So the US actually lost more aircraft (both destroyed and damaged long-term) to CSAR than the aircraft that were initially lost during its combat operation/mission?
Wow, that's one hell of an exchange rate. Maybe Iran doesn't actually need to down every US warplane that is conducting strikes inside Iranian airspace after all, lol.
I guess not one but two C-130 got "stuck" for no reason whatsoever lol
Just by videos and loses US admitted to so far, it's statistically guaranteed they also lost more men.
Fox is claiming the pilot condition isn't stable enough to travel, I guess we'll find out if he joins that F-35 that totally landed safely.
After all the main goal is to prevent capture, not to rescue, if he's dead or has always been dead it's fine for both sides.
It looks like Iran took max advantage of American MO where they care more about saving face than losing men. Killing the pilot would at most net them 1 kill, but using him at bait they instead got to destroy 8-10 American CSAR assets and probably killed a dozen CSAR crew.
Most importantly hard kill on CSAR crew and assets made it physically harder for US to launch more CSAR missions, so 2nd order effect is it's now much harder and risker for US to fly sorties into Iran in the future.
There's also a third order effect, which is US being forced to empty their global standoff JASSM stockpile.
