If the Japanese are looking for technology to protect themselves against a heavily armed imperial force they should be mass producing Shaheds instead of paying tributes to the US MIC.
In other words if Japan were in a position where they were willing to use drones to indiscriminately attack soft targets an F-35 would be about a trillion times more effective.
the current admin does not care about civilians casualties. remember the tomahawk on school girls? so what are they waiting for if it was that easy?
Sure, we could easily wrap this whole thing up a couple days but the admin is choosing to remain stuck in a quagmire that's dooming GOP in the midterms. Based on a moral red line, of all things. Makes perfect sense.
Realistically this happened due to high confidence with regard to the presence of a high value target. It's awful, but there was assuredly a calculus and the goal is less collateral damage over the long term. There wasn't just an oops missile or multi-year old intelligence.
OTOH attack the drone capacity would require undetermined strikes on logistical networks and downstream suppliers. It wouldn't be hard, but there would be far more civilian casualties and many of the strikes would be non-beneficial.
Absolutely incorrect.
- The purpose of these drones is to establish deterrence.
- US is not capable of reaching every inch of Iranian airspace with F-35s unless it is willing to accept a significant casualty rate among pilots.
- Even if they could, the US has not been able to decimate Iran's drone stockpile even in the areas it can ~safely reach.
The age of the fighter jet is over.
Trump and Hegseth may be bumbling idiots but so far they have been showing restraint. The jets seem to be pretty effective at making big holes in the ground, I wouldn't call their demise just yet.
Their economy would implode within days.
Of course, this would be a horrific crime against humanity, comparable in impact on civilians to dropping a nuke on a capital city.
Speaking of which: my partner knows next to nothing about warfare and while watching the news I had to explain that the US Navy submarine mentioned by the presenter isn't just for taking out enemy ships, it is a nuclear-armed "world ending" weapon that could simply... erase... a country. Or two. Probably three. In under an hour.
Additionally, Iran had deterrence that you're not giving them credit for. If they destroyed Saudi and UAE's water desalination, it would be a mass casualty event.
Yes, I imagine deterrence is part of that equation.
Nevertheless, it's too early to declare the end of the jet. We will probably get there someday, but that day is not today.
Economics matter.
The fighter jet is not capable of destroying every power plant in Iran without risking pilot casualties, an endeavor for which the US lacks political capital. The drone has no such issue. A rational nation would have shifted primary investment into medium-range drones many yesterdays ago.
I don't think this is true. Sure if you count nuclear weapons, but that's not on the table.
Russia has already used IRBMs. Even Putin tacitly admitted they failed to hit their targets. It's entirely likely that Russian ICBMs simply do not have the accuracy required to strike something as small as a power plant with a conventional payload.
Even China is building stealth jets and aircraft carriers. The people making these decisions know more about their capabilities than you or me.
Shipping through Hormuz is already up to about half prewar levels. I don't think Iran's strategy is working very well for them.
And so the cycle is completed. The only real question seems to be if the pilot in the fighter jet will remain a benefit when the drone is increased to that scale.
With the modern tech level, silicon-based systems can react faster, make fewer mistakes and feel less fatigue. So it all circles back to the relative wetware price.
The casualty rate would not be high at all, though all casualties are significant. There would be some, but again this is why I said in a serious war, pilot casualties would be expected. It also would not be as if they need to hit the whole country at once. There would be fronts and lines and structured approach.
Right now the US is working around internal issues with the IRGC. The US doesn't even want to destroy all of Iran's stockpile or production facilities. They only want to destroy those which are in the possession of the IRGC factions actively engaging in combat. Even more pressing than destroying the drones is eliminating the particular IRGC faction heads that are responsible for attack. The US isn't conducting any sort of sweeping campaign at all, every attack has been precisely targeted to hit certain commanders. Even the ones making headlines for civilian casualties. It's just more palatable to let everyone assume you made a mistake than to come out and say, "We determined there would be less collateral damage over an extended horizon if we conduct this strike now."
Why would Japan mass produce an inferior product when they would easily be able to design and build a far superior one? "Shahed" isn't just another word for drone, it's a specific company's name.
The countries acquiring them are doing so because they are best strike fighters on the planet, and it's not even close. Unless you know something that Norway, Japan, England, the Netherlands, etc don't know?
it is 2026 now, partially de-industrialized US no longer has the best weapons in the world. that is why it is struggling to even beat Iran.
What makes it bad is how hard the cooling is, its range without range extenders (that break stealth) and the maintenance.
Clearly the Americans are just dumb. Or, maybe, just maybe, a stealth strike fighter uses an internal weapons bay? While the planes flying with the PL-17s strapped to it have the radar cross section of a city bus?