What the Israel & Iran Strikes Just Revealed

it looks like we just dodged World War

III and parried a regional War for now

worry not that could all change tomorrow

because Israel and Iran directly struck

each other on their own territory for

the first time in history this week I

think that the weapons tactics and

targets each side chose just revealed a

lot to us about their respective

capabilities and the message that each

side was intending to send to the other

so the big question everyone wants to

know right now is what extent of Iran's

offensive capabilities did they actually

use how much damage did they really

intend to deliver was this all

essentially the equivalent of a warning

shot a limited strike or was it meant to

inflict massive damage I think there's

some evidence to support both of those

theories so I'll present each side to

you now and I'll add some of my own

personal insights so you can make up

your own mind first the facts Iran's

April 13th attack on Israel included 130

ballistic missiles 30 cruise missiles

and 170 of the smaller kamakazi drones

for about a total of 330 Munitions in

military parant we call that a strike

package which refers to a coordinated

grouping of different military assets

deployed to execute a specific strike

Mission Against an enemy Target or

another way of putting that is Iran

specifically chose those three type of

weapons for a very specific purpose the

evidence to support the first theory

that this was not Iran's full

capabilities comes from the Iranian

claim that they they gave the United

States turkey Jordan and Iraq 72 hours

of warning that they would launch this

attack they claimed that they added a

diplomatic tag onto that strike package

by essentially telegraphing in advance

that they would launch an air attack on

Israel now turkey Jordan and Iraq all

confirmed that Iran gave them 3 days of

warning if we take them at their word

and believe that then it's also likely

that one of them passed on that

information to the United States under

the table unofficially the reason to

believe this is because the US

military's close relationship with all

three of those countries however the

United States officially claims that

they were given no such warning the

claim here is that the United States

Israel United Kingdom and Jordan all had

72 hours to move air defense assets into

the region to have them on high alert

ready for the attack proponents of this

Theory also point to the fact that it

took 12 days for Iran to retaliate after

Israel struck their Embassy in syri

Syria instead of attacking right away

another Point brought up in this theory

is that Iran only fired 130 of their

3,000 ballistic missiles in their

Arsenal the idea that this was only

meant to be a limited strike also has to

do with the fact that the Shah head

drones that were used only traveled

about 185 km hour so it took between 6

to 9 hours to reach Israel in fact I

remember what it felt like to hear about

the attack on the news and then there

was this really long period of over 6

hours where everyone kind of awkwardly

and stressfully waited for these slow

moving drones to make their way across

the region to see what effect they would

eventually have and even if we are to

believe that the United States was given

three days warning how would we know

that they'd be able to shoot all those

down we only know that in hindsight more

evidence also comes from what didn't

happen as much as what did happen

because there was no second Salvo it

estimated to cost Israel between 500

million And1 billion worth of anti-air

defense Munitions to shoot down the

Iranian ATT attack which likely cost

them $200 million on their end so the

question is for how long of a sustained

period of time could this type of attack

be prevented a Counterpoint to that

would be if Iran continued missile

salvos and Strikes like this for a

longer period of time then Israel would

choose to go on the offensive with their

allies with their own missile strikes to

prevent them okay for this second theory

now let's assume this was actually

Iran's best attempt at afflicting

maximum some damage on Israel the

evidence for this comes from the fact

that this strike package is a meta we've

seen before it's the same tactics that

Russian forces have used in their war in

Ukraine to try to overwhelm Ukrainian

air defense systems the theory that this

was intended to inflict maximum damage

comes from the fact that the ballistic

missile chosen by Iran like the EAD fly

at a supersonic speed of 3,800 mph and

travel in a high arcing trajectory

that's difficult to shoot down while

cruise missiles fly lower at a more

straight 750 mph using these differing

speeds and trajectories these weapons

and this weapon package suggests to us

that Iran has every intention of causing

massive amounts of damage with this

attack yes it's true that launching slow

moving drones give ample warning because

it's quickly detected but from Iran's

point of view that was worth it because

they hoped that these drones would

overwhelm distract and confuse Israel's

air defense es for when the ballistic

and cruise missiles arrived Iran

carefully timed the launch of their

drones and ballistic missiles to arrive

in the same window to confuse air

defense systems The Institute for the

study of War had an interesting take on

this they reported that the ukrainians

have an overall interception rate of

about 46% for recent large-scale

ballistic missile strikes against them

and sometimes that number is as low as

16% recently the isw states that this

indicates that Iran had every reason to

believe that Israel's interception rate

would likely be around that possibly a

little bit higher so the average

