Many thanks. Can you touch on why Iran would need to invest ANY resource (short, medium, and long term) on conventional aircraft and instead divert that into better and better drone and precision missile systems? Also can you touch on who the adversary for these conventional aircraft would be? It seems clear as day to me that any investment would entirely wasteful.
Very smart questions, my friend. No military on earth CAN IGNORE considering what you stated in your post.
Eisenhower use to say, in 1950s, "We won, because of logistics planning and organization".
Well, this is a double-edge sword for U.S. and they have to plan, plan, and plan. Almost the entire 4th floor I believe in Pentagon is (one way or the other) is allocated to "logistics and war planning". Iran should exploit this very carefully, and I think they can do that 1000 times better than a dumb person like me.
What I mean by this is: U.S. has a giant weakness and this is COST OVERRUNS. Outside military planning, this can be described as ... EVERYTHING IN U.S. MILITARY is unnecessarily expensive. AND there is a lot of WASTE.
In Iraq, Haliburton was given contracts for let's say, $36 per unit work for re-construction. They gave it to sub-contractors for $27 per unit work. These sub-contractors gave it to other sub-contractors, so forth and so on, until the actually work was given to the company that charged $8 per unit work to get the job done.
U.S. is a TOTAL WASTE BUCKET - they waste so much. 40% of food in U.S. gets wasted, (not even talk about the fuel that delivers the food) and never consumed while there are about 70,000 homeless people here in Seattle, I was in a soup kitchen cooking burgers in N.E. LA about a year ago, and 10% of the homeless people i was chatting with while cooking them a burger, were programmers and technical people, I was talking to a guy about ADA programming language used in U.S. defense applications, and we talked about object oriented CASE and CAST (computer aided software engineering and computer aided software testing using a supercomputer) . That's amazing to think about for a moment. In LA as in Seattle or SF, a software engineer gets about $130,000 (with his knowledge more like $200k+) but with one eviction notice because you got sick and could not pay your rent, and had medical bills, you could end up on the streets, no one will rent you a house or an apartment, or you have to go live somewhere that is dangerous and you will get mugged or killed. Listen to this one from Herald of Connecticut; HALF OF BANKRUPTCIES IN U.S. in 2016 was to do with medical bills for individuals that ACTUALLY HAD MEDICAL INSURANCE. A chemotherapy platinum pill with lots of chemical crap in it, costs about $3000 - PER PILL.
Everything in U.S. is EXPENSIVE and a WASTE. I can't mention the name of a company that I work for, but they waste $600m on a R&D project I am involved in (paid by appropriations committee in Congress behind closed doors for certain reasons) which the Brits can do for $6m. I know this is unbelievable for all of you here. But it is true. Everyone who gets profusely rich in U.S. in a very short time, is most probably involved in something that screws the American people out of their tax Dollars, for something that is totally over inflated. It's WILD WILD WEST again. Or may be it has always been. Zionists are getting rich like never before. (sorry off topic).
Hence, the answer to your question.
If Iran can make the COST OF WAR high enough for a country that spends $1b a day to be in state of status-quo in the middle east and knows they have to ramp up to $4b a day or even higher, there YOU HAVE DETERRENCE.
You are no doubt, one step ahead of me. You are thinking, but Iran is developing UAV/UCAV and cruise missiles.
Great point.
Recently U.S. has been TRYING (not succeeding though) to convince Iran that Iran's drone capabilities are worrying U.S. and Israel. Actually, this was a Pentagon disinformation strategy. They are not concerned with Iran's drone capabilities. They can smash it anytime they want in an actual war.
What U.S. is really worried about is a PROLONGED war with Iran which continues to PRESENT a threat to shipping via stand-off weapons delivered by even a crappy old fighter jet like F-4E. They also are worried about Iran's know-how regarding faster and faster air launched cruise missiles. Air launch offers a 1% strategic military advantage, but affects global cascade effect economic problems that is a 25% advantage if used correctly during war. Iran can ATTEMPT to economically suffocate U.S. and its allies. So far it has not.
U.S. has done one thing about Iran, as the Brits have tried to do with the rest of the world for hundreds of years ...
DENY
They want to deny Iran, strategic weapons assets that can force U.S. to calculate in its logistics a defensive solution for such assets of the adversary.
