US Establishment Shell Shocked by Rapid and Paradoxical Increase of Iran's "Lethality"
The US press commentariat continues to show great astoundment at Iran’s paradoxically growing capabilities:
Summary of the piece for those not wanting to read it in full:
Iranian missiles are becoming faster and more sophisticated, despite attacks by the US and Israel - The Wall Street Journal.
Despite airstrikes by the US and Israel targeting military infrastructure, storage facilities, and factories, Iran has retained a significant portion of its ballistic arsenal (estimated to be in the thousands of units) and the ability to continue developing and producing new weapons.
The publication emphasizes that over time, Iran has shifted its focus from slow-moving drones and outdated missiles to fast-acting, solid-fuel ballistic missiles with high accuracy. The new missile modifications are quicker to prepare for launch and have maneuverable warheads, which significantly complicates their interception.
For Israel and US forces, intercepting massive ballistic strikes requires the constant expenditure of expensive anti-missile systems (such as Arrow 3, THAAD, and Patriot), the stockpiles of which are limited. The WSJ notes that Iran has learned to exploit vulnerabilities in multi-layered missile defense systems by overwhelming them with dozens of fast-moving targets simultaneously.
It begins with the opener:
After nearly five months of war, Iran’s missile capabilities remain lethal. At least two U.S. servicemembers were killed in Jordan on Saturday following an Iranian attack of ballistic missiles and drones.
No one can quite seem to figure out how it’s possible that under such “unprecedented” US bombardment, said to be “degrading” Iran beyond recognition, the country can continue to increase the lethality of its strikes.
The article notes the US is even trying to identify “additional remains” at the same Jordan airbase where American servicemen were just killed, which means early rumors of even more casualties being buried under the rubble are likely true:
In addition, U.S. officials were working Sunday to try to identify additional human remains found at the site in Jordan as a third servicemember remained missing following the attack. And another U.S. servicemember was killed this weekend during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone in Northern Iraq.
But getting back, WSJ’s chief question arises:
It goes on to highlight Trump’s claims from early June that Iran’s military had been “totally destroyed”, contrasting that with the paradoxical realization that Iran’s ballistic missiles are only getting “faster” and “more maneuverable”, which reflects a military that is “adapting, not necessarily crumbling.”
This has erupted into a cacophony of bewilderment in the MSM, which now wrestles with the question of where Iran is getting this wondrous “new technology”.
Trump, admitting that Iran “slipped something through” in Jordan, blames the Jordanian air defense operators, claiming that if other better operators had been there instead, the US would not have suffered the casualties that it did:
So, the US can’t afford its own operators to protect its own bases and troops? What gives?
This “newfound” Iranian capability was best evidenced by a series of leaked photos claimed to be from the site of the hit US base in Jordan—read the portion highlighted in red:
From what I’m hearing we’re getting projected impact data but the missiles are changing trajectory multiple times in flight so the projected impact warnings are no good.
Targeting data is obviously getting fed to Iran from China or Russia because where they are impacting/what they are targeting is insanely precise.
What’s the real secret to this newfound accuracy? Is it the Chinese/Russian targeting, or does it have more to do with Iran’s own increased missile capabilities?
The answer:
Is likely a combination of both.
For one, it was just announced yesterday that Russia has launched its second batch for this year of the new Rassvet satellite constellation considered to be the “Russian Starlink”:
Ukraine’s top expert Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov commented on the occasion, stating there are now up to 40 of them in orbit:
Russia has launched the second batch of "Razvedka" satellites, which are intended to be a counterpart to "Starlink." Currently, there are up to 40 satellites in orbit.
It should be noted that the satellites have not yet reached their designated positions within the orbital constellation, but they could do so quickly.
To begin using the "Razvedka" constellation for military purposes, the adversary would need to launch at least several hundred satellites.
SpaceX currently has over 15,000 satellites.
OneWeb has 600-700 satellites.
Amazon's Kuiper project plans to have 400-500 satellites (with a plan to reach up to 4,000).
Not that this would have a major effect on Iran yet—theoretically, at least—but it shows that Russia is increasing its capabilities all the time, and has great incentive to leverage that to help Iran in many possible ways. It should be mentioned that Rassvet satellites operate in a north-south orientation:
And given that Iran and Ukraine are not too far in longitude, it would seem to imply the possibility of utilizing this limited number of satellites to at least some extents over both theaters.
But from the standpoint of Iran’s own advancements, the key change has been the utter attrition of the US air defense network Iran was able to effect in the region. There continue to be claims of Iran’s successful targeting of a wide array of US radars during the last exchange:
The US has lost much of its eyes and ears, and the few remaining aerial assets are forced to pull increasingly farther back for fear of being hit on the ground.
