6 ms·

The Iranians just hit an F35 with a proverbial box of scraps they put together in a cave. The Chinese military must have experienced collective euphoria when th

The Iranians just hit an F35 with a proverbial box of scraps they put together in a cave. The Chinese military must have experienced collective euphoria when they saw that.

9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago
To be clear, that F35 was being incredibly careless, flying low in broad daylight. All the stealth features of an aircraft are useless if you can look at it with your own eyes. In any conflict with China, F35s would not be flown that way.
- nerfbatplz 6mo ago
  To be clear, Trump announced that the US had destroyed Iran's air defenses, missiles and missile launch capabilities. Trump also said that the US enjoyed air supremacy over Iran and were flying when and where they wished. Maybe one of these days we'll see a B-52 take off with JDAMs and not JASSMs but probably not, kind of scary to try and drop gravity bombs on a country that your stealth fighters can't fly over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU
  - breppp 6mo ago
    B-52s takeoff with stand-in weapons when attacking Iran, as their air defense is largely destroyed https://theaviationist.com/2026/03/23/b-52s-launching-from-raf-fairford-with-jdams/ https://theaviationist.com/2026/03/23/b-52s-launching-from-r...
- iso1631 6mo ago
  You're holding it wrong? How many cheap-ass drones could you buy for the cost of one F35. 100k? A million?
  - breppp 6mo ago
    None of these reached Israel from Iran this war, so maybe their superior quantity is not enough
    - don_esteban 6mo ago
      Iran does not have a million of them, the numbers they have are better utilized on targets in Gulf states. If Iran launched 10000 Shaheds towards Isreal, you can be sure quite a few would get by. Maybe Ukrainian drone interceptors can be made cheap enough to be good enough against massed Shaheds. We are still early in the new paradigm, there will be significant developments.
      - fpoling 6mo ago
        APKWS interceptor is about 35K USD and works much better than drone-based interceptors. The problem is to scale the production, training and deployment. Another problem is detection. One needs wast multilayered system that US military missed to build as big stationary radars are very hard to defend.
        don_esteban 6mo ago
        Air-launched interceptors like this have the problem on relying on a super-expensive manned carrier (fighter or helicopter). The intercept cost is now not only the cost of the interceptor, but also the cost of the flying hours of the launching platform, and the risk of losing the launching platform. If you equip even some of your Shaheds with AA missiles (cheap manpads with autonomous IR target acquisition and guidance), like is already happening in Ukraine, the feasibility of APKWS becomes problematic. The technology is developing fast these days.
        fpoling 6mo ago
        APKWS launching from air is a stop-gap measure in any case. The detection range for Shahed-type drones is tenths of kilometers, not hundreds, like with fighter jets or big missiles. One cannot have that many fighter jets in the air all the time even without the threat of manpads. But ground-based platforms work just fine and cheap enough to scale up the deployment to cover the big area. The big advantage of APKWS over interceptor drones is the rocket engine, they are much faster and can catch Shaheds within much bigger radius or within much smaller timeframe than interceptor drones.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  In a direct conflict with China, the ICBM exchange would destroy the F35s on the ground.
  - mrguyorama 6mo ago
    China doesn't seem to think so. China believes they need to fight those F35s in the air. Why would the opening salvo be ICBMs?
    - don_esteban 6mo ago
      To deny the US the use of any nearby airfields (Okinawa, several others in Japan an Philippines). This will limit US airpower to carriers, which are few and sinkable. Of course, China wants to be able to fight those F35s in the air - to mitigate the damage they can do to them (while the F35s still have airfield/carriers to land on) - also in order to make it easier to sink those carriers. Still, you can bet that all US nearby airfields would be peppered very early in the conflict.
  - elzbardico 6mo ago
    There won't be a direct conflict with China, at least not in the last 10 years, because the US first needs to complete de-coupling his economy from China more, re-industralize in-shore or at least near-shore, and dramatically build up its military and logistic capabilities to fight an expeditionary campaign on China shores. China also is not stupid, and no matter how much they posture, they won't invade Taiwan.
    - bilbo0s 6mo ago
      This analysis is insane. No one is invading China. Coupled or de-coupled is a completely irrelevant consideration. People think MAGA are crazy, but no one is suicidal. A war with China would be over in a matter of hours. And anyone who did not manage to get to Africa or extreme South America before the outbreak of hostilities would have a great chance of dying. The only question is will death be quick in a blast, or slow as you try to walk out of the US.
drak0n1c 6mo ago
The "pen-testing" discoveries go both ways. In Iran, Chinese HQ-9B surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B anti-stealth radars failed to intercept any aircraft. In Venezuela, Chinese JY-27A early warning radars failed to detect approximately 150 incoming U.S. aircraft. In Pakistan, Chinese HQ-9B and HQ-16 systems failed to intercept Indian strikes.
- maxglute 6mo ago
  Not really. US, a competent operator of US made platforms losing hardware to Iranian box of scraps is different than third party operators vs overmatch environment, i.e. Pakistani had pathetic amount of IADs vs India, and by all accounts VZ didn't even integrate theirs. IADs not integrated by marginal operators =/= stealth radar didn't work aka, physics of stealth detection is basic, and parsimonious likelihood is US gave up strategic intangibles for VZ and IR side shows. Even if IADs wasn't integrated it would still be worthwhile for PRC to send out stealth radars knowing they'd get glassed because it's rounding error investment to get near F35s without luneburg. At the end of the day, these radars are networked/uplink to beidou3 for a reason, their primary function for PRC is to serve as cheap telemetry gathering nodes that gather strategic US ephemera like stealth profiles, ew, order of battle and beamed it back to CETC.

