Can't discount that, however searching out launch sites, mobile launchers and drone hubs would have the same look.

I think we're entering the realms of fantasy here. Invaders may come with the best of intentions, but are soon seen as just invaders. How many dead US soldiers are you prepared to suffer in an attempt to create the nirvana you dream of?

I'll look for further reports however this one is the first seen on the subject....
US jet makes emergency landing after being hit by Iranian fire 20 Mar 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other...re/ar-AA1YZwgD
"A U.S. fighter jet was forced to make an emergency landing in the Middle East after it was reportedly struck by Iranian fire. "We are aware of reports that a U.S. F-35 aircraft conducted an emergency landing at a regional U.S airbase after flying a combat mission over Iran,” Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, told The Independent. “The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” Hawkins added. “This incident is under investigation." The jet is believed to have been hit by Iranian fire, two unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The attack would mark the first time Iranian forces have struck an American aircraft since the war broke out late last month...."

CNN same report: US F-35 damaged by suspected Iranian fire makes emergency landing, sources say | CNN Politics

We are definitely not in Kansas, Toto...

Status:
Having torn a scab off a suppurating sore, the US has a problem that it is now dealing with the gangrene following its actions. Multiple actors sit in the wings LMAO-ROFL at the predicament that has arisen, but in the background they all have a vested interest in the outcome,

Team Red
Red-1
Vlad's is the additional instability is in his favour since his best mate decided that it was time to refill Vlad's war chest. Thems' gotta be brilliant kompromat pikkies, has to involve a goat or a stoat or something to justify that, but, nevertheless, Vlad has been handed a lifeline. Well done. Not sure that Ukraine would agree with the tactic.
Red-2
Xi is not too pleased with the squeeze of his strategic reserves which were around 120 days or so. If the punters of China start going onto an enforced diet due to the impending famine conditions that will arise, then Xi's life insurance will probably take a bit of a hike. Taking on Taiwan needs a strategic energy and food reserve, that is not going to be going in the right direction at this time.
Team White
EU
Smart play to stay neutral, until it doesn't work anymore. EU will be hit fairly hard by another energy shock, they weaned off Vlad juice, and there is now a bit of a weanerizing going on with gulf oil. That will hurt, it is only when, not if.
Team Red-White-Blue
Constitutes the USA and those locations where the USA has forward operational bases. And Israel.
Plinking the top dogs of your opponent is either going to win in minutes or result in the next 300 year war. I think we can safely say we are going to get tired of so much winning. Putting the world's economy into the juicer would not have been my pick for ways to earn a Nobel peace prize, but it sure may win the Order of Lenin from Vlad.

Continued whack-a-mole that is not totally debilitating is not likely to get a regime change going, at least, not in Iran, (Suspect that the exits are being lubricated for the convenors of this spectacle). As long as Iran can conduct BAU while interdicting oil shipments to others, there is little prospect for stability. Kharg Island accounts for 90% of all oil exports from Iran, and shutting that down is the fastest way with least casualties to alter the chess board. Boots on the ground would be confronted with the largest concentration of fire power since the Mayor of Hiroshima's bad day out. Iran is in the process of striking gulf states oil infrastructure, and it would appear to be time to declare a DTG for a NOTAM on the opening of the Kharg Island bombing range. The response from China, India, and Russia will be shrill enough that a high bypass filter may be in order, but, it might get some suggestions flowing into whoever is the last man standing in the sausage machine that is Irans line of succession.

Absent debilitating Irans economic capacity, the options A and B remain and one is just not in the nature of the beast, and the other is not going to buff out readily. Putting Irans leaders in a position where they can be removed by the population without the level of murder and mayhem that has occurred on occasions when the populate has risen up would be a good outcome. Right now, reliance on any oil from Iran or the gulf in the near future would seem to be an act of faith.

And yet...

That’s a very diplomatic and filtered response!

