Thursday, April 18, 2024

Breaking: Israel Strikes Iran

Various sources are reporting on Friday morning Israel began retaliatory counterattacks on Iran itself and on Iranian proxies in Syria. Information is quite preliminary, some call what arrived on-target "missiles." 

Other sources say these were "stand-off" munitions launched by Israeli planes flying outside Iranian airspace. My understanding is that, to civilian observers near the target, these two types of munitions would be indistinguishable. 

Two cities hit in Iran both house major aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. Iran claims their nuclear sites are unharmed. 

An interesting outcome will be assessing the effectiveness of Iranian anti-missile/antiaircraft defenses. Iran has Russian systems that have an hyped reputation, how those will perform in combat will be a good learning. 

Nobody believes the Iranian air defense systems are anywhere near as good as Israeli systems. Those are touted as perhaps the world's best.