This is EXPENSIVE for U.S. and has to devote a lot of resources to protect so many adhoc assets and friendly countries, including Saudis, UAE, and others. Air launched weapons is a huge issue for U.S. that wants to deny Iran yet another CAPABILITY that they CURRENTLY NOT WORRY ABOUT.
As Iran STRETCHES U.S. further and further, via multiple capabilities, at some point U.S. is just not finding WAR AS A NEGOTIATION strategy, BECAUSE to U.S. --- WAR is a negotiation strategy, to Iran, is about injustice, vengeance, fighting for their rights and their pride, etc. For U.S. it is about getting Iran to submit and serve the MASTER.
Iran's ballistic missiles are finite, and the U.S. already has many things in place and to a certain degree, they believe they can manage it - IF THEY HAD TO. They know EXACTLY how Iran will launch its missiles and what they need to do so, and how much time U.S. has. All already calculated.
Iran went and developed BAVAR 373 - but still has not fielded in large enough quantities that concern U.S. and deter.
If Iran also builds, let's say, 250 brand new upgraded F-5E with TWO 8,000 thrust engines the same weight of J85, but instead with 16,000 lbs of total thrust instead of 10,000, with capability of carrying fuel in bolt-on fuel tanks, as well as air-to-ground missiles to hit say 100 targets in the Persian Gulf, now U.S. is worried about the economical consequences globally. Or, let's say Iran has 200 brand new upgraded F-4E with AL21 engines (17,500 lbs without afterburner), as opposed to J79 with 17,500ish lbs of thrust WITH afterburner - (f-4E uses about 600kg of fuel for take-off depending on weather condition, wind direction, air temperature, and elevation of the runway). NOW U.S. would have to REALLOCATE resources, RECALCULATE, redo logistics planning, allocated organization to prepare for yet ONE MORE THING they will be concerned with regards to hot war hostilities with Iran. THAT IS WHERE IRAN CAN USE ATTRITION TO WEAR U.S. DOWN.
IN REAL TERMS - Qasem Soleimani was murdered BECAUSE U.S. did not want to engage Iran in a REAL WAR. They are petrified of war with Iran. Further STRETCHING U.S. economically in their war planning, ENSURES that Iran can continue to PUSH MORE BUTTONS and hence get MORE CONCESSIONS from others that intend it harm, EVEN SOME supposed FRIENDS, like South Korea, INDIA and even CHINA AND RUSSIA who will NOW respect Iran's strength even more and count on it as a worthy ally against U.S. so Iran can use such leverage for its own goals.
PeeD has some great points, as always. Iran could use FJ33 and FJ44 development for the next 20 years of Iran's engine technology evolution, and even make money from export. This platform (although it may appear that is not that beneficial to Iran for its needs and is an over kill, since Iran already has J85 and can easily convert it to aft-fan turbo fan, (Iran's had this for 50 years with French military transport jet) or just use it as a non-afterburner platform, STILL A GREAT OPTION as it is a few generations ahead of J85.
An airborne fighter jet also gives Iran its additional strategy to bring in adversary air force, and finish them off with ground launch SAMS hidden in Iranian mountains. U.S. hated ambush strategies in Vietnam and one of the reasons why (apart from supply line) they dropped 580,000 bombs on Laos.
Iran needs to explore and exploit EVERYTHING THE WEST IS SCARED OF in a war situation with Iran. Airborne fighter jets capable of launching anti-ship missiles are SCARY to U.S. and Europe.
So, with all the details above, the brief answer to your question is:
Iran should utilize as many strategic capabilities as possible to DETER war from starting in the first place, and conventional fighter jets and bombers do have AND WILL CONTINUE to have a significant part in future conflicts, even if it has to be with top tier world powers. It can be used for cost-effective strike missions in the early hours of war, it will force the enemy to allocate more resources to protect more of its assets, and dilute its effectiveness, and potentially AVOID the scenarios which allow U.S. with its incredible resources to develop a SINGLE kill technology to make an entire weapons strategy (e.g. drones or cruise missiles) suddenly ineffective. A large and highly reputable and hugely funded U.S. defense company is working on satellite based technology right now that makes drones far less effective in the near future.
Why was Sweden not attacked in WW2 by either side for its huge strategic advantage offering?
Thank you for your comments. Have a great weekend my friend.