Reference the F-35. Remember that the F-35 is not a fully stealthy airplane like the F-22 or B-2. Designed to keep within a budget its stealth is optimised to the front hemisphere - where it would expect most attacks, and is patchy in the rear hemisphere. And of course it generates an enormous amount of heat and struggles to get rid of it - an issue trying to addressed during it’s future. engine and systems upgrade. In this case the F-35 seems to have been hit by a rear hemisphere IR guided missile.

In short this does not reveal any unknown failure in the F-35 design, you can expect the odd loss in combat, all the design does is minimise the risk - not eliminate it.

And it got home……

At what point will the US throw Bibi under the bus and use his attack on the gas field as an excuse that he has gone too far unilaterally?

Then they can blame poor Israeli intelligence for over-egging the threat in the first place and walk away without actually needing to prove a victory.

Any other off-ramps seem vanishingly small.

and also -

War is just an extension of failed diplomacy
 

Hard to keep politics off this thread when the “war” is being run from the White House, a make up room in the Pentagon, Air Force 1 and various golf venues. Not to speculate but perhaps also from some VLCBRs . ( Very Large Corporate Board Rooms )

Remember when Politicians gave simple directives and got the heck out of the way?


On February 12, 1944, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower
received a formal directive from the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) that officially launched the
The primary mission, as stated in the directive, was as follows:"You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces".

Ahhh... but:

Thanks nonsense

never was very good at maths ! But that was a howler.

Donald exaggerating - never ! But I think any useful Iranian resistance to the aerial onslaught HAS by now been well and truly ‘decimated ‘.no matter how you work it out !
I certainly wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end

Decimate means
to destroy, kill, or remove a large percentage of something, or to drastically reduce in size/number, such as in "the plague decimated the population". While originally meaning to kill one in ten, its modern usage focuses on high-level destruction. Synonyms include annihilate, devastate, eradicate, and wipe out.

AI

I see in Netanyahu's press conference this evening...asked if Israel told Trump about the recent attack on Iranian gas fields, Netanyahu says that "Israel acted alone".

Won't this have all been coordinated through a normal ATO process, which means the US will have had full awareness of the targets prior to the strike? Or is Israel doing their own thing some of the time?

[url=https://x.com/qatarenergy/status/2034726978637471993?s=20]

X - Formerly Twitter

[/ame]



Providing an update on the damage from the missile attacks on Ras Laffan Industrial City

H.E. Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi: The missile attacks reduced Qatar’s LNG export capacity by 17% and caused an estimated loss of $20 billion in annual revenue

- Extensive damage to our production facilities will take up to five years to repair and will compel us to declare long-term force majeure

QatarEnergy expects the damage to its Ras Laffan Industrial City caused by missile strikes, which occurred on Wednesday 18 March 2026, and in the early hours of Thursday 19 March 2026, to cost about $20 billion a year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair, impacting supply to markets in Europe and Asia.

Providing an update on the damage to the facilities at Ras Laffan Industrial City, His Excellency Mr. Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said “I am relieved to confirm that no one was injured by these unjustified and senseless attacks, which weren’t just an attack on the State of Qatar but attacks on global energy security and stability. This was an attack on all of us who stand for development and human progress that is sustained by a fair, reliable, and secure access to energy.”

The attacks damaged two liquefied natural gas (LNG) producing Trains 4 and 6 totaling 12.8 million tons per annum (MTPA) of production, representing approximately 17% of Qatar’s exports. Train 4 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (66%) and ExxonMobil (34%), and Train 6 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (70%) and ExxonMobil (30%).

His Excellency Minister Al-Kaabi said: “The damage sustained by the LNG facilities will take between three to five years to repair. The impact is on China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium. This means that we will be compelled to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts.”

The attacks also targeted the Pearl GTL (Gas-to-Liquids) facility, a production sharing agreement operated by Shell, that converts natural gas into high-quality cleaner burning drop-in fuels and produces base oils used to make premium engine oils and lubricants, and paraffins and waxes.

“The damage caused to one of the two trains at Pearl GTL is being assessed and is expected to be offline for a minimum of one year” His Excellency Minister Al-Kaabi added.

