Sounds like a bait and switch. Get him to bite by selling him on the bunker buster, then he has no choice but to commit to the so-called "entire plan". Anyone taking odds on whether the "entire plan" involves long-term occupation and fighting insurgencies? There is oil and gas to be had, and a lot of money for contractors to make from it. Strategist doesn't want more middle east occupations but military industrial complex says you must have it.
2025 Israel - Iranian conflict
- Thread starter Maikeru
- Start date
You mean like the friendly regimes that were in Iraq and Afghanistan? They were just capital city placeholders while the rest of the country gets flooded with rebel factions. If Trump falls for this plot, they will bury themselves for another twenty years and the hundred billion made by contractors from the oil and gas won't come even close to making up for the trillions that will be spent (from US debt) on occupation. Given the timeframe involved, there will likely be a bond market crisis and maybe even debt default during that timeframe. Hope he goes for it.
And the US knows that the bunker busters are going to hit perfectly accurately, no gps-jamming whatsoever? How does the US know how deep the underground nuclear reactors are? How hardened the walls are?
Do they believe that Iran is just going to let them fly their huge bombers willy-nilly within just tens of kilometers of their nuclear reactors, deep inside hostile airspace, even if they believe that by that point they will have destroyed most of Iran’s AD?
They can escort their bombers with a hundred F-35s if they want, but as we’ve seen with Israel, all it takes is one rocket to get through and that bomber is going down.
They actually believe that because of some cool looking explosions and drone videos deep inside of Iran, that they have, or will soon have some sort of air supremacy?
All I see here is just the US displaying its usual arrogant and brutish way of thinking: “We’re just gonna pummel them with big booms, and they’re just gonna lie down and take it. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just pummel them with even bigger booms.”
Do they believe that Iran is just going to let them fly their huge bombers willy-nilly within just tens of kilometers of their nuclear reactors, deep inside hostile airspace, even if they believe that by that point they will have destroyed most of Iran’s AD?
They can escort their bombers with a hundred F-35s if they want, but as we’ve seen with Israel, all it takes is one rocket to get through and that bomber is going down.
They actually believe that because of some cool looking explosions and drone videos deep inside of Iran, that they have, or will soon have some sort of air supremacy?
All I see here is just the US displaying its usual arrogant and brutish way of thinking: “We’re just gonna pummel them with big booms, and they’re just gonna lie down and take it. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just pummel them with even bigger booms.”
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If it’s dropped by a B-2 it’s very unlikely it gets shot down, the B-2 is stealth and to my knowledge Iran has zero stealth radars capable of tracking them. Now if it’s dropped by a B-52 it’s more likely to be shot down but if it’s flying with F-35s the F-35s can shoot down the AD systems
AD systems that use visual target tracking do exist, and are the best type to use against stealth aircraft. Stealth craft may be invisible in terms of radar, but they’re not actually invisible in reality.
Plus, we don’t know what kind of radars Iran may have in its possession, even if in limited numbers; these are things that are usually kept secret until the last moment.
MOP penetration based on openly known information and using the penetration equation would be something closer to 8 meters on decently hard rock, instead of the 60m that the media is claiming which is true but for more cooperative surfaces such as silty clay or dirt.
MOPs could very easily seal entrances and exits, vents, access tunnels etc with one or two hits. But to penetrate the facility which is estimated to be under 80-90m of rock and has a possibly further hardened shell, you would need 10 successive hits for penetration , possibly 8 successive hits to start doing internal damage (assuming the penetration ability doesn't decrease with successive hits, but I'm not sure about that - probably nobody has tried this many successive hits).
With some error probability accounted for you would need 8-10 B-2 sorties carrying 2 MOPs each to seal off the access tunnels and get a complete penetration. 6-7 Sorties if you just want to penetrate and thus don't care about sealing tunnels. 3-4 sorties if you don't want full penetration but think sealing the facility shut will be fine.
Honestly the numbers aren't too absurd, and in my opinion not out of the American reach if they really do decide to shut the facility down. In the end it would depend on their internal assessment on how effective they think MOPs will be and how much risk they're willing to digest to run these sortie numbers.
MOPs could very easily seal entrances and exits, vents, access tunnels etc with one or two hits. But to penetrate the facility which is estimated to be under 80-90m of rock and has a possibly further hardened shell, you would need 10 successive hits for penetration , possibly 8 successive hits to start doing internal damage (assuming the penetration ability doesn't decrease with successive hits, but I'm not sure about that - probably nobody has tried this many successive hits).
With some error probability accounted for you would need 8-10 B-2 sorties carrying 2 MOPs each to seal off the access tunnels and get a complete penetration. 6-7 Sorties if you just want to penetrate and thus don't care about sealing tunnels. 3-4 sorties if you don't want full penetration but think sealing the facility shut will be fine.
Honestly the numbers aren't too absurd, and in my opinion not out of the American reach if they really do decide to shut the facility down. In the end it would depend on their internal assessment on how effective they think MOPs will be and how much risk they're willing to digest to run these sortie numbers.