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Originally Posted by tdracer
(Post 12065174)
The Iranian treatment of the US hostages 46 years ago was not exactly a model of compassion and kindness - and they were civilians.
Getting their military bombed out of existence on a daily basis is not exactly conducive to good treatment of captured enemy. The current circus act is in an environment that is far removed from 1979, although capping the leaders does add to chaotic response. In the case of the F-15E crew, the government asked the populace to apprehend, alive the crew, which is rather different to ISIS's mode of operation. All that may change with further escalation from those that are in charge of tweeting national policy at 2:00 AM, and certainly the language in todays missive from the fount of knowledge on all things, was rather impolite. It is a change to have a head of state that requires a bleep to his commentary.
Originally Posted by tdracer
(Post 12065221)
I think the more relevant question might be: What is the benefit to the moral of the troops to know the extent that the higher ups would go to implementing the rescue of a downed airman.
"Morals" is the other thing, observable in absence in some tweets of recent times. |
An interesting recap of recent Iranian history and consequences. Frankly, I was amazed to hear the U.S. propose the son of the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, be made the leader of Iran. After the CIA interference in Iran in 1953 to overthrow an elected government to install the Shah why would Iranians want to support the son? My head is spinning...
And thanks for the spelling correction, it was really bugging me. |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 12065059)
So it looks like the additional aircraft flown in weren't more C-130s. Logical if both the previous C-130s got bogged down. C-295W not Dash-8 though.
Ties in with post 4847: https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...l#post12064825 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Is...oASAFQAw%3D%3D Bruce |
Israeli media source, unverified.
Channel 14* claims Hezbollah fired an anti-ship missile and damaged a British warship 112km off the Lebanese coast. @TomCotterillX reports that UKMTO says that no British vessels have been attacked. Reminder that Hezbollah fields a notable anti-ship cruise missile arsenal. They have access to Iranian Noor long-range ASCMs. The Noor is a reverse-engineered version of the Chinese C-802. Noor underwent numerous modifications, so its range spans from 30-220km. The improved Qader missile has a range of 300km, 200kg warhead, and a high-precision navigation system. Hezbollah has a small number of Yakhont ASCMs as well. Russia sent them to Syria and from there some were given to Hezbollah. The export version of the P-800 Oniks has a 300km range, 200-250kg warhead, and contains high manueverability, supersonic sea-skimming abilities, and inertial navigation-based guidance. Hezbollah also has the Nasr, an Iranian variant of the C-701 or 704, but it has a maximal range of 35km. Lastly, there are unverified reports that they possess Ra'ad subsonic sea-skimming ASCMs, an upgraded version of the Chinese HY-2. Potential British targets include the HMS Dragon, a Type 45 air-defence destroyer defending RAF Akrotiri, but UKMTO reportedly denied this. RFA Lyme Bay has also been mentioned, but its still docked in Gibraltar. Maybe a French vessel was struck, or perhaps nothing at all¯\_(ツ)_/¯. We published in the edition | Hezbollah launched a shore-to-sea missile toward a British warship about 70 miles from the Lebanese coast, after mistaking it for an Israeli one. An assessment in Israel that the ship was damaged. |
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CRIPPLING ECONOMIC STRIKE AGAINST IRAN: Today, Israel struck Iran's petrochemical industry with massive strikes that will not only severely harm the Iranian economy, but also heavily degrade Iran's ability to produce material needed for ballistic missiles and other weapons. JUST IN from the NYT: Two senior officials in Iran's oil ministry said that Israel's attack on the largest petrochemical center in Iran caused a complete shutdown of all production in the complex. The attacks targeted two service facilities called Fajr 1 and Fajr 2, which provided more than 50 petrochemical plants operating in the complex with the basic services needed for their operation, including gas, electricity, and industrial water. The two officials said that the complete shutdown of the plants is a severe blow whose extent is difficult to assess for the already fragile Iranian economy. According to them, restoring the service facilities and returning the production lines to full operation may take about two years. |
Can someone please explain why it was necessary to land a couple of C-130s as part of the rescue. What was their purpose other than a rather large distraction to what may have been happening somewhere else.
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Originally Posted by B Fraser
(Post 12065361)
Can someone please explain why it was necessary to land a couple of C-130s as part of the rescue. What was their purpose other than a rather large distraction to what may have been happening somewhere else.
Also with SFs to secure the LG. Probably with more troops than required as they didn't know what opposition they would be up against. |
Originally Posted by B Fraser
(Post 12065361)
Can someone please explain why it was necessary to land a couple of C-130s as part of the rescue. What was their purpose other than a rather large distraction to what may have been happening somewhere else.
