Aside from Israel, I’d say that describes most militaries in the Middle East region regardless of whose equipment they’re using.
Hey, at least they’ll get some useful practice in, so there’s that.
I’m super ignorant in this area, so please excuse my ignorance. Does the US sell PATRIOT air defense systems that can be easily used to shoot down US F-15s? That is assuming the PATRIOTs are what shot down the F-15s.
I don’t understand your question. The US sells Patriots. Patriots can shoot down F-15s. Is the question about how easily they can shoot down F-15s?
You got my question 100%. You’ve confirmed that the US sells Patriots that can shoot down US F-15s. I would’ve thought we sold surface-to-air missile systems that couldn’t target US air platforms. My thought is now shot down, like our F-15s.
The F15 is from the 70s, if our surface to air missiles couldn’t shoot it down they wouldn’t be useful against Russian planes either.
Unless you mean that they could somehow detect that a plane is American made and refuse to engage it? That’s not really practical. And if it was, we’d want. To make our own missiles that way too to avoid friendly fire.
An anti-air missile that can’t shoot down even older planes like those isn’t going to be much use. Nobody would bother buying them.
I’m very surprised there weren’t any casualties among the shot down F15’s.
Very thankfull no one was hurt in this incident.
I think the posters missed this key sentence. I now know they are shooting down old jets. Ignorance fought. Thanks all.
Would our Patriots shoot down our new fighter jets?
It would be harder, but yes, they could shoot down an F35.
I recall it coming up during the first Gulf War when they were used to shoot down Scud missiles that Patriots are made to explode into shrapnel near targets rather than directly hit them, as it’s easier to intercept targets that way. The idea is to damage the target so it crashes rather than blow it to smithereens, since that’s “good enough” for the purpose; but it means that the target tends to end up much more intact that you’d expect from something stopped by a missile.
So the pilots would be a lot more likely to have the chance to eject from their wrecked plane than they would against a missile that hit the plane directly and basically turned it into a fireball.
Having watched his 60 minutes interview, I certainly don’t see why you’d think he deserves a title like “clown prince”. He clearly doesn’t want to lead Iran in the long term, he’s a symbolic transitional figure and seems perfectly aware of this.
He wants to lead Iran through a transitionary period, has four main goals:
- Iran should have separation of religion and state
- Iran should have democracy
- Iran should have individual liberties
- Iran should remain united
They asked him some tough questions, and I thought he answered them well.
Does the Jacobin article have any specific criticisms of him, for those of us who found it TMDR?
That’s like asking whether the US sells rifles than can be used to shoot Americans. Yes, of course it does.
Or Charles III, for that matter.
Closer to my home. The deposing of Mobutu Sese Seko in favour of Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo went fairly smoothly, thanks to the CIA.
It just caused a major regional and inter-regional conflict, but hey… the USA got access to the uranium mines.
Edit: I seem to have a habit of off-topic and extremely late responses. I will try to overcome this.
A modern, upgraded F-15 seems to cost about 100 million dollars, so we are talking about 300 million, as I guess the USA is sending up to date machines.
Introduced in the 1980s, the F-15E Strike Eagle is designed to perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. While the older Strike Eagle model reflects the 1998 valuation, newer versions of the F-15 aircraft cost close to $100 million per jet.
I think it is possible that one soldier or perhaps even a unit in control of anti aircraft defenses is not loyal to the USA. Probably not at the behest of the political leaders or the high command, but individuals are sometimes traitors. And I thought the planes were shot down over Kuwait, not Qatar, but that is not really the point.
Of course incompetence, human error in good faith or bad communication are also entirely possible.
Iran can do a lot of damage with drones. They’ve been a significant factor in the Russia-Ukraine war. Drone attacks penetrate defenses and can do a lot of damage against civilian targets.
Apparently the US and Israel are gambling that a regime change in Iran will end the war quickly. Otherwise these drone attacks could escalate and go on for months or even years.
White House talking points are that it’s not a war, just “major combat operations”. What a joke!
So I haven’t heard Trump coherently state what our (US) mission is. Can you believe that?
Is it regime change? If so, do we have a favorite?
Is it just to see smoke rising in the air?
Apparently, we learn NOTHING from history. Bush thought his “Shock and Awe” campaign would just overwhelm Iraq, but it turned into years of attrition instead.
We are in for a prolonged mess.
We are in for a sharp spike in terrorism, especially here in the United States.