Its always something boring. As was stated earlier, stealth aircraft are invisible or hard to track with Radar, but the Mk 1 Eyeball can see them just fine, and so can thermal seeking missiles. The way stealth bombers defeat these things is by coming in at night and being painted black. The reason they are painted black is not because black has some inherent technological value. The radar defeating paint can be any color we want it to be. The black paint is entirely to defeat the Mk 1 Eyeball at night. Because if the Mk 1 Eyeball sees the aircraft, they can fire off a thermal seeker at it. And thermal seekers are a major pain in the ass because its very hard to hide heat signatures from a jet aircraft.
Jet exhaust is usually 1000+ degrees.
B-2 Bombers (and the F-117 before) use baffles and extra air intakes to drop the IR signature of their engines greatly (I want to say only a couple hundred degrees but don't remember and can't find source) and nearly undetectable from the ground. This is not indefeatable, but requires - effectively - specialized missiles that are designed to find and lock a target 400 degrees and not 1200 degrees. There is a high odds of such a missile finding a wrong target so they would not be in common usage. The missile would need to either be launched above the B-2 or get above/level with the B-2 and then start to hunt for a target.
Again, the scenario we were debating was Iran launching strikes on Europe before this war began, which would provoke a war that Iran would not want. Iran firing missiles at European countries after the current war began is outside the scope of that hypothetical, and actually just further solidifies why Europe would not be thrilled about this war - before it started, things were fine, and after it started, Iran and their proxies started firing missiles at us (Turkey and UK bases on Cyprus so far).
I mean it really doesn't matter. Iranian missiles could reach Greece & Bulgaria, possibly into Croatia and Romania/Hungary. A little more time and they could threaten Germany.
Your argument was Iran wouldn't start shit with NATO. Even if we ignore the fact the US which is effectively NATO is already bombing them, they launched missiles into Turky which if going to war with Iran wouldn't up-end E-dog's plans would have been sufficient cause for Arty V.
So very clearly, your argument about Iran not willing to chimp out on NATO is wrong on its face. They are very willing, even when the useless parts of NATO haven't done anything, to strike NATO countries, even when they have bigger problems to worry about.
So it doesn't matter if Iran would use their missiles as a first strike, or if they'd only use them in a Samson Plan final chimp out when being bombed like we see now. Europe would be in range, and Iran is retarded enough they might try to hit them. So Europe is involved, Europe was threatened, and, very regrettably, Europe will be safer when this is done.
Real questions here that may have been answered already but this thread moves so goddamn fast I can't keep up: did the US not have the ability to prevent the strait from being clogged up by the Iranians or did they not care? It seems like it would have been a priority to keep it open/lock it down themselves and would have been an obvious response by the Iranians to fuck things up.
Also, how are they still causing trouble in it when you've got the entire world pissed off and watching in 1488K satellite vision for anything that can fly or swim in the area?
Genuine questions, I don't understand how any of this works militarily.
You got an answer already but I'll reiterate.
Iran can use cheap and easy to transport weapons to attack ships. Minus taking physical possession of the coast there is nothing that can be done. Even sending warships, the short distances involved would make enough CIWS like Phallanx only have a chance to intercept incoming missiles.
The strait isn't as dangerous as Turd Worlders like to claim, but civilian cargo ships are fragile and shipping companies/insurers are very risk adverse.
Here's my theory - The F-35 was too overconfident, flew too low, and got peppered by AA fire or a MANPAD. Not enough to get critically damaged, but not something I'd want to keep flying, thus the emergency landing.
I don't believe the video on Twitter at all.
Yeah, I'd buy AA over a missile. Iran still has lots of gun-based AA.
VID_20260319_160424.mp4
A massive column of trucks are en route to Iran from Tajikistan. Tajik and Iranian opposition figures claim Tajikistan is using humanitarian aid as a cover to smuggle drones to Iran. Iran has large drone manufacturing facilities in Tajikistan, with the first opening four years ago.
*A-10 heavy breathing*