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Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 12065338)
……………
The attacks targeted two service facilities called Fajr 1 and Fajr 2, which provided more than 50 petrochemical plants operating in the complex with the basic services needed for their operation, including gas, electricity, and industrial water. The two officials said that the complete shutdown of the plants is a severe blow whose extent is difficult to assess for the already fragile Iranian economy. According to them, restoring the service facilities and returning the production lines to full operation may take about two years." This would support the theory that Israel wants a failed state in Iran. |
Originally Posted by B Fraser Can someone please explain why it was necessary to land a couple of C-130s as part of the rescue. What was their purpose other than a rather large distraction to what may have been happening somewhere else. Too small a site for a larger helicopter such as a CH-47 which would also have been too vulnerable to attack*. So they had 4 armed MH-6s, one for the extraction the others for escort/covering fire. (* Remember there were a large number of Iranian ground forces in the area and 2 M-60 Blackhawaks had already been damaged by ground fire and an A-10C damaged and later lost when the pilot had to eject near Kuwait). The other reason is in the term FARP - Forward Arming and Refueling Point. An airborne tanker can refuel larger helicopters with probes, but it can’t rearm them, and the MH-6 is too small to have a probe anyway. Depending on the threat and the firepower needs to suppress it around the extraction point they may have needed to rearm as well as refuel. Lastly they carried a large number of SF as well as their equipment, both to defend the FARP whilst the MH-6s were assembled and the operation was ongoing and in case they were needed to be inserted to help locate the WSO and set up a defensive perimeter around the extraction site. |
LBC News report that a deal has been struck between Iran and the USA but no details of that deal have been released yet.
The deal could be in-place today with the Strait open. Deal being brokered by Pakistan. Deal still to be agreed by all parties. |
Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
(Post 12065230)
Originally Posted by RAFEngO74to09
(Post 12065168)
The SF C-295 seen low flying in X videos yesterday managed to recover 2 of the MH-6M that would fit - that's why only 2 of 4 had to be destroyed.
Granted, the blades could be folded, but isn't the rotor mast height too great to fit in the C-295's hold? |
Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
(Post 12065391)
All 4 MH-6's now reported as destroyed, presumably no practicable way of recovering them.
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Once the C-130's are destroyed, how do you get them out?
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Originally Posted by BBadanov
(Post 12065366)
The C-130s carried the MH-6s, required to fly from the LG up the mountain to rescue the evader. Two MH-6s required so there would be a spare.
Also with SFs to secure the LG. Probably with more troops than required as they didn't know what opposition they would be up against. |
Originally Posted by SWBKCB
(Post 12065408)
Once the C-130's are destroyed, how do you get them out?
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
(Post 12065391)
All 4 MH-6's now reported as destroyed, presumably no practicable way of recovering them.
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Originally Posted by bcpr
(Post 12065315)
You would have thought that they'd have elected to reverse pitch and backtrack the 130's up the strip in reverse as far as they could in order to take off, once they'd unloaded the Little Birds...? Unless the whole strip was a lot softer than they expected, and it was more than the nose wheels that got bogged down? |
Originally Posted by bcpr
(Post 12065315)
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Originally Posted by Andrewgr2
(Post 12065513)
For me this link is leading to a road in the centre of Isfahan town! Unlikely. Is it somehow getting redirected?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5dca9b0c8b.jpg |
Bomber Mission 56 - Superhero B-1s #FreeIran! --- Operation EPIC FURY --- Yesterday's (5th April 2026) second bomber mission from RAF Fairford (EGVA) was a group of 3x B-1B "Lancer" in the afternoon, which arrived back in UK airspace a short while ago. While their outbound tanker support went undetected, their return support from Bucharest (LROP) was visible on tracking apps!...... Mission LVI B-1B "KENO95" 86-0129 #AE6C02 "The Black Widow" B-1B "KENO96" 85-0069 #AE6BD0 "Avenger" B-1B "KENO97" 86-0134 #AE6C05 "Thunderbird" (outbound tankers not ID'd) KC-135R "CLEAN45" 58-0079 #AE0383 (From LROP) KC-135R "CLEAN46" 58-0106 #AE04BE (From LROP) KC-135R "CLEAN47" 59-1448 #AE047C (From LROP) KC-135R "CLEAN48" 60-0341 #AE0363 (From LROP) KC-135R "CLEAN49" 58-0073 #AE047A (From LROP) |
Who gets to claim the bounty?
