Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East
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@Snowy said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
@Salacious-Crumb said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
What?! Report of a Ukranian Boeing 737 crashing After takeoff in Tehran tonight...
Hmmm. 170 dead it seems. A Ukranian airline (after that hooha), American built plane, in Iran, the day they bomb US bases.
Certainly would be an odd coincidence. Would be interesting to see who was on that plane.
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I think Iran now knows:
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Trump can track Iranian generals (and one assumes Iranian leaders) and kill them - and is quite prepared to do so.
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Though he wants a deal, he is very different to Obama in that he's quite prepared to use a big stick to get that deal.
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He's proved to be pretty measured in his actions, but hard to predict.
Bit of a nightmare opponent for Tehran in many ways.
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@Salacious-Crumb said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
What?! Report of a Ukranian Boeing 737 crashing After takeoff in Tehran tonight... and reports of multiple earthquakes throughout Iran...
Speculation it was shot down by Iranian forces thinking it was a US attack.
If true, it's a huge own-goal.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
@Salacious-Crumb said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
What?! Report of a Ukranian Boeing 737 crashing After takeoff in Tehran tonight... and reports of multiple earthquakes throughout Iran...
Speculation it was shot down by Iranian forces thinking it was a US attack.
If true, it's a huge own-goal.
They mis identified one of the biggest selling commercial airliners ever, at low level, after taking off from their own airport. I have some doubts...
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@Snowy said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
They mis identified one of the biggest selling commercial airliners ever, at low level, after taking off from their own airport. I have some doubts...
Hope you're right, but people working themselves up into a frenzy are capable of mis-identifying anything.
What's interesting is the Ukrainians have now withdrawn their statement it was engine failure and have refused to rule out a missile strike - and Tehran has seized and refused to release the black box flight recorders
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So it's fair to say Trump has handled this pretty well? Looks like he managed to take out a key person without escalating to war.
My knowledge of this stuff is extremely limited so it's been interesting reading others thoughts on this.
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@No-Quarter said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
So it's fair to say Trump has handled this pretty well? Looks like he managed to take out a key person without escalating to war.
My knowledge of this stuff is extremely limited so it's been interesting reading others thoughts on this.
Looks like it was as much about killing a scumbag as it was showing Iran it’s place in the grand scheme of things.
I wonder if the Iranians gave the US warning of the attack like the US did when they hit the Syrian airbase ? Iran had to retaliate in some way or lose face but if the actually did it properly and killed US troops Tehran would be reduced to neatly interlocking craters .
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@taniwharugby said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
@jegga read an article this morning that the Iranians warned the Iraqi's who in turn warned the US.
Hahahahaha.
Golly G has been all over this , I think her and Guy Williams should head over immediately.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
Hope you're right, but people working themselves up into a frenzy are capable of mis-identifying anything.
What's interesting is the Ukrainians have now withdrawn their statement it was engine failureAs to the first statement I guess so but it really is unlikely. Unless it was deliberate? Knew what it was, shot it down anyway? The tie up between Trump and Ukraine? All a bit of a stretch, just dunno. Could start my own conspiracy with that...
I hadn't seen anything about engine failure, just technical problem. A 737-800 goes just fine on one engine and pretty easy to handle, so doubt it a was as simple as that if it was as innocent as a coincidental tech failure.
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Just found this:
"Qassem Biniaz, an official at the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, told state news agency IRNA that an engine caught fire and the pilot was unable to regain control, The New York Times reported."
O.K. - "Roads and Urban development" doesn't lead me to conclude that he knows anything about aviation.
"The pilot was unable to regain control".
Really? I have yet to see any trained pilot who couldn't handle an engine failure let alone experienced guys:
"All had a minimum of 7,600 hours on Boeing 737 planes."
These guys practice in the sim every 6 months and will do at least 3 engine failures and fly around asymmetrically, and land safely. It's not that difficult, stressful, but not difficult."Authorities also said the plane burst into flames shortly after takeoff, but whether the plane was already on fire before it crashed to the ground is not yet clear."
I'll stand by my comment that it unlikely to have been a mis-identification, but planes don't often just blow up after take off either.
