Peter Caddick–Adams
At first sight, the skies over Iran remind one of a piece of dystopian science fiction. Perhaps H.G. Wells’ The War in the Air of 1908, or Nevil Shute’s What Happened to the Corbetts, written exactly thirty years later. Both plots revolve around hostile forces commanding the skies and raining down destruction on defenceless cities. It was the Italian Giulio Douhet (1869-1930) who really picked up on the potential of the aeroplane, and is thus considered the father of modern airpower doctrine. In his seminal volume, Command of the Air (1921), he advocated that skyborne operations alone were capable of breaking a nation’s will to fight.
Today we find the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are ruling the heavens over their deadly Shia opponent, via Operation “Rising Lion”, which now appears to have been years in the planning. Pundits are discussing Tehran’s possible defeat and regime change, achieved solely by the IDF’s deft use of drones,
its aging fleet of 320 F-15 and F-16 fighters, newer squadrons of 36 F-35-I stealth strike aircraft, given extended range by KC-707 and newer KC-46 and air-to-air refuelling tankers, and directed by its five EL/W-2085 airborne early warning and control machines. Many top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force and army commanders, the modern equivalent of the Waffen-SS in the Ayatollah’s regime, have been assassinated by drone or smart munitions, with their immediate replacements also targeted. Damage was reported to the Kermanshah underground holding facility in the Zagros Mountains, near the Iraqi border, where the IRGC Aerospace Force store and launch site their ballistic missiles.
Other attacks hit include the Tabriz air base, home to three squadrons of the Iranian Air Force’s MiG-29s and F-5s. Known in the trade as SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defence), fully two-thirds of Iran’s protective systems of tracked and wheeled gun, surface to air missile, and radar devices, around 120 units,
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