IRGC Public Relations confirms the death of Brigadier General Majid Khademi, Commander of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. He also commanded the Intelligence Protection Organization. He was killed in a strike on his residence this morning. Khademi partook in security and intelligence roles for 47 years. He served as Commander of the Information Protection Organization of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Support between 2018-2022. In 2022 he was appointed to lead the Intelligence Protection Organization of the IRGC. He assumed command of the IRGC Intelligence Organization in June 2025 following the Israeli strike that killed his predecessor, Mohammad Kazemi. The US State Department had a $10 million bounty on his head. Moreover, the same Israeli strike on Tehran killed Yazdan Mir (alias Sardar Bagheri), commander of Unit 840, a clandestine operations unit in the IRGC's Quds Force. The unit conducts kidnapping, assassination, intelligence collection, and covert operations abroad with support from the foreign cells they recruited. They have operational branches in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, North and East Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the US. Mir was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2020. His deputy, Hassan Sayyad Khodayari, was killed by Israel in 2022. |
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srael Defense Minister Israel Katz: "The IDF has now powerfully attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, which is located in Islava. "Now the two facilities, which together are responsible for about 85% of Iran's petrochemical exports - have been put out of use and are not functioning." BREAKING: Fars News Agency reported explosions at the South Pars Petrochemical Complex in Asaluyeh within the hour. Israeli Defense Minister Katz claimed the strike immediately. “The IDF has just powerfully struck the largest petrochemical facility in Iran.” Combined with last week’s destruction of the Fajr 1 and Fajr 2 utility plants at Mahshahr, which shut more than 50 downstream facilities by cutting their electricity, water, and oxygen supply simultaneously, Katz declared 85 percent of Iran’s petrochemical production and exports now offline. He called it a “fatal blow to the IRGC’s financial artery” and cited $18 billion in petrochemical revenue to the Revolutionary Guard over the past two years. The number matters. But the chemistry matters more. This is not an economic strike. It is a feedstock strike. The distinction is the insight nobody has stated clearly. A petrochemical plant produces methanol, ethylene, propylene, urea, and ammonia for export. It also produces the chemical intermediaries that become ammonium perchlorate, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, and nitric acid, the components of solid rocket motor propellant. The same facility that earns $9 billion a year for the IRGC also synthesises the chemistry that fills the missiles the IRGC fires from granite tunnels 500 metres underground. When Israel destroys the plant, it does not merely reduce revenue. It severs the domestic chemical supply chain that connects a gas field to a warhead. The revenue and the reload are the same molecule at different stages of processing. Iran’s underground missile cities hold an estimated 1,000 missiles. The launchers survive inside granite that no bunker-buster can reach. But a launcher without propellant is a metal tube. The missiles in those tunnels need fuel. The fuel needs precursors. The precursors came from the plants that are now on fire. China has shipped sodium perchlorate on four vessels from Gaolan to compensate. But four ships of imported precursor cannot replace the output of two industrial complexes that processed gas from the world’s largest natural gas field directly into the chemicals that powered Iran’s missile programme. The underground war depends on the above-ground chemistry. Israel just turned off the chemistry. The strike on Asaluyeh targeted the Mobin and Damavand utility companies, which supplied electricity, water, and oxygen to the entire complex. Some Iranian reports claim the core Pars Petrochemical plant remains “intact and undamaged.” That may be true. It is also irrelevant. A petrochemical plant without electricity, water, and oxygen does not produce chemicals. It is a collection of pipes and vessels waiting for inputs that no longer arrive. The Israeli doctrine is not to flatten every building. It is to sever the utilities that make every building functional. One precision strike on a power substation shuts 50 plants. The efficiency is the point. Mahshahr produced 72 million tonnes annually before the war. Iran’s total output reached 75.2 million tonnes in 2024. Polyethylene prices on the Dalian exchange are up 37 percent since February. Polypropylene up 38 percent. The Borouge facility in Abu Dhabi is offline from intercepted missile debris. Now Iran’s own petrochemical output, which fed Asian polymer markets through shadow fleet channels, has been destroyed by the country whose cities those same chemicals were being used to attack..... |
Extensive damage to key energy infrastructure across the UAE. Sentinel-2L satellite imagery from yesterday shows fires burning across at least three major oil and gas sites in the UAE Asab, Bu Hasa, and Habshan following reported Iranian strikes. https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3de5d3e796.png |
Bomber Mission 55 - BUFFs again #FreeIran! --- Operation EPIC FURY --- Yesterday's (5th April 2026) first bomber mission from RAF Fairford (EGVA) was a pair of B-52H "Stratofortress" using callsign "BEZEL" flight. They returned in the very early hours of this morning. Once again, tankers involved were difficult to identify although we did pick up some callsigns which *might* have been from Sofia (LBSF). Mission LV B-52H "BEZEL65" 60-0060 #AE5895 "Iron Butterfly" B-52H "BEZEL66" 61-0020 #AE58A9 "The Big Stick" |
Being reported in numerous press outlets that ceasefire talks are ongoing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...srael-iran-war Including possibly a 45 day ceasefire. Trump to speak at a press conference at 1pm ET (6PM BST). |
That will be the border with the Kurds?
