But I'll answer anyway.



First of all - why would you need to fly all the way to EASTERN Iran? I strongly doubt that every strike target is on the far border of the country.

Israel is listed as having 8 dedicated refuelers which are Boeings - from the model they're essentially KC-135s. Each of those can do (at least) a squadron of planes and probably more. I was unable to find a specific listing but given that we used ours for refuelling B-52s which were gas hogs that's probably about right or even a low estimate.

That's enough for 96 planes. More than enough. Much more than enough (in fact probably more than Israel would ever fly at once - that's a LOT of aircraft in the air).

And that's without messing with drop tanks.




Matters not. No one ever flies their entire air inventory anyway. (The Iranians won't be either).

You need planes on the ground re-arming. Planes for defense, planes in maintenance. Against 35 real planes flown by crap pilots and a bunch of glorified targets a couple of squadrons of F-15s would be enough and they could do far more than that easily.



LOL - do you honestly think the Israelis CARE? Of course they can overfly Iraqui airspace. Who's going to stop them? The Iraquis - they'd need an airforce first. Certainly not the Americans.

Did you even look at a map? Saudi is nowhere nearby. It would be either Jordan and Iraq or Syria and Iraq. Since the Israelis are pretty friendly to the Jordanians they might ask for permission (or might not and say 'sorry' later) or just overfly Syria which they do now whenever they want to anyway.

Basically, not an issue save politically and if they felt the need to splash Iran's nuclear dev sites they're not going to care much about that.




It's not that different. Pilot quality means a lot and the F-15 is a better plane than the MiG.

Even so - here's what I would do.

I would ferry tank the F-15s somewhat - not completely - and arm them for stand-off and some ground bombardment. I would ferry tank some F-16s as well and arm them for mixed stand-off and dogfight.

Go out, drop tanks, destroy some ground radars, missles, planes on the ground to get the stuff I want to kill to come out and play, shoot it down stand-off and use the F-16s to bat clean-up. Fly back partway home and refuel for the return trip with another squadron hanging out to chase off anyone who tried to follow (an added bonus as that's more planes downed).

Honestly, it's not that hard.

Once you've fried most of their air defense, blow up the sites you want at will.

Of course, that's only if I wanted to kill the air force AND the sites. If I just wanted to kill the sites I'd just take in a few lone craft, penetrate, bomb the crap out of the sites I wanted and leave quickly. Refuel on the way home with some CAP up to catch any pursuers. That's how the Israelis usually work when they blast something in Syria they don't like.




Maybe, depends on what they wanted to do. In the case of the former scenario, yeah, you'd plan for multiples. In the case of the latter, probably just one. Maybe another if you don't do enough damage but that can be done later.



Naturally not. They'd just uncork the air force and punish Iran.

I would expect them to be quite successful.




That's nice, they can try and shoot down the planes with their pretty AKs. Israel isn't going to INVADE Iran, so their ground forces are basically irrelevant.



Even before anyone degraded Iraq's network of AAA and SAMs it was still fairly useless. I clearly recall the results of the first strikes against Iraq during the first Gulf War. Lots of pretty lights. Lots of blown up Iraqui stuff. Very little in the way of effective defense. They got what? One plane? A couple? It wasn't significant.



Okay - in any military action there is no such thing as 'complete safety'. Not ever. Planes break. People make mistakes. Bad guys get lucky. Nothing is certain once guns start shooting.

All those goofy folks trying to make 'certain' claims about military strikes look like fools by anyone who understands what warfare is about. You can have very high odds of success, but complete safety? Nothing like that is EVER a guarantee and anyone who tells you so is either delusional, lying or both.

Besides, you don't 'clear' corridors of AAA. Generally you fly around it except for the stuff around the target. That stuff you either risk or you take a WW weasel with you to fox or blow. If you're the Israelis you probably risk it - they're like that. The risk isn't particularly great though.

Keep in mind, the IDF is a lot happier taking chances than NATO forces. They have a different mindset and are much better supported by their public who is used to them having to act to keep missiles from hitting them.




But while being put back together, they aren't operating. And once put back together, can be bombed again. Particularly if the air force and air defenses have been stomped flat. So no big deal.




Storage facilities don't make things and no, you'll never find them or get them all no matter how good you are. Regardless, you need something to put in them and if the production facilities are gone, that's accomplished.



Why would you feel the need for spontaneity? Iran only has 2-3 facilities and they could hit them all at once, but why bother? I might do it to make a point, but it's not a military necessity. Blown up tomorrow is fine. It doesn't need to be today.



Maybe, maybe not. It hasn't always played out that way and the Israelis know it. They are very self reliant. Maybe others would step in, maybe not. Probably they would but the Israelis aren't going to gamble the lives of their populace on that.



Well, Israel decided to deal with Syria's nuclear ambitions and blew up a site in that country. Syria claimed it was an empty warehouse and nothing further was said or done.

So, if one day a bunch of Iran's nuke facilities got blown to bits and Israel said nothing, there would be all kinds of recriminations, but what's Iran going to do? Declare war? They can't invade (too many other countries in the way). They can't launch airstrikes as they'll just lose and Iraq and Jordan wouldn't like them overflying. Iraq couldn't stop them but the US might be happy to and Jordan might well. Syria might or might not allow it but the IAF would still down them.

And if they start lobbing Shababs, then Israel shoots them down and blows up a bunch more stuff. They'd treat it the same way they treat Gaza or South Lebanon. Endure it and make sure the payback is a bitch.

And if Iran were ever to go to anything non conventional then the rest of the world WOULD step in - on Israel's side.