The Iranians just hit an F35 with a proverbial box of scraps they put together in a cave. The Chinese military must have experienced collective euphoria when they saw that.

9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago

To be clear, that F35 was being incredibly careless, flying low in broad daylight. All the stealth features of an aircraft are useless if you can look at it with your own eyes. In any conflict with China, F35s would not be flown that way.

nerfbatplz 6mo ago
To be clear, Trump announced that the US had destroyed Iran's air defenses, missiles and missile launch capabilities. Trump also said that the US enjoyed air supremacy over Iran and were flying when and where they wished. Maybe one of these days we'll see a B-52 take off with JDAMs and not JASSMs but probably not, kind of scary to try and drop gravity bombs on a country that your stealth fighters can't fly over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU
- breppp 6mo ago
  B-52s takeoff with stand-in weapons when attacking Iran, as their air defense is largely destroyed https://theaviationist.com/2026/03/23/b-52s-launching-from-raf-fairford-with-jdams/ https://theaviationist.com/2026/03/23/b-52s-launching-from-r...
iso1631 6mo ago
You're holding it wrong? How many cheap-ass drones could you buy for the cost of one F35. 100k? A million?
- breppp 6mo ago
  None of these reached Israel from Iran this war, so maybe their superior quantity is not enough
  - don_esteban 6mo ago
    Iran does not have a million of them, the numbers they have are better utilized on targets in Gulf states. If Iran launched 10000 Shaheds towards Isreal, you can be sure quite a few would get by. Maybe Ukrainian drone interceptors can be made cheap enough to be good enough against massed Shaheds. We are still early in the new paradigm, there will be significant developments.
    - fpoling 6mo ago
      APKWS interceptor is about 35K USD and works much better than drone-based interceptors. The problem is to scale the production, training and deployment. Another problem is detection. One needs wast multilayered system that US military missed to build as big stationary radars are very hard to defend.
      - don_esteban 6mo ago
        Air-launched interceptors like this have the problem on relying on a super-expensive manned carrier (fighter or helicopter). The intercept cost is now not only the cost of the interceptor, but also the cost of the flying hours of the launching platform, and the risk of losing the launching platform. If you equip even some of your Shaheds with AA missiles (cheap manpads with autonomous IR target acquisition and guidance), like is already happening in Ukraine, the feasibility of APKWS becomes problematic. The technology is developing fast these days.
        fpoling 6mo ago
        APKWS launching from air is a stop-gap measure in any case. The detection range for Shahed-type drones is tenths of kilometers, not hundreds, like with fighter jets or big missiles. One cannot have that many fighter jets in the air all the time even without the threat of manpads. But ground-based platforms work just fine and cheap enough to scale up the deployment to cover the big area. The big advantage of APKWS over interceptor drones is the rocket engine, they are much faster and can catch Shaheds within much bigger radius or within much smaller timeframe than interceptor drones.
pjc50 6mo ago
In a direct conflict with China, the ICBM exchange would destroy the F35s on the ground.
- mrguyorama 6mo ago
  China doesn't seem to think so. China believes they need to fight those F35s in the air. Why would the opening salvo be ICBMs?
  - don_esteban 6mo ago
    To deny the US the use of any nearby airfields (Okinawa, several others in Japan an Philippines). This will limit US airpower to carriers, which are few and sinkable. Of course, China wants to be able to fight those F35s in the air - to mitigate the damage they can do to them (while the F35s still have airfield/carriers to land on) - also in order to make it easier to sink those carriers. Still, you can bet that all US nearby airfields would be peppered very early in the conflict.
- elzbardico 6mo ago
  There won't be a direct conflict with China, at least not in the last 10 years, because the US first needs to complete de-coupling his economy from China more, re-industralize in-shore or at least near-shore, and dramatically build up its military and logistic capabilities to fight an expeditionary campaign on China shores. China also is not stupid, and no matter how much they posture, they won't invade Taiwan.
  - bilbo0s 6mo ago
    This analysis is insane. No one is invading China. Coupled or de-coupled is a completely irrelevant consideration. People think MAGA are crazy, but no one is suicidal. A war with China would be over in a matter of hours. And anyone who did not manage to get to Africa or extreme South America before the outbreak of hostilities would have a great chance of dying. The only question is will death be quick in a blast, or slow as you try to walk out of the US.

drak0n1c 6mo ago

The "pen-testing" discoveries go both ways. In Iran, Chinese HQ-9B surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B anti-stealth radars failed to intercept any aircraft. In Venezuela, Chinese JY-27A early warning radars failed to detect approximately 150 incoming U.S. aircraft. In Pakistan, Chinese HQ-9B and HQ-16 systems failed to intercept Indian strikes.

maxglute 6mo ago
Not really. US, a competent operator of US made platforms losing hardware to Iranian box of scraps is different than third party operators vs overmatch environment, i.e. Pakistani had pathetic amount of IADs vs India, and by all accounts VZ didn't even integrate theirs. IADs not integrated by marginal operators =/= stealth radar didn't work aka, physics of stealth detection is basic, and parsimonious likelihood is US gave up strategic intangibles for VZ and IR side shows. Even if IADs wasn't integrated it would still be worthwhile for PRC to send out stealth radars knowing they'd get glassed because it's rounding error investment to get near F35s without luneburg. At the end of the day, these radars are networked/uplink to beidou3 for a reason, their primary function for PRC is to serve as cheap telemetry gathering nodes that gather strategic US ephemera like stealth profiles, ew, order of battle and beamed it back to CETC.