With the diminution of these critical US assets, Iran has also increased its own ISR capabilities in the region. For instance, there were unverified reports of Iranian Ababil-3 recon drones overflying Kuwait, though some have claimed to debunk them.
It has been theorized for a while now, that Iran has held back its most advanced missiles for this very point. Early on, Iran knew that the air defenses of the US and its regional allies were still capable so Iran’s strategy was to over-saturate them with mass launches of cheaper single-stage missiles. Now that radar coverage and interceptor stocks have been attrited, Iran has begun rolling out increasingly more expensive multi-stage missiles—like the Sejjil-2—with far better accuracy.
Early on, it would have proven potentially wasteful to send these missiles as Iran does not have as many of them in stock. This explains the early “barrage”-style missile attacks that seemed to hit large areas willy-nilly. Now that US’s AD systems are depleted, Iran can use the “good stuff” to get precise hits on exact targets likely chosen with the aid of Russian-Chinese satellite surveillance.
Here is an incredible video from an earlier strike a couple weeks back which went under the radar—no pun intended. Note how the Iranian ballistic missiles sail right past Patriot interceptors, which are firing off directly as the missiles come in:
As you watch, recall the earlier leak:
From what I’m hearing we’re getting projected impact data but the missiles are changing trajectory multiple times in flight so the projected impact warnings are no good.
Targeting data is obviously getting fed to Iran from China or Russia because where they are impacting/what they are targeting is insanely precise.
The more advanced missiles Iran is now using, perhaps like the liquid-fueled Emad. Here’s what Iranian Fars News had to say about the Emad several years ago:
“This missile, whose entire design and construction process was carried out by the scientists and specialists of the Ministry of Defense’s Aerospace Industries Organization, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first long-range missile with the capability of guidance and control until the moment of impact on the target, which is capable of hitting the intended targets with high precision and completely destroying them.
From Wiki:
The Emad features a newly designed reentry vehicle with a more advanced guidance and control system, making it Iran's first IRBM that is precision-guided.
In short, it was said to be Iran’s first highly-precise IRBM wherein the reentry vehicle itself—presumably a MaRV design—has its own guidance and control that allows it to be guided to the very moment of impact. That means the MaRV must have a propulsion system of some sort of its own, and unlike weapons like Oreshnik whose submunitions are targeted by a gyroscope-guided ‘bus’ in outer space, the Iranian warhead can course-correct all the way to the target. The other big consequence of having its own propulsion of some kind is the ability to perform maneuvers down through the terminal phase, which seems to coincide with the above US ‘leak’ describing missiles which are performing so many maneuvers that the US is unable to project its impact point.
The leak, by the way, is only part of a larger ‘whistleblower’ effort described by NYT and the Telegraph in their latest articles pointing to much heavier US casualties in the latest Iranian strikes than being admitted to:
Now WaPo has made an even more astonishing revelation via leak from another ‘anonymous official’—that US stockpiles are in such bad shape that there’s not enough munitions to even sustain operations. The more shocking part: that Trump is apparently being kept in the dark about all this—a fact not so surprising to most of us who’ve been following this calamitous folly:
An official likewise told WaPo that a ground operation is unrealistic, as Iranian “standoff strikes” would have fire-control over any US ground forces:
“I think it would be a mistake to put ground forces anywhere in islands in the strait or onshore,” said Seth Jones, who heads the defense and security department at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. “I don’t think U.S. forces are prepared for standoff strikes from Iranians.”
Now the latest push is for the US to target Iran’s “Pickaxe Mountain”, which is Israel’s new fixation:
Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program.
Israel passed along the intelligence findings to the U.S., saying the centrifuges were transferred to the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall after the 12-day war in June when American and Israeli strikes pummeled Iran’s three main nuclear sites.
Israel continues to come up with hopeless new quests for the US in order to keep it in the war, and prevent any off-ramps that would doom Israel’s chances of seeing Iran taken out for good. It’s become embarrassing to watch the US haplessly jump to every such false target provided by Israel as a diversionary ruse.
But some voices of reason have arisen from the crowd. WaPo’s sources admit that Iran’s government is unlikely to feel any real pressure from the increasingly toothless US strikes:
Iran’s government is unlikely to feel significant impact or soften its negotiating position as a result of new rounds of U.S. military strikes like those now underway, according to a new intelligence assessment described by current and former U.S. officials.
It’s what most intelligent people have concluded all along.
As a parting shot, here’s another US Congressman blithely calling for US boots-on-ground to seize Iranian territory as leverage to “bring Iran to the negotiating table”:
U.S. Congressman Carlos Gimenez:
“Perhaps what will force Iran to sit down at the negotiating table is if we occupy part of its territory and say, ‘Well, this no longer belongs to Iran.’”
The same playbook each time, in both Russia and Iran. When will the US establishment learn that great powers do not concede to hostile “incentives” of this sort?