The Great Turkey Shoot over Jordan: the story of the Iranian Drone and Missile attack against Israel and how it was defeated

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The great turkey shoot over Jordan (04 2024) :

Looking out [from their F-15E cockpit], the Airmen saw dozens, if not hundreds, of trails of smoke from missiles and interceptors winding through the sky.

“Like a ball of yarn,” Sheerin said.

“Like a bird’s nest,” Tesch said.

“It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen,” Cowan said. “Because the sun is shining through all these missile smoke trails, it looks like a bowl of spaghetti in the sky.”

For the next several hours, the last two F-15Es patrolled the airspace as the impact of what had just happened sank in.

Coffey and Hester, returning to base, also took stock.

“We can see the Iron Dome [Israeli air defense system] going off in the distance. We can see base defense fires from all the bases around us going off. And there is a long period of about 20 minutes where we just talked about, ‘Did we do enough?’” Coffey said.
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On the night of Saturday to Sunday 14th 04 24, Iran launched a series of Missile and drone strikes against Israel. Launches were reported from Iran, Irak and Yemen totalling 320 drones, Cruise and ballistic missiles (respectively, 170, 30 and 120 - the reported 120 ballistic missiles launched should make it the most massive single ballistic missile strike in history).

In the ensuing hours, the IAF, USAF, USN, USMC, RAF, RJAF, and AdlAE* tracked and targeted the vast majority of them. This thread is to compile the available information relating to these events

US-MdAnUSNI-042048010.jpg

Obviously a place holder

I wonder if a kill boxes strategy was put in place like in GW1 for the slowest vector (drones).

Tally (to be updated):
- US (all services): 70 (air) including 4 (Naval) 30 (SAM)
- RJAF: a few
- ADLAE: "marginal" (as reported in the media but the emphasis made by the Israeli gov makes this modest claims very dubious - France now reporting one single aerial victory )
- RAF: "several", "some"

In total US CENTCOM claimed 80 UAV, 6 MRBM including one on the ground and 7 UAV on their launchers.
2 airmen (including the 1st woman in US History) were awarded the Silver Star for their action that night flying an F-15E
2 Won a Bronze Star medal
14 were decorated with the DFC
See the full list of recipients here


*a list to be amended upon the availability of new information

Temporary illustration sourced from the US Naval institute

Read more here in this 3 parts story:
www.airandspaceforces.com

Silver Star Airpower: Inside an F-15 Mission to Block an Attack on Israel

Airmen from the 494th Fighter Squadron were honored with the Silver Star and more for their actions protecting Israel from an Iranian attack.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com

www.airandspaceforces.com

How USAF Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos to Defend Israel

U.S. Air Force Airmen stationed in the Middle East launched fighters while facing imminent danger to defend Israel from Iran on April 13.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com

www.airandspaceforces.com

Airmen Heed Lessons from Their Air Victory over Iran

Airmen look back with pride and took lessons from April 13, when they took down scores of drones launched by Iran against Israel.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com

Regarding Space Guardians decisive actions that night, follow this link to the US Space Force thread:
 
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I would like to keep the turkey shot shoot label in the title to emphasize on the mass of aerial victory on a single day (night!). Do you think you guys can come around something?

Most of the missile intercept were in all probability done above Jordan.
 
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Former financial advisor to the IDF Chief of General Staff estimates a cost of about 4-5 billion NIS, or 1-1.3 billion USD.

https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/rkl6kwygr

This is not sustainable. This is 5% of the IDF's annual budget spent in one night.

A single David's Sling missile costs $1 million. A single Arrow costs $3.5 million without specifying the variant (likely Arrow 2).

He estimates the cost for Iran was about 10% of that.
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Expensive as frack.
 
What's more, credible sources says that Iran gave warning and well, this - https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/14/middleeast/iran-israel-attack-drones-analysis-intl/index.html

So: Iran is happy because they got their show of force after the ambassady killings - and Israel is happy because it shot down 99% of the attackers.

Meanwhile Uncle Sam says, loudly and with (Teddy Roosevelt) proverbial big stick

"1-Geez you two, I don't a full war between you.
"2-By the way, neither of you can afford it.
"3-Iran has the manpower but not the sophisticated weaponry.
"4-And Israel is the exact opposite: advanced tech but limited manpower."
 
Indeed. I think a similar agreement and event with preplanned show of force happened after we assassinated Soleimani. At least that is what the rumors were. To blow off geopolitical steam. I am interested in Jordan's involvement and the implications.

I think this event sent home the fact that if we had both arms untied, America is still the mightiest power on earth and without limits the combined might of us and our allies is pretty awe inspiring. To me it also sent home the fact that our western institutions, however corrupted, must be cherished and revitalized. Dont care what party. They all need a house cleaning and a wakeup call. We could lose it all. Our enemies are not stupid and many of their criticisms are legit.
 
From the various videos put out on social media by Israeli civilians, the 99% shoot down rate doesn't look believable at all.
There are at least 5, and possibly 7 incoming and impacts at one (think it was Ramon AFB) airbase alone.
Still, this is clearly managed theatre by all involved.
The two week lead up, as well as warnings and headsups given by the Iranians themselves.
Archibalds linked article covers it neatly. (For once from that source. Pigs might fly etc..)
 
