WinterNights
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No, it was not difficult.
I know it was not difficult for Iran, but you think in general it is not difficult to detect the RQ?
Currently, there are only three countries that have experienced -- not withstand -- attack from US airpower: Viet Nam, Yugoslavia, and Iraq. And none of their air defenses survived.
Those nations, qualitatively and quantitatively cannot be compared to Iran (not by a long shot) when it comes to air defence. I'll give you one example, in electronic warfare. EW is a major factor in Iran's air defence and something they have heavily prepared for, could we say the same for these other nations? Those nations were extremely vulnerable to EW, look at Iraq for example. Good luck trying to do the same to Iran. There are many other factors I could mention too.
Now, do I think at this moment in time Iran can fully withstand a US strike? well that depends how much the US is willing to bring to the table. Lets not be naive in thinking it will be the whole of USA's airfleet vs Iran, it is only the portion the US is bringing into conflict at a time. Even forgetting Iran's offensive moves in a conflict against the sources of US airpower in the region, e.g her aircraft carriers, I highly doubt 2 aircraft carrier fleet will bring Iran's air defences down. Iran is simply too vast and it's integrated air-defence too well prepared. It's not like Iran has only started preparing for these scenarios yesterday.
Even if I conceded that US even with 2 carrier fleets can eventually take out the IRAD, but at what cost?. Modern wars are rarely battled on an all or nothing basis, it's all about cost-benefit analysis. I don't think any US general is naive enough to think at this point in time, any US-Iran conflict will be even minutely in the benefit side of their calculations.