It should be noted that there will be a loss of associated product production due to this outage as follows:

· Condensates: 18.6 million barrels which is around 24% of Qatar’s exports
· LPG: 1.281 MT which is around 13% of Qatar’s exports
· Naphtha: 0.594 MT which is around 6% of Qatar’s exports
· Sulfur: 0.18 MT which is around 6% of Qatar’s exports
· Helium: 309.54 MCFA which is around 14% of Qatar’s exports

His Excellency the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy paid tribute to the Qatari military and security forces and to the energy sector emergency response teams whose courage and extraordinary professionalism ensured the situation was contained quickly and safely.

Makes a few well positioned Patriot batteries sound positively cheap...

Yes.

It means that Trump now owes him a favour, especially if he has a paper trail detailing the background briefing - and of course a copy of the ATO Frag.

What does full awareness mean here? Would in-theatre operational awareness equate to White House awareness?

As a follow up to the charts showing Europe only buys about 5% of Gulf oil output as opposed to Asia at about 90% - making keeping Hormuz open very much an Asian problem, it seems the same holds true for Qatari LNG….

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....536142d63f.png

There is awareness in the Whitehouse?????????? surely shome mistake.:)

Netanyahu pretty much stated that it was mission accomplished during his press conference tonight.

Now, about OPSEC……

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b9d1d3657.jpeg
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…………….

Whilst there are some very pertenant observations contained in your many convoluted posts, it sometimes seems as if you're penning the next War and peace. Reading them would be less arduous, if they were a little more concise, like your username.

Kudos to the matelot who can repeatedly jog backwards faster than boat is moving forwards. :O
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What was that saying? You have the clocks, but we have the time.

From material in a recent post by ORAC . . .
"I talked to two Israeli sources on why Iranian launches continue to increase, despite US-Israeli claims that they have destroyed almost all of the launchers. Here is what they said: . . ."

1. None of the tactics reportedly pursued by Irani missile (and drone) forces would appear to be so sophisticated that it would be reasonable to assess that both the U.S. and the Israelis, or either one of them, were unaware of Irani readiness and capability to make these specific moves, including the various means of gaining deception and cover.

2. Intelligence successes by the Israelis in the past few years have been impressive (even if you're staunchly anti-Israel or even just opposed to Israel's single-minded and ruthless approach to its national security interests, denying these successes would be pretty ridiculous, or at least denied in vain.)

3. It would appear reasonable to assess that, given sufficient time and with the perhaps harder assumption that the respective intelligence capabilities of both the Americans and the Israelis will be deployed calmly and with focused attention, the Iranis can run and to some extent hide, but like the established players tell the rookies on the American gridiron, Not For Long (for those who think only of FIFA when "football" is uttered, that's the N.F.L.).

4. But time is an escalating issue now, due to the energy infrastructure attacks and destruction, which compound the market trauma from closure of the Straits of Hormuz. But consider this alternative reasoning (no, not based on alternative facts, just a different set of inferences and implications than some have articulated, and certainly different from the all-Trump, all-the-time media and new-media echo chambers). The energy sector problems (both infrastructure and free passage through the Hormuz chokepoint) are very serious and no end in sight. Okay.

What amount of imagination is needed to picture the disruption which would likely if not certainly result from Iran applying nuclear coercion over some one of the many grievances which agitate the theocracy? Worse, what does the disruption look like if (better angels forbid) a nuclear device were to be detonated in the Gulf, or delivered elsewhere? I do not regard these questions as improperly venturing into the "unthinkable". In my admittedly only barely semi-professional studies in the national security and military affairs realms I have not yet encountered any Irani doctrine or doctrinal writer proclaiming that "nuclear conflict is unwinnable." To the contrary, their - to most all Western sensibilities and probably most Eastern sensibilities as well - extreme religious-based zealotry suggests that nuclear use would be a better path to martyrdom. Their proxies, after all, relish in enunciating, "we love death more than you love life."

