Israel will never attack Iran conventionaly without US and larger coalition...Why?Because it can't and if they ever do it,they will not last 7 days without using nuclear weapons....I will now explain...Israel has conventional military much weaker than Iran,it doesn't have numbers period.To reach Iran,Israel must use airforce and they have around 80-100 aircrafts capable to reach Iran...Even if they share land border with this military Israel couldn't attack Iran...and even if it does,contrary to logic and military standards when it comes to attack strategies,they would lost in 7 days or they would be forced to use nuklear weapons.Iran has huge strategic deep,Teheran and northern Iran is fucking natural fortress....and Iran has huge millitary and huge potential in terms of large and young population...even US would never invade Iran without whole Nato and even than it would be mess...So lets keep discussion on what is posible(even I'm claiming from 2003 that even this is not posible except if something big happen)air campaign....Now let assume Israel plan to lunch air.campaign... No metter which path they want to fly ..they have to use air tankers and as I said only 80-100 aircrafts are available to them in any given time.....There is no military strategy which can make this to work....even if they are magicians...They would have to leave some assets at home because they didn't want to take of from Israel and land in Palestine...but lets assume they would keep those air rafts on alert that can't go on Iran....First,if you want attack 10 or 11th(didn't check rank for while)world military power you have to make sure you completly disable their offansive capatibilities first or in same time while targeting air-defense....First problem is Iranian strategic deepness(strategic deep is something.you can't compensate)...because Iran is huge ...like whole western Europe ,it has ability to position their strategic assets like balistic missiles at such way that only way to.attack all(even.if somehow find all)in same time is to lunch simultaneously air campaign from 3-4 directions with huge number of aircrafts and when it.comes to Iran,no one on planet can do.it...because ...first,in best case only 10-20% of these assets could be identified on time ,second,you have to attack Iran from all directions and that mean go over air spaces of multie countries at least 4-5 countries..and third you need huge number of aircrafts...even some countries have on paper huge number of aircrafts...in practice,they can deploy only some of those...simple because if they withraw assets from one region it can lead to loss in that region...In Israel case they simple can't even try to disable all Iranian.offensive assets...That is why strategic deepnes is first thing to look when you compare military power....defender is always in better position by nature and if you have huge country it gives you not only natural protection and more space for positioning,it also gives you wide range of strategies you couldn't use without strategic deepness,also.makes your enemy much more vulnerable at home and also it makes attacking force much more vulnerable on the ground...As I said,defender is always in better position by default but defender air force benefit even more when used over own country than others ....first, air defense will be huge adventage for defender air force....Iran has excellent.air defense and most importantly it has huge multi layer radar network(Syria learned how is radar network important at hard way),this is something very hard to penetrate even if there is no air force and unlike in Syria....in Iran it is not option to target positions from other.country and outside air defense network....and here you can again see importance od country size,position and terrain...Along with air defense,defender air force is in much better position because many different factors,I will explain most important.
When air force operate over own country or close to own country it can benefit from ground support and ground/navy or AWACS support actually in most cases are one who actually win air battle,...maybe better term would be "one's who actually makes air win possible".For example ,if you go online and search for available recorded conversation of pilots and control in any air battle,you will,in 90% cases,learn that AWACS/Navy ship or ground control operator did most important job and actually guide Pilot to best possible position ....for example Iranian F-5 kill against MIG-25 was posible thanks to operator from control tower,F-5 radar has 40km range and no engage capabilities,while mig-25 have radar with much greater range and engagement capabilities,thus also it is almost 2x slower.Mig -25 can lock on F-5 long before F-5 even detect.MIG-25...also it can easily.escape....Even when F-5 detect Mig-25 it still has to reach much closer to use gun or aim-9....So,without ground or other way of support,it would most likely never happen that F-5 intercept.and shot down. F-5.
Many often people don't know how important ground/awacs or navy ship air control actually is...also defender air force can also conpensate aircraft range and technological disadvantage when in defansive position over own country....for example Iran has huge and very advanced EW and jamming capabilities but most of these capatibilities are not in air,so...just because air force operate over own country it can effectively use assets that can decrase or in same case totally disable certain enemy capabilities,because of defansive position and access to many air bases,pilots can take off with less weight and there is no pressure on their side when.it comes to range and load...In case Israel lunch air campaign vs Iran,not only they would have low number of aircrafts capable for that task...also literary all aircrafts would be very close to range limit even if fly in economic mode...and range of any aircraft is actually range while fly in economic mode(certain altitude,speed..etc)...in combat ...aircraft can burn fuel in very short time...because of huge distance and size of such operation...it is impossible to lunch air attack without been detected in early stage of preparation....This literary means,if just someone lock on those aircrafts they have to proceed with protocols for that situation and basicly they would have two choice...turn around and go back home or drop everything not needed and engage....first,if they chose to engage...they would be lmited in every aspect...to engage they have to drop fuel tanks and havy munitions(if loaded with A-G munitions)they would drop fuel tanks probably in last moment and that mean probably when enemy lunch missile or at certain distance.But most likely,if proceed after lock on, Iranian pilots would intentionaly fire missile from max range just to force them to drop everything,fire afterburners and try to outmanuever missile(this term in this context doesn't mean aircraft will try to use it maneuverability ,outmanuevered missile means escape from missile or radar range,go bellow or above certain atlitude to escape max angle of radar or missile.... or enter minimal range where missile is not effective.....any of those will burn fuel...than even if they survived missile ,they will probably not survive engagement with little fuel...and Iranians,if know Israel aircrafts must fly in economic mode ,would chase them for sure....So,if attack.Iran Israel air force not only would be outnumbered but they would have to operate inside limits that would cripple their combat capabilities.Most probably outcome of Israel air attack would be loss of most aircrafts sent on Iran,in practice Iran could reject that attack using only Tomcat fleet.....F-14 can track 24 aircrafts and engage 6....it can lunch 6 missiles all at once and target 6 diferent targets at more than 200km range....as I said even doesn't need to shot down.any aircraft in first wave...F-16 on other side can engage 2 targets in same time but it can't lunch two missiles in same time when it comes to Aim120 ,pilot must wait that AIM120 start using own onboard radar(terms used also are....became active...became fire and forget)...Even today F-14 performance are unmatched....with upgrades it is beast..even AIM 7 has greater range and better perfomance than same missile used on F15 and F4,confirmed.by both Iranian and US pilots...Now,I didn't check perfomance of latest F-16 blocks, but I think it same or close to performance of newer F-16 models I mentioned....only F16 model that probably has better perfomanse is model with AESA but even this model can't get close to F-14... Probably it can engage 4 or less simultaneously targets and track 10-12....J-10b can engage 2 simultaneously and track 12....I will continue with analysis latter....It is interesting to consider different possibilities but in any case,Israel will never go alone on Iran...