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Archibald said:
"1-Geez you two, I don't a full war between you.
"2-By the way, neither of you can afford it.
"3-Iran has the manpower but not the sophisticated weaponry.
"4-And Israel is the exact opposite: advanced tech but limited manpower."
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Well, considering that Israel and Iran have no land borders, and even in nautical terms pretty far away - the war betweeen them could be only as a series of air/drone/missile strikes against each other. While Iran probably have more missiles and drones stockpiled, they lack significantly in terms of defenses, so...
 
Dilandu said:
Well, considering that Israel and Iran have no land borders, and even in nautical terms pretty far away - the war betweeen them could be only as a series of air/drone/missile strikes against each other. While Iran probably have more missiles and drones stockpiled, they lack significantly in terms of defenses, so...
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Don't underestimate the Middle East ability to clusterfrack the whole place. Including dragging more countries into the bloodfest.
 
It seems the US shot down 100 drones and missiles with 70 shot down by aircraft and 30 more presumably by SAMs.
 
110 MRBM, of which only 7 penetrated; about roughly 93.6% success for ARROW/SM-3 ABM.

Tank fragmentation + balloon decoys, chaff, etc should all have been cheap and easy for Iran to implement on their missiles.

Even if they were only short range MRBMs, according to arms controller logic; the fact Arrow exists should have driven said decoys, etc, which would have made more get through if decoys were cheap/worked.
 
RyanC said:
110 MRBM, of which only 7 penetrated; about roughly 93.6% success for ARROW/SM-3 ABM.

Tank fragmentation + balloon decoys, chaff, etc should all have been cheap and easy for Iran to implement on their missiles.

Even if they were only short range MRBMs, according to arms controller logic; the fact Arrow exists should have driven said decoys, etc, which would have made more get through if decoys were cheap/worked.
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They would need some extremely sophisticated decoys or ECMS to fool ARROW-3 or SM-3. Also, I don't seem to recall SM-3s being mentions as interceptors in this attack. You have a source for that, please?
 
The cost and resources involved to cover Israel for one salvo is completely unsustainable for anything greater than an Iranian show of force. Between this and low-cost drones, the American expeditionary warfare from 1990-2024 is dead. Something new has to come.
 
DrRansom said:
The cost and resources involved to cover Israel for one salvo is completely unsustainable for anything greater than an Iranian show of force. Between this and low-cost drones, the American expeditionary warfare from 1990-2024 is dead. Something new has to come.
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Low cost? They cost $290k/drone, and the MRBMs are at least $10 million a piece. Get real.
 
Please, add sources for tally that we can update the score board in this thread

Also, no politics.
 
eagle said:
Fun fact, the bird is named after the country. So if they change the name of the country, the bird's name should follow suit. /s
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Misnamed in fact since turkeys are native to Mexico, not Turkey.
 
Some Israeli/US defense companies/contractors are going to see a bump in their stock prices.

With all the excitement in the world, it would make sense for such companies to expand production of anti-tank, anti-drone, anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles by a *lot.* Things are gonna sell like gold plated hotcakes.
 
Desertfox said:
Misnamed in fact since turkeys are native to Mexico, not Turkey.
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They were introduced to the UK via Turkey (the country) though. Also they're mostly native to the US, where the British introduced the name along with the rest some of their language.
All according to Susie Dent's Origins of Words.
I apologize for the OT...
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Various sources are reporting the cost of defending Israel from this one attack at a billion dollars.
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Still, that doesn't negate the cost of the attack, and Iran's ability to continue to launch attacks like that. Iran spent on the order of ~$1,137,650,000 to attack Israel, and accomplished nothing. Can Iran sustain that? I seriously doubt it. Seems like the typical fearmongering for US aid.
Interceptions-of-Iran-Attack-on-Israel.jpg
 
Archibald said:
So: Iran is happy because they got their show of force after the ambassady killings - and Israel is happy because it shot down 99% of the attackers.
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I'd add that a major motivation is internal politics. The Iranian regime is under pressure at home and a show of force that doesn't result in immediate massive retaliation could be presented a patriotic victory.
 
kaiserbill said:
Hmmmm...

I've seen a few more videos now.
The intercept rate (originally stated to be 99%, then somewhere between 97 and 98%) is definitely not tallying with footage I've seen.
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You mean the fake video from an old attack that Iran release, and then deleted out of shame? We have footage of exactly two (2) impacts on Israel. One killing a 10-year-old Bedouin Jewish girl, and the other killed some sand. It also, seems that the two impacts were from missile debris, as the "warhead" was flaming when it impacted, leaving a smoke trail behind them.

Edit to include source to my claims:

Iran-Deletes-Old-Footage-Out-Of-Shame.jpg
 
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CastAway said:
Still, that doesn't negate the cost of the attack, and Iran's ability to continue to launch attacks like that. Iran spent on the order of ~$1,137,650,000 to attack Israel, and accomplished nothing. Can Iran sustain that? I seriously doubt it. Seems like the typical fearmongering for US aid.
View attachment 725552
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Furthermore, the US says the failure rate of Iranian MRBMs was 50%. Can Iran sustain launching 120+ MRBMs that cost $10 million/MRBM minimum that have a 50% failure rate? This is all seeming like fearmongering by the Israeli guy.

Iran-Missile-Failure-Rate-50%.jpg
 

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