infringment math here suggests that even

if the Iranian military planners

believed 60% of their missiles would be

intercepted then that means that they

expected 198 of their Munitions to hit

their intended targets no one really

anticipated that the US Israel and

Allied interception rate would be

between 95 and 99%

however while that number is factually

correct it doesn't tell the whole story

when we look at the most dangerous and

important metric the ballistic missiles

that means that 93% of the ballistic

missiles were intercepted the fog of War

still weighs heavily on this recent

event because these numbers are still

changing a Wall Street Journal report

indicates that in reality about half of

the ballistic missiles Iran fired failed

to even reach their target so about 65

missiles reached their target and nine

of those got through that suggests an

interception rate lower of about 86%

which is still better than most experts

would have anticipated but it reveals

that the US and its allies need to stay

vigilant and that underestimating our

adversaries is not the right move it

also reveals that Iran's missiles are

unreliable and poorly made currently

although that might not always be the

case in the future so how do we know

some of those Iranian launches failed

the US military surveillance satellites

detected infrared heat signature bursts

of missile launches that fizzled out and

some of those missiles were found to

have not reached their target having

fallen halfway there in Iraq and Jordan

photos have been posted of these failed

launches all over the web already the

fact that Iran waited 12 Days After

Israel's strike on the embassy in Syria

to retaliate might not have been because

they wanted to Telegraph their attack

but it might be evidence that they

needed a week or two to get all of their

missiles into position and out of the

safety of their underground bunkers they

needed to prepare the launches and get

everything into position if you've ever

served in any branch of the military

anywhere or if you've worked for a large

corporation or government you know how

nothing gets done in less than 12 days

in fact it's surprising that they were

able to launch that kind of attack that

quickly and it could be taken that they

didn't Telegraph anything here's how the

isw put it quote the strike package from

Iran was modeled on those that the

Russians have used repeatedly against

Ukraine to great effect the attack

caused more limited damage than intended

likely because the Iranians

underestimated the tremendous advantages

Israel has in defending against such

strikes compared to Ukraine the Iranians

will learn lessons from this strike and

work to improve their abilities to

penetrate Israeli defenses over time as

the Russians have done in repeated

strike series against Ukraine so that is

to say even if Iran's attack failed to

succeed at what it was trying to accompl

accomplish we should not underestimate

our adversaries and should not assume

future strikes would also be

unsuccessful the fact that it failed to

inflict more damage should be a huge

relief because as we'll soon see

Israel's retaliation was a far different

style of attack and it might have been a

very muted one due to the limited damage

another thing to consider is that this

was a combined Allied effort on the part

of Jordan Israel the United Kingdom the

us to stop the incoming missiles and

there's no guarantee that those

countries would step into help again for

Israel in the future under different

circumstances one point that could be in

the favor of either theory is the fact

that Hezbollah in Lebanon fired 70

rockets at Israel on April 13th the same

day of the Iranian attack this might

have been done in coordination to

further saturate and weaken Israel's air

defenses ahead of Iran's attack or you

could say it was a limited strike and

shows that if Iran really wanted to

cause more damage they would have

requested a larger strike from Hezbollah

you might ask why didn't Iran fire more

ballistic missiles they have 3,000 of

them supposedly in their stockpile part

of the reason for that might be because

we forget that just because you have

more missiles doesn't mean you have more

launchers it's likely Iran has between

somewhere 100 and 200 missile launchers

which limits their ability to fire per

Salvo one of the downsides of firing

such a high volume of fire of Munitions

like Iran did is just how public it is

when you shoot 330 Munitions everyone

would very publicly see the damage if a

high percentage of them got through

Israel's air defenses their Airfield

would be cooked if a lot of them hit

their target instead now that the dust

has settled on these attacks we have a

better picture of what really happened

according to United States officials a

total of nine Iranian missiles hit the

ground in Israel Iran claims it was

their Hypersonic missiles that hit their

targets and technically anything over

Mach 5 or 3,800 mph is Hypersonic as far

as I know according to the US damage

assessments the missiles only manag to

damage an Israeli C130 aircraft on the

Airfield in this day and age damage

assessments can be done a few days later

by ordering a public satellite image of

the location almost anyone can open

source it now the Associated Press

investigated and saw the strike caused

limited damage on Israel this is why we

know that the United States and Israel

aren't lying about their interception

rate but that brings us to our next

point which is what was Iran really

targeting inside Israel what message

were they trying to send with that

Target they appear to have been

targeting the netim air base it's said

to be where they have struck the Iranian

