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Comment by boffinAudio | Hacker News Reader

It was 'easy' because Iran designed the attack to deplete the expensive iron dome stocks with ultra-cheap drones, not actually demolish any Israeli infrastructure.

The supersonic missiles that Iran intended to get through, got through. All else was theatre.

The point was very clearly made: iron dome can be defeated with cheap drones, leaving the path clear for the supersonic missiles to land on target. Which is precisely what happened.

It was precisely the same message delivered in Irans' response to the assassination of Soleimani.

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> designed the attack to deplete the expensive iron dome stocks with ultra-cheap drones

This! As war is more and more about attrition who wins when a system costing 1000 to build + 1 per hour to maintain is saturated by another one costing 1 + .001 per hour, even if this last one causes no damage?

What got through? My understanding is there were no meaningful hits--some of the ballistic stuff wasn't intercepted but came down where it didn't matter. And you don't know if that means a miss or means they didn't fire--Israel has gotten quite good at plotting where a ballistic weapon is going to come down and deciding whether it's worth expending an interceptor on it.

The only casualties I'm aware of were from the debris of a successful intercept. It's not like a war game, when you kill something it doesn't just turn into a boom and disappear.

Irans' hypersonic ballistic missiles, for which there is no effective defense, all got through and hit their targeted positions, frighteningly close to the heart of Israels defense HQ.

The 300+ drones were there to exhaust the iron dome, which is what happened, and the hypersonic ballistic missiles were there, to demonstrate that there is no effective defense against them (because there isn't, in spite of propaganda stated otherwise). Iran made the very important point that they could launch these hypersonic missiles with impunity, but instead exercised 'restraint'. The world military communities took very specific note that these missiles are impervious to existing defense technologies, and it was not the first time Iran made this point - they also demonstrated this capability in their response to the assassination of Solemeini, placing the missiles on the berths of the people involved in the assassination...

Huh? Iron Dome wouldn't have been capable against a hypersonic anyway, there's nothing to be gained from bleeding it. They did engage the fast stuff with Arrow.

>nothing to be gained from bleeding it

They proved they can do it and that it is defeatable. That's a big gain, especially for those who have suffered under the repression that the iron dome protects and prolongs.

Dismissive arguments such as yours allows that suffering to continue. It can be defeated, also. Do you not observe the daily murder with earnest humanity?

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