Tonight in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, a US-Israeli strike destroyed much of Iran’s 92nd Armoured Division. The 92nd is the country’s only proper armoured formation and the unit responsible for patrolling the Iraqi border. This is highly significant..... |
Ceasefire talks
Originally Posted by Professor Plum
(Post 12065576)
Being reported in numerous press outlets that ceasefire talks are ongoing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...srael-iran-war Including possibly a 45 day ceasefire. Trump to speak at a press conference at 1pm ET (6PM BST). BV |
It does look like this prop was turning, but I have my doubts, when you burn the resin out the carbon fibre stands will sag with gravity.
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Iranian aircraft being wiped out...... again..... Is this the 3rd time they've been wiped out or the 4th? I lost track.
Video of ground kills. The IDF says it carried out a large-scale strike on Tehran airports, targeting dozens of Iranian Air Force and Revolutionary Guards aircraft, including planes and helicopters, as well as military infrastructure. Attacks hit Behram, Mehrabad, and Azmaysh airports, further degrading Iran’s aerial capabilities, the military says. |
Iran has rejected the Pakistani-led ceasefire proposal -IRNA Iran has delivered a 10-paragraph response and list of demands, including a permanent end to the war, a new agreement on the Strait of Hormuz, war reparations payments from the US, and the lifting of sanctions. |
Originally Posted by Bob Viking
(Post 12065582)
It probably won’t help matters then that Israel has just blown up Iran’s largest petrochemical site?!
BV Assuming rashly that all parties can each speak with one voice, which 'side' wants / needs a ceasefire more? 'Wants' and 'Needs' may not be congruent of course. My vote would be Iran, which has and is taking a fearful hammering. The evidence is that Iran is better than the US [but perhaps not Israel] at the long game. Especially considering US leadership which defies my understanding minute by minute. A ceasefire would spare or limit further suffering which has to be the greater good. |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 12065563)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2...487985104.html It used to be that oil over $100/bbl was highly correlated with global recessions. The last pre-Hormuz loadings are nearing their voyage destinations, so physical consequences are about to become reality. A lot of the stuff that is now being hit has rebuild times of many months to many years. So even if Hormuz gets reopened the consequences will be around for quite a while. Both in the upstream and the downstream. In the short term (2026) a factor that will delay the worst effects is that we are entering northern hemisphere Summer. Aircon loads are at least highly correlated with solar PV output. Chinese solar manufacturing should have a bumper year, again. And all countries' wind manufacturing, excepting USA of course where they seem to be trying to turn the clock back on themselves as well as on Iran. As one might expect, used EV prices are rising on the forecourt. |
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 12065587)
It does look like this prop was turning, but I have my doubts, when you burn the resin out the carbon fibre stands will sag with gravity.
https://x.com/StunnedD1/status/20407...885347/photo/1 |
Langleybaston
I’m actually not sure that Iran wants or even needs a ceasefire. Remember they are neither rational nor think like us.
I actually think that the longer this goes on, the worse America looks. Iran know that. They’re getting pummelled regardless and Israel won’t stop so easily anyway. So you or I, in Iran’s shoes, would want a ceasefire ASAP. But we’re not the leaders of Iran. You need to think in Persian! BV |
Several comments that the planners are idiots and that's a desert and the Iranians can easily go off road parallel to the craters. Without DTED it's difficult to tell if they're in steep sided valleys or not.
I am presuming these are PGM strikes dropped by the 4 x B-1 mission out of Fairford. (Shows how war has changed compared to the 21 bombs dropped diagonally across the runway at Stanley by Black Buck to ensure one on target) Satellite images show about 28 craters cut into roads in Isfahan Province near the rescue site of the downed U.S. airman. Each crater is around 9 meters wide and aligned to block access routes. The site is roughly 20 km from the remote airstrip where U.S. forces destroyed damaged aircraft. The strikes were likely meant to prevent Iranian forces from reaching the area during the rescue - CNN https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....610dd17b95.png |
Now that's precision. Thinking back to the Vulcan bombing the airfield during the Falkland's using H2S and having to straddle the runway to increase chances of a hit.
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Originally Posted by Bob Viking
(Post 12065604)
I’m actually not sure that Iran wants or even needs a ceasefire. Remember they are neither rational nor think like us.
I actually think that the longer this goes on, the worse America looks. Iran know that. They’re getting pummelled regardless and Israel won’t stop so easily anyway. So you or I, in Iran’s shoes, would want a ceasefire ASAP. But we’re not the leaders of Iran. You need to think in Persian! BV The U.S. has set the conditions precedent for a rise in Iranian regional influence, not the opposite, so that seems like Vlad's case, there is assistance from our side for reasons that are not obvious. Currently, there is a fair argument that there is more truth from Tehran than there is Truth from the Oval Office. Even the CSAR for the F-15E WSO is starting to look like not all the asserted facts from the WH are consistent with the facts on the ground. Much of the CSAR story is not adding up at present, which is expected. |
If 8 was Iran I would be making sure any disused airfields are mined or blocked by some other methods.
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