2026 Israel - Iranian conflict [TEMP LOCKED]

[latenlazy]

This is so much more interesting than it looks, because it's not the nose that sustained damage.

I mean we all know refuelling configuration involve receiver flying behind and below the tanker.
So for top of vertical stabilizer to be hit, the receiver has fly well forward of where it should, basically directly under the tanker, while maintaining close vertical clearance.
And keep in mind these things don't accelerate very fast, at all, it takes quite a bit of deliberate effort and time to advanced until you're directly below the tanker
Or the receiver could have approached the tanker way too fast and yet performed no pitch down as it overshot the tanker, basically violating all approach procedure and don't even have any self preservation instinct

There's a reason this kind of incident has never happened before: it's extremely unlikely.

A missile, on the other hand, usually end up hitting somewhere near the target's tail, just saying.

View attachment 171490

Also, if both are KC-130, this is how close they have to be flying relative to each other, minimum, for one to clip the top of the other's vertical stabilizer, yeah.
View attachment 171491

I’ll state it more straightforwardly. That tail damage looks like shrapnel damage from the plane barely escaping the proximity detonation of an anti air munition.

 

[Dante80]

I adressed this in the other paragraphs you conveniently left out.

Taking the CVN out of the equation by rendering it impossible to conduct it's mission is desirable. To achieve that extensive damage to the flight deck, propulsion or the bridge is enough. Outright sinking it would result in the escalation ladder blowing up.

Furthermore, it should be understood that gunning for the carrier doesn't have to outright hit it to be considered a worthwhile effort. Shooting at it forces the carrier to keep it's distance and take evasive maneuvers, disrupting it's operations.

I did not conveniently left them out, I simply stated that they are attacking it. Facts.
They do not control the effect of said attacks. They cannot control the effect of said attacks. And if they were actually afraid the Carrier might sink, they would probably not throw assets at it.

Therefore your argument is void. Iran is fighting an existential war here, your (and mine too) personal calculations are irrelevant. If the Supreme Leader of Iran was considered a valid target, I'm pretty sure a Carrier would be too.

 

[iewgnem]

Not really. You're thinking about IR guided missiles hitting fighter jets. Realistically a radar guided SAM would hit the aircraft from the front or below. Not collide with the stabilizer from above and not explode. The damage is rather evidently indicative of a collision. Possibly part of an untimely separation and then having the lower aircraft "cut" the top aircraft, if that ripped open the fuselage or wing, game over.

Missile damage looks different, we've seen footage of what it looks like when the Azerbaijani passenger plane got shot down over Ukraine like 1-2 years ago.

Furthermore, given the intensity of aerial refueling and immense fatigue, accidents have a sharp increase with regards to how likely they are to occure. Quite frankly, it's also just more plausible than the idea of some Iraqi Luke Skywalker striking the death star so to speak. Given what we've seen, if you really want to hold on to the idea of the aircraft being shot at, it would be more likely that it's an accident that occured as part of an unwanted seperation because they aircraft had to conduct evasive maneuvers. But so far there is no evidence for that.

1. You do realize there is another KC-130 that crashed.
2. Iran or Iraqi militia obviously wouldn't be driving around a radar guided SAM battery, but we do know they use IR guided missiles and we also know they can fit pretty big missiles in unassuming trucks. The missile could have either clipped the tail of the receiving aircraft while homing onto the tanker, or a number of other configurations. We also know from videos of when they shoot down MALE drones that these missiles don't use proximity fuse.
3. This kind of incident has never happened before for a reason, it takes incredible amount of manoeuvring to get a second KC-130 to fly right below another without dropping altitude.
4. The crashed tanker had a crew of 6 which means they have 3 other pilots on rotation onboard, plus their entire job is to fly in circuits on autopilot. Tanker pilots with 2-3 backup are probably some of least fatigued pilots in the entire airforce, even less than some airline pilots. The probably of them getting fatigued to the point of flying right below another tanker is... low.

