alt Hacker NewsLBH US hasn't been in position to defend 1st island chain in a while, US performance vs Iran just made that obvious.
The one thing we have learned in recent wars is highend hardware can shoot down subsonic munitions reliably, highend missiles can penetrate high end defense reliably. AKA PRC is uniquely positioned to blunt most of US fires (subsonic munitions) while having tons of highend fires vs US defense. But really PRC doesn't even need highend fires for TW scenario, see their subsonic cruse missile / drone gigafactory (like proper not ghetto tier) that can churn 1000s per day, i.e. even with pure subsonics PRC can fully saturate entire US posture/basing structure in 1IC/2IC.
US in westpac has been thoroughly functionally cooked for years. It just took Iran performance for sensible people to realize how cooked. Not just how not up to task i.e. force balance, but how US tech stack uniquely vulnerable to PRC, who TBF has spend past 10 years of modernization strictly on this issue. NVM PRC can now conventionally hit CONUS as recognized by recent Pentagon China Power report, something PLA watchers have known for years, meanwhile said report still assumes PRC highend missile stockpiles is about size of Irans which is kek territory if not delulu.
TLDR people should stop hopiuming about PRC and evaluate consequences of commodity precision fire for mid tier operators. What Iran can do today, most of Americans can do in 10-15 years, i.e. we are entering a world where CONUS is vulnerable due to tech again (remember US project almost extinguished to wooden British boats). CONUS isolation/security as much man made as god/geographic given. It relies on US expeditionary model containing everyone ability to project fires to their shores. Once that's done, entire US defense model post war breaks. All of which is to say, forget Iran, anticipate Monroe wars in the future.
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@cmxch [dead] >Sure about that? Give the US a permissive RoE and the ability to ignore the CNN/MSNOW peanut gallery and then get back to us about that series of claims.
Reasonably sure given US RoE vs Iran has been extremely permissive, even more permissiveness just means depleting highend munitions faster for same marginal effect. reality is US simply doesn't have the standoff stockpiles - US can go Vietnam / close air but then you'd be dealing with more down pilots and peanut gallery unavoidable. Given that VS PRC is forgone, ROE has nothing to do with fundamental US techstack/stockpile (mis)allocation. If US cannot defeat high end hypersonics at scale then expeditionary model with exquisite tooth/tail logistics cannot survive to reach theatre to deliver standoff munitions, and given most US standoff munitions subsonic, even if they could deliver theoretically they face near 100% interception rate. US would also have to retool basically entire delivery systems around supersonic munitions, which are more expensive, larger, i.e. reduced fire bandwidth. These are geometric not RoE constraints.