On Saturday night I played the role of the second of two idiots in a production of Two Idiots Arguing in a Bar About Shit They Don’t Understand
This particular discussion dealt with the Iranians, their nuclear potential and the liklihood of Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
I posited that even if Israel wanted to bomb Iran they would have a tough time because:
Round trip from Israel to Iran, even in a straight flight, is a very long run for a fully loaded bomber
What air-space would they use? It wouldn’t even be a straight-shot
Idiot #1 (Patrick) scoffed at my assessment saying that we have bombers that can fly from the *US *to Iran and bomb them, so Israel would have no trouble making the trip. He also said that mid-air re-fueling would address the issue.
I found it very hard to believe that we have combat planes (spy planes yes, bombers, no) that can fly that far, I also found it very hard to believe that mid-air re-fueling would be attempted in the presence of anti-aircraft and a mobilized Iranian airforce.
That being said, I didn’t have the knowledge to back up my skepticism.
Who’s right? Can Israel “easily” make the trip to Iran and bomb them (should they choose to) and also (and less importantly) do we really have bombers that can make a round-trip from the US to Iran?
If we’re both wrong, you can say we’re both idiots, I won’t be sad.
Thanks (by the way, I’m not a scientist, it’s just a song)
The B-52 bombings of Iraq during the start of the Gulf War were round-trip flights from bases in Missouri. B-2 runs usually stopped off in Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean) for crew changes.
According to Boeing, the B-52H has a combat range of “More than 10,000 miles” It’s 6760 miles from St. Louis to Tehran. So B-52’s would have zero difficulty getting from the US to Tehran, dropping their bombs, getting well outside Iranian airspace, refueling, and going home. And don’t forget - you can refuel multiple times, so for even longer raids, you can get reasonably close to your target, top up the tanks, drop your load, leave, and fill up again on the way home.
Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in '81 using F-16’s & F-15’s. Tehran’s about twice as far, but I bet they could still make it with midair refueling.
The problem is not the distance. Aerial refuelings can take care of this.
As I understand it, the problem is that the Iranians have understood the past, and don’t have all their eggs in one basket. No one is really sure of where all their facilities are, which makes a bombing strick impractacle.
Aerial refueling works just fine if you have control of the airspace in which you need to refuel.
The path from Israel to Iran covers quite a few areas that it might not be the best idea to have a large, decidedly un-stealthy, unarmed tanker aircraft flying over.
The Osirak raid (vs Iraqi nuclear plant) was at the very limit of the range of the bombers. As I understand it, they landed with little to no reserve fuel.
If you have enough determination and tankers, and your planes are reliable, you can arbitrarily extend combat range. In the Falklands War the brits flew 1950s Vulcans silly distances by having the tankers refuel from other tankers in order to deliver fuel at very long ranges. In theory you could probably fly an F16 round the world three or four times non-stop, never mind a bomber. From here the record for an F15 mission is 15.5 hours and 12 refuellings.
You’re closer on the money about refuelling being a bit tricky in a combat zone. It might be feasible if you had lots of fighters and defence supression planes along (together with all the tankers they would need, and so on) but the strike package would get ridicuously large. However, since Israel now operates F15Is they probably have the range to do any necessary top-ups over non-hostile territory like the Gulf or Iraq and then go in from there.
So I’d say your buddy has you on both points and you owe him a beer. I agree with TokyoPlayer it would be pretty hard to knock out a dispersed nuclear program like that, but those kind of inconvient facts have never stopped anyone from launching a daft middle eastern war.
I asked someone about this at an airshow several years ago and he said there was only one integrated fuel system on the aircraft, so what it burned and what it gave away essentially came from the same place. That was a KC-135, so I can’t swear it’s the same on the newer tankers or those used by other countries.
However, I can also find a cite for a particular version of the KC-135 that was dedicated to refueling the SR-71, and carried seperate, dedicated tanks for the special fuel needed by the blackbird. I’ve also heard of tankers used to spray water droplets in the path of other aircraft to test how they perform in icing conditions, and I hope that’s not kept in the main tanks.
I am no so sure about the refueling part, even with F15Is. Iran is a huge country. Depending on the targets location, you might have to refuel over Iran to get in and out, even if you toped off before entering Iranian air space.
Does Isreal have any B-52s, or equivalent long range bombers?
But Isreal has been talking tough on this topic. Isreal says it will do what ever it takes to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threat; even if it has to “Go it alone”.
I belive, if they had enough time, they would simply buy what ever hardware they needed from the US.
Still, I vote for they are still two idiots talking about a topic there not sure about. Unless there are some dopers with definate info on Isreal’s long range capibalites.
PS. I have been Idiot #1 and #2 regulary at the local Pub with a friend of mine. The last was: How high a pitchers mound is. Him arguing 2-3 ft or more, and it varies from park to park. I thought it was around 18" and the same in all parks. (It’s 10" high in all ballparks) That’s why I have learned to admit, I am not sure.
I don’t know anything about the range of F-15s, but I do know that Israel does not possess any of the long-range dedicated bombers mentioned in this thread - the B-52s and Avro Vulcans. They also have some mid-air refueling aircraft, but I don’t know how many - which could be a major concern, because combat aircraft often suffer from far lower ranges than advertised when they have to engage in actual, well, combat.
It seems to me that Israel could certainly drop some bombs on Iranian territory, but I don’t think there would be anything “easy” about Israel launching air strikes on what are almost certainly well-dispersed and defended Iranian targets.
We’ve covered this before: the problem is that America controls Iraqi airspace. Without an American presence, Israel could indeed attack Iran with aircraft. But I wonder if they’ve got cruise missiles?
According to Wikipedia, the range of the F15 is greater than that of the Vulcan (2500 miles vs 2300).
Why is this a problem, and why would America prevent such an attack? It’s more of an enabling factor than a preventing one, since I can’t imagine anyone other than the US giving Israel permission to fly through their airspace on such a mission. And I sincerely doubt Israel would ever make such an attack without clearing it with the US first.
It’s a problem because America can’t give permission without becoming responsible, nor can they plausibly deny knowledge if a raid were happen. If the allies were to leave Iraq, could anyone stop the Israelis if they were to try?