 

[manqiangrexue]

everyone is saying US & Israel are trying to assassinate the new Iranian leader, with so many traitors inside Iran, can the new leader survive the assassination? One bomb, the new leader is gone, News already saying he was hunted during a US attack...

Really not even a meaningful question. Iran has shown that it doesn't matter who gets assassinated; someone will take his place and Iran will fight on, sometimes more viciously than before.

 

[iewgnem]

Just for reference, this is what it looks like when an airliner type aircraft is hit by SAM. Not only is the entire rear peppered and not just the upper part of the vertical stabilizer ripped clean off, the entire aircraft broke apart. Now can you imagine what such a missile would do to an airliner that's filled to the brim with fuel? Even a near miss would have taken out both jets, not one and only damaging the top of the vertical stabilizer of the other (snd this was, IIRC, just a Buk. Not even a large SAM battery like S300 or S400).

While I get that sometimes we want certain things to be true, I find the mid air collision during refueling the most plausible answer which also lines up with the presented information we got, thus far.

View attachment 171494
View attachment 171496

I think you need to find out the state of the other KC-130 that crashed to make that determination don't you think?

It would also be nice to have high res photos of the one that landed because you obviously can't see any shrapnel holes from that resolution.

 

[EmoBirb]

I did not conveniently left them out, I simply stated that they are attacking it. Facts.
They do not control the effect of said attacks. They cannot control the effect of said attacks. And if they were actually afraid the Carrier might sink, they would probably not throw assets at it.

Therefore your argument is void. Iran is fighting an existential war here, your (and mine too) personal calculations are irrelevant. If the Supreme Leader of Iran was considered a valid target, I'm pretty sure a Carrier would be too.

I don't think you quite grasp what it really takes to sink such a vessel. Even an old LHD has been proven a tough bone to pick during SINKEX. These carriers are designed with survivability in mind. It takes several missiles with sufficiently large warheads landing direct hits or large caliber torpedos to reliably sink a ship of this size and construction. You could probably expand a dozen of ballistic missiles before the ship starts taking on significant amounts of water.

So a single stray missile here and there would just take it out of the fight for several weeks and force it to evade. That's the gameplan. Sinking it isn't really in the cards, unless Iran acquired an Oscar II SSGN from somewhere.

 

[Gloire_bb]

I adressed this in the other paragraphs you conveniently left out.

Taking the CVN out of the equation by rendering it impossible to conduct it's mission is desirable. To achieve that extensive damage to the flight deck, propulsion or the bridge is enough. Outright sinking it would result in the escalation ladder blowing up.

Furthermore, it should be understood that gunning for the carrier doesn't have to outright hit it to be considered a worthwhile effort. Shooting at it forces the carrier to keep it's distance and take evasive maneuvers, disrupting it's operations.

Engagement is done with intent to kill anyway. Same missile which may cause maneuver kill can cause major nuclear incident, ignite aviation fuel fire or outright hit magazines and cause boom. You don't really get to choose with ASBM.

 

[EmoBirb]

I think you need to find out the state of the other KC-130 that crashed to make that determination don't you think?

It would also be nice to have high res photos of the one that landed because you obviously can't see any shrapnel holes from that resolution.

If it took on shrapnel, especially at it's tail assembly, it wouldn't have landed at all. Not in one piece and not in a controlled manner. That's what makes it easy to make that determination.

 

[sanctionsevader]

It's simple, you kiss the wall, you're confirmed as a controlled asset. It's a kind of humiliation ritual for foreign dignitaries.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Page 2, wall is irrelevant, israel visit took place in 2018, next year plotting his downfall (and Xi's).

 

[tokenanalyst]

everyone is saying US & Israel are trying to assassinate the new Iranian leader, with so many traitors inside Iran, can the new leader survive the assassination? One bomb, the new leader is gone, News already saying he was hunted during a US attack...

You cannot kill an hydra, how many missiles until Israelis understand that. Has this masonic cult sh*t make them dumb? or what? The entire Iranian country has been built to work decentralized if needed.