38 PM 395 Views
It's a classic, you should. - 28/02/2010 06:19:21 PM 442 Views
Oh. - 23/02/2010 02:07:32 PM 338 Views
Sheesh! - 23/02/2010 02:11:34 PM 536 Views
- 23/02/2010 02:16:24 PM 546 Views
- 23/02/2010 02:41:40 PM 542 Views
I think this guy lives on the moon - 23/02/2010 02:51:20 PM 468 Views
Ehm. I disagree strongly with your opinion of Mr. Zakaria. - 23/02/2010 03:23:09 PM 474 Views
Views on him tend to be polar - 23/02/2010 04:06:04 PM 520 Views
I was just talking to Lupine about how I like your posts, but I'm gonna make an exception here. - 23/02/2010 09:28:44 PM 428 Views
You'll have to link that then, I always like to read things that feed my ego - 24/02/2010 12:17:37 AM 429 Views
Oh, it was on AIM. - 24/02/2010 01:13:07 PM 497 Views
Should've been on wotmania Skype chat. - 25/02/2010 12:47:42 PM 350 Views
Here's an article in response to Zakaria's article - 23/02/2010 03:19:41 PM 468 Views
I like that article, actually. - 23/02/2010 03:58:39 PM 357 Views
Re: I like that article, actually. - 23/02/2010 04:22:27 PM 359 Views
I don't believe they can be stopped - 23/02/2010 10:37:47 PM 361 Views
One thing he forgets... - 24/02/2010 12:19:12 AM 385 Views
Iran is a thorny problem - 24/02/2010 05:38:09 AM 391 Views
I still don't believe North Korea harmless. - 24/02/2010 06:59:15 AM 490 Views
I never used the term 'harmless' - 24/02/2010 10:01:14 PM 426 Views
Fair point, sorry. - 25/02/2010 12:45:47 PM 462 Views
No worries - I was just making sure you understood my position - 25/02/2010 05:19:10 PM 358 Views
Re: No worries - I was just making sure you understood my position - 28/02/2010 02:30:26 AM 491 Views
Re: No worries - I was just making sure you understood my position - 01/03/2010 03:53:58 PM 372 Views
A carrot without a stick is just a free carrot. - 02/03/2010 08:01:23 AM 476 Views
It's not a carrot/stick thing at all - 02/03/2010 04:29:00 PM 464 Views
Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it doesn't seem that way. - 05/03/2010 01:02:57 AM 499 Views
They can hit Tokyo - 25/02/2010 06:10:44 PM 387 Views
So? - 25/02/2010 07:01:37 PM 536 Views
I think you are grossly overestimating our border security - 25/02/2010 08:03:13 PM 320 Views
Well, I KNOW you're ignorant about a lot of things and this shows it. - 25/02/2010 08:56:45 PM 383 Views
Yes you are the Great Cold War Warrior of the chairforce - 28/02/2010 06:44:31 PM 435 Views
Oh I'm sorry - so you're not so much ignorant as idiot. - 01/03/2010 03:48:32 PM 316 Views
Is that what taught you in chairforce school loser boy? - 01/03/2010 04:33:53 PM 413 Views
Nope, it was the internet actually - 02/03/2010 04:31:36 PM 346 Views
Israel does not have the military capability to destroy or significantly damage Iran's nuclear sites - 24/02/2010 12:33:00 PM 474 Views
I agree, even if for different reasons. - 24/02/2010 01:01:00 PM 326 Views
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about - and it shows to anyone who does - 24/02/2010 10:33:29 PM 424 Views
But... - 25/02/2010 12:44:15 AM 461 Views
Re: But... - 25/02/2010 05:52:07 PM 559 Views
Here's a few questions for you then. - 25/02/2010 02:55:00 AM 503 Views
You're not asking questions you're trying to support your point - 25/02/2010 06:49:28 PM 442 Views
I think this ties in well with this article - 25/02/2010 09:56:04 AM 386 Views
That's actually a really good idea - 25/02/2010 07:05:37 PM 320 Views

Reply to Message