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@MajorRage said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
BBC not exactly painting a strong image of the Iran military
Without having read the story, I do recall an exercise of a computerized battle conducted by the Pentagon where the computer model demonstrated an American aircraft carrier in the Straits of Hormuz could be undone by lots & lots of those small Iranian boats coming at the aircraft carrier in waves causing chaos and confusion and in the computer model actually succeeded getting the aircraft carrier and battleships hit by torpedoes.
Now, that model was over a decade ago. I suspect — or at least would like to believe — that the Pentagon learned something from the exercise and figured if Iran attempts the strategy they’ll vaporize ‘em all.
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@Salacious-Crumb said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
@MajorRage said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
BBC not exactly painting a strong image of the Iran military
Without having read the story, I do recall an exercise of a computerized battle conducted by the Pentagon where the computer model demonstrated an American aircraft carrier in the Straits of Hormuz could be undone by lots & lots of those small Iranian boats coming at the aircraft carrier in waves causing chaos and confusion and in the computer model actually succeeded getting the aircraft carrier and battleships hit by torpedoes.
Now, that model was over a decade ago. I suspect — or at least would like to believe — that the Pentagon learned something from the exercise and figured if Iran attempts the strategy they’ll vaporize ‘em all.
if the Star Wars saga has taught us anything, and i think we can all agree it has, then big super weapons will always be vulnerable to concentrated attacks by small craft. There's always a flaw.
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@mariner4life said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
i think we can all agree
Has that ever happened here before? Experience tells me that there will be one dissenter...
Waiting, waiting....
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@MajorRage I read the article and thought it portrayed the Iranian military as having plenty of muscle to flex. Should they choose to. Which they probably wont.
'A US Defense Department report describes the country's missile forces as the largest in the Middle East, comprising mainly short and medium-range missiles.
It's not possible to give precise figures but the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies says Iran has thousands of missiles of more than a dozen different types.
The Qiam-1 missile, for example, has been widely produced since 2011, has a range of up 700km and a payload of 750kg. It was used by Iran against IS fighters in June 2017.
The variations of the Shahab-3 intermediate range ballistic missile have payloads of more than 750kg and ranges upwards of 1,500km.
Iran has up to 50 medium range ballistic missile launchers and up to 100 short range ballistic missile launchers, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a UK-based think tank.
Iran is also testing space technology to allow it to develop longer range inter-continental missiles, according to the US report.
"Iran has a highly developed missile force with weapons of a variety of ranges" says Jonathan Marcus, the BBC's Defence and diplomatic correspondent.
"They are reasonably accurate - but not as accurate or as reliable as advanced western systems."....….There are an estimated 523,000 active Iranian personnel in a range of military roles, according to the IISS.
This includes 350,000 in the regular army, and at least 150,000 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) ' -
@dogmeat said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
….There are an estimated 523,000 active Iranian personnel in a range of military roles, according to the IISS.
This includes 350,000 in the regular army, and at least 150,000 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) 'Yeah, but they're soldiers from the Middle East ffs.
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@Salacious-Crumb said in Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:
an American aircraft carrier in the Straits of Hormuz could be undone by lots & lots of those small Iranian boats coming at the aircraft carrier in waves causing chaos and confusion and in the computer model actually succeeded getting the aircraft carrier and battleships hit by torpedoes.
The Brits have developed a missile system specifically to deal with swarm attacks called Sea Spear so it's been taken seriously. No doubt the Yanks have something similar.
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Probbly formidable in a ground war, (but then again so were Saddam Hussein's forces allegedly*) but do they have the ability to engage the US outside of that theatre and counter the technological disadvantage they have?
So far it appears they looked at Trump's big stick and his unpredictability and decided a few face-saving fireworks for domestic consumption was the best option.
*Read once that a British Challenger tank took out 8 or so Iraqi T80 tanks in a single encounter. It simply kept out of the T80's range and picked them off one by one.
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Latest:
Tehran crash: plane downed by Iranian missile, western officials believe
UK officials say they have seen US intelligence suggesting missile brought down plane......The officials also said they had identified the infrared signature from two suspected missile launches followed shortly afterwards by the infra red blip from the burning and fatally disabled aircraft.