01-10-2020, 03:47 PM
(01-10-2020, 09:27 AM)Skabungus Wrote: The minute I heard a civilian jet dropped out of the air in Iran in the midst of the missile attack on American bases I assumed it was a jumpy Iranian SAM battery suspecting what they should naturally expect in such a scenario: American jets coming to bomb Iranian targets. I didn't entertain other possibilities like American jets actually penetrating Iranian airspace to take out Iranian planes, or ISIS or other non-state actors trying to capitalize on the situation.
It seems pretty simple. I've never been in the military, or had any experience in a shooting war, but I've done a lot of crisis scenario simulations and emergency response simulations, and played a good amount of paintball. In all cases jumpy actors are common, even with extensive training to prevent such mistakes. Friendly fire and targeting mistakes remain common problems.
1. You do not fire missiles in the range of a major airport if the airspace near that airport is safe. Commercial jetliners are not fair game.
2. I expect Iran to make an example of anyone culpable -- enough lashes to bring someone almost to the point of insensibility followed by a particularly brutal form of hanging (the wretch is raised by a crane and allowed to dangle and slowly strangle).
3. Airspace around large-scale commercial airports such as JFK, Orly, and Narita is very closely watched.
4. The regular Iranian armed services seem ill-trained. Far too much emphasis is put on the Revolutionary Guards necessary for stifling dissent in Iran.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.