So without minimizing the harmful consequences being visited upon the energy sector, or gaslighting those who focus upon those issues, just consider how much worse it would be with a nuclear-armed Iran which played to its character, a character which has been consistently demonstrated for, lo, 47 years.

A note on bias. I can tell you where I was when I heard the news of the failure of the rescue mission for the hostages held after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After the news of that unbelievable failure, lunch at the Chicago Playboy Club was never the same. (Dinner at the Lincoln Park location after it moved from downtown, however, was always fun . . . but I digress.)

Almost last, I think it's worthwhile, maybe even important, to give props to the Saudis. They acquired F-15s at least as early as 1982 or '83 (the photograph on the cover of an edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology in the summer of '82 or '83 featured, iirc, two Saudi McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles in flight over, again iirc, King Abdulaziz Airport. The KAS air element has significant capability, is what I'm getting at, and they are serving as a force for restraint, on both sides (or more correctly, all three sides).

Last, it is worth recalling sometimes that things work very differently in the modern State of Israel. There is nearly universal military training and service, and it is quite rather co-ed (at least in the obligation for training and some length of service). I know not everyone who reads the forum was alive when Richard J. Daley was Mayor of Chicago, and many might not care anything about his record or actions (like, ordering the Chicago Cops to assault the anti-war protestors during the 1968 Democratic National Convention). But one thing Hizzoner said is relevant outside of the context in which he said it. About the people who were engaged in violent rioting during one of the civil disorders provoked and instigated by racial violence and injustice - and specifically (iirc the specific instance), Mayor Daley rhetorically asked, "What trees do they plant?" One of the major combatants in this war has made the desert bloom for several decades. One of the other major combatants massacres protesters against an oppressive regime by the thousands. Something-something about "just war" (Daley was South Side Irish, you understand).

I would like to do something on the Peace bit, not seeing much material towards that outcome. We can alternatively be quiet and watch the world go up in smoke in polite solitude, or at least avoid eyestrain in your reading.

"lets go and blow up the world, seems like a great idea"
"oh, alright, got nothing else on other than a pedicure"

flash.... bang,
:}

The End.
:ok:

I strongly disagree. I find fdrs posts to be among the most entertaining, and at the same time full of insight.

fdr, please keep it flowing

I think this may be over-simplifying things. I'm sure historically your numbers are correct. But it is a fact that the world energy market is actual one market. And any load of energy can and will be shifted to where it can sell for the highest price. So what happens on one side of the world affects the price of bread on the other side of the world. And if one country cannot get their usual energy then they will pay silly prices to get it from somewhere else, as the alternative is the electric grid and petrol stations stop working.

The globalised market seems to have splintered - at least for the moment. Ships, routes, contracts may adapt - but not yet.

See this link to a JB thread: https://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/670...l#post12055074

Willow run
Perhaps your view of history doesn't include who (spoiler alert, the CIA and MI6) orchestrated the coup in Iran in 1953 to depose a prime minister who wanted to nationalise his country's oil industry which the West had been profiting from for many years.

They put in place the Shah, very strongly backed by the US, until the revolution in 1979 when he was deposed and the present lot took over.

Ask yourself if the US brought the Iran nuclear threat about by alienating a foreign country, all in the name of oil and profits. Oh and giving Israel nuclear weapons, thus creating a Middle East arms race.

Or you could keep believing you are the good guys in the white hats.....

TV video report: ​​​​​​​
KPC Press Release on this morning’s incident at Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....85ee140538.png
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​​​​​​​Tripoli ARG cleared the Malacca Straits last night, ETA Gulf is 23rd/24th March.

Roulement or reinforcement? https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b5a776062a.png
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https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.o...​​

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4ae04af8ad.png
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Israel still intent on working down the leadership chain.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....15097f0975.png
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* https://www.intelligenceonline.com/m...,110682705-bre

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8d136b97a3.png
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https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a1c17cf183.png
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B-52 mission launched yesterday returned this morning.

Most interesting thing? It routed over France.........

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....49163ca66e.png
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b9dff276f4.png
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