Embassy from in Syria on April 1st which

killed two of their cuds Force generals

five of the Iranian ballistic missiles

hit this Airfield specifically this

suggests that the message Iran was

trying to send likely was that this was

in retaliation for Israel's strike on

their consulate why did Israel attack

the embassy and cross what is seen as a

red line from their perspective Iran was

using it as a means to plan attacks

against them Israel believes that Iran

helped plan and execute the October 7th

attack against them and whether you

believe that is true or not isn't the

point when we try to understand why this

happened not whether or not it was

justified the fact that at least one or

a handful of missiles got through

Israel's air defenses could be a message

that Iran is capable of putting pressure

on them and hitting their targets and to

psychologically suggest what would

happen if a larger weapon payload were

used like a nuclear strike for example

the other Target that Iran went after

was the ngev Airfield Base in south of

Israel in the ngev desert which is close

to where Israel's nuclear facility is

located Israel is rumored to have

nuclear weapons which they neither

confirm nor deny four of the ballistic

missiles hit this Airfield in Israel

this could have been Iran attempting to

send a message that they could strike

Israel's nuclear capabilities if they

wanted to now when we look at the

Israeli retaliation now that the dust

has settle it appears Israel had a very

different strike package and strategy as

well as different intended message

reports as of right now indicate that

Israel fired only three missiles with no

real warning and they neither confirmed

nor denied they were behind it early

reports suggest that these might have

been three air to ground missiles that

were fired by Israeli fighter jets for

years we've heard reports of Israeli

F-35 Fighters entering and exiting

Iranian airspace without them being

detected Israel has been training for

this kind of stealth mission for years

so just the facts on the night of April

18th Israel struck Iranian air bases in

the Central City of Isfahan and ties

explosions were also heard in the Iraqi

capital of Baghdad in Syria Syria

claimed that their air defense networks

were hit by Israeli missiles this low

volume of fire could potentially be a

way to send a message to Iran without

without forcing their hand to retaliate

again with a large ballistic missile

attack which could stress expensive air

defense systems if Israel had attacked

with their own large volume of ballistic

and cruise missiles that we know they

have it would have escalated things

further Iran claimed the attack was only

a few drones that they say they

intercepted all of with their air

defense systems again open-source

satellite images allow us to verify what

state media and officials claim and

compare to the truth the BBC stated that

they verified damage that was done to

the Iranian Isfahan Airbase where

anti-air systems were knocked out here

are the images of the reported damage

how did the BBC do this damage

assessment quote Optical imagery will be

familiar to anyone who regularly uses

Google Earth essentially a photograph of

the land below s technology on the hand

uses radio waves to build an image of

the Earth's surface one s300 Iranian air

defense site appears to have been

destroyed we know that Iran has air

bases all over their country including

several ones in closer proximity to

Israel so why might Israel have chosen

to Target this specific one in Isfahan

one theory is the fact that it was

located only 120 km or about 1 hour's

drive from Iran's largest nuclear

facility the underground natan's

enrichment complex Iran claims that

their nuclear program is for purely

peaceful purposes while Israel believes

that Iran is working on developing

nuclear weapons at these sites this is

close to the same location where Iran is

currently digging a new nuclear facility

which will be allegedly 90 M underground

and deep enough to be out of range of

Bunker Buster air strikes so if Israel

hypothetically wanted to send a message

that they can get Munitions through

Iran's air defense systems and

theoretically strike Iran's nuclear

facility the ispahan airbase would be

the closest place to Target after this

tit fortat exchange from Israel and Iran

state media from both sides downplayed

the exchange was not it a strike two or

three very they're they're like more

like toys that our children play with

not drones it was not worth telling us

before it happened Iranian leader coin

said the following to this point quote

debates by the other party about how

many missiles were fired how many of

them hit their targets and how many

didn't these are of secondary importance

the main issue is the emergence of the

Iranian nation and Iranian military's

will in an important International Arena

this is what matters the debate about

how many missiles were fired and if they

hit their targets is is kind of the

primary importance if you ask me but

okay difference of opinion there from my

perspective it shows that we should

double down on air defense which is

actually the main funding in the United

States $95 billion foreign aid package

26 billion is earmarked for Israel of

that 9 billion is for humanitarian aid

for Gaza and the rest is largely for

isra Israeli air defense systems which

is likely one of the main things that I

think helped prevented this from

spiraling into a larger War for the time

being and both sides had incentive to

claim less damage was done and that

their air defense systems performed well

Israel did not push the claim that they

caused Great damage and it appears like

for now we've avoided World War II