Iran - Israel/US War: Israel-US declare war on Iran, Iran responds

[ShapurII]

those people were idiots.

But interceptors arriving wouldn’t have changed the battle because the establishment decided that a small S-300 order and whatever Iranian defense industry could produce would be enough against the greatest airforce in the world.

I routinely said to purchase S-400 on top of S-300 and also buy anything else we can get our hands on to create the densest air defense we can.

Did you know Syria in 2011 had a more dense air defense network than Iran in 2025?

Hard to believe, but Assad had one of the densest air defense networks for an Arab country. He lost it over time due to civil war and defections and Israeli strikes after his forces had to retreat.

To think that four battalions of S-300 PMU2 would be enough for a country the size of Iran is beyond absurd. And they insisted that we didn't need to purchase AD all the time. How many Bavar-373s were spotted in operation? We were defenseless all this time.

Even North Korea with a GDP that is 10-15 times smaller than Iran had a denser AD network than Iran prior to 2024, let alone now.

 

[ShapurII]

Iran does need an air force, true, but whatever Iran had managed would've been decimated within couple of days.
So if Iran had diverted missiles money towards airforce, today Iran would neither have the airforce and nor have the missiles.

They established complete air superiority over Iran in a few hours with about 200-250 jet fighters (including IAF), most of which are not even F-35s.

This could've been avoided had we invested in an air force. We might've lost eventually, but not in a few hours.

 

[Falcon29]

Yes for Americans. Not for Iranians.

It's a lot more embarrassing for Americans.

1 F15
1 A10
1 Blackhawk
2 C130s

Iranians clearly didn't care to capture a pilot in that uninhabited area of Iran near the Gulf waters. And probably didn't know in the beginning it was a successful shoot down.

Trump admin is trying to spin this a victory

Actually according to some reports they even destroyed another A10 in the process

 

[Immortals]

The odds were not against the WSO since Iran had no helicopter with IR that could take off due to US controlling the airspace.

People getting mad that Iran didn’t find the operator in this region:



One side had thermal imaging + ISR + real time spy satellites + THE EMERGENCY BEACON LOCATION OF THE PILOT

the Iranian side had some nomads with hunting rifles, some Basij, and whatever local forces managed to get to the scene in their 1960s era vehicles. Keep in mind nearly all the forces probably lacked night vision goggles.

Maybe I’m coping, but the odds were always stacked against Iran due to the terrain and having no airforce ability.

People act like the pilot fell outside of Tehran.

 

[FUB]

If any of you have ever worked with tracking devices you would understand the advantages that the Americans had .
Imagine you have a gps tracker installed in a car and you are trying to find the car in a city the size of Tehran. without access to the gps data ,It is virtually impossible to. The car can be anywhere and hidden in all sorts of structures . If you have the GPS coordinates, you can go to the precise location.
Americans have access to real live sat data and they were able to find him and drop in and grab him and get out .
Iranian planners, who lost their brothers and neighbors ( bachehaye mahal) during the 8 year because they did not have access to weapons made the right decision. We don’t have an Air Force because no one was willing to sell Iran anything . Even if we did, we could not match Israel and the US. They made the right choice to invest in missiles, drones, and a symmetric operations.
The US suffered over 2 billion dollars in losses from destruction of its aircraft.
Once you add the radars, bases, and cost of operations over the last 36 days , you are north of $50 billion dollars . Which country has given the US armed forces such a beat down since WWII? Which country has dared to defy the US and go to war and have the upper hand after 36 days ?
Today Buck Rogers saved America in a Hollywood setting with their trillion dollar defense budget . This war is far from over . Iran has the cards , and the US knows that otherwise they would not request a 48 cease fire .

 

[ShapurII]

It's a lot more embarrassing for Americans.

1 F15
1 A10
1 Blackhawk
2 C130s

Iranians clearly didn't care to capture a pilot in that uninhabited area of Iran near the Gulf waters. And probably didn't know in the beginning it was a successful shoot down.

Trump admin is trying to spin this a victory

Actually according to some reports they even destroyed another A10 in the process

This is a victory for the Americans.

They rescued two pilots deep inside Iranian territory without a single solder killed in action. Let that sink in.

 

[Cipher212]

If the report turns out to be true of US blowing up two C130s, the operation in material terms cant be really be considered much of a success. Thats several millions of loss in equipment.

But for the US and for Trump specifically, the symbolism and propaganda victory of this operation makes up for those material losses.

The US has literal boneyards full of airframes that they can pick parts or entire working aircraft from. Even if we assume that in addition to the 2 C-130s and A-10, the damaged Blackhawks are also no longer operable, the Americans still don't care. For them actually the pilot is the more expensive equipment.

The symbolism of this and the movies its going to spawn is also worth it.

Still, this was just one small battle over 2 aircrew. Iran is doing far better than anyone could imagine in this war and recovering 2 airmen doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz or stop the missiles.

 

[Desert]

I won't call the rescue of this a pilot a success for the americans since they've lost some jets and helicopters in order to find him lol

 

[ShapurII]

People getting mad that Iran didn’t find the operator in this region

I am mad that not even a single American was killed after a day of flying deep inside our territory.

 

[Desert]

This is a victory for the Americans.

They rescued two pilots deep inside Iranian territory without a single solder killed in action. Let that sink in.

how do you know they haven't lost a single soldier? the downed helicopter ? they all survived ?

 

[flyingorca]

The odds were not against the WSO since Iran had no helicopter with IR that could take off due to US controlling the airspace.

No matter how we put this, US and A pulled off one of the coolest rescue operation in modern history.

 

[Immortals]

This is a victory for the Americans.

They rescued two pilots deep inside Iranian territory without a single solder killed in action. Let that sink in.

You keep saying “deep” inside Iran.

Lordegan is like 200KM from Iraqi border. It’s also apart of the Zargos mountain chain. You act like he fell in middle of Isfahan and hid in a trash can.

 

[Toxic]

It's a lot more embarrassing for Americans.

1 F15
1 A10
1 Blackhawk
2 C130s

Iranians clearly didn't care to capture a pilot in that uninhabited area of Iran near the Gulf waters. And probably didn't know in the beginning it was a successful shoot down.

Trump admin is trying to spin this a victory

Actually according to some reports they even destroyed another A10 in the process

This is complete cope, they failed to inflict any deaths on the CSAR teams, Also they didn't want to capture the pilot??? Lmao what kind of bullshit is that.

 

[Falcon29]

This is a victory for the Americans.

They rescued two pilots deep inside Iranian territory without a single solder killed in action. Let that sink in.

This is like 5 football fields. Any Iranian soldier trying to get out in the open like this may as well wave his hand and ask to be killed

It's not urban combat. But how deep in Iran was it actually ?

 

[ShapurII]

how do you know they haven't lost a single soldier? the downed helicopter ? they all survived ?

To the best of my knowledge, two Blackhawks were damaged, not downed.

I am always happy to be proven wrong about the US casualties in this operation. But from the looks of it, not even a single US soldier was killed.