War Game - If Israel hit Iran

100% agree with all of that.

and there's a report by Brookings which meticulously expands and extrapolates the issues raised by your post that make Israels strikes so difficult to do. It's called Which Path to Persia, below

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2009/6/iran%20strategy/06_iran_strategy

I've posted extensively on that before I'm not going to do it again but personally I think I've changed my mind slightly after learning and reading more. I agree that Israel is absolutely incapable of hitting ALL the targets and stopping the further development of nuclear technologies within ran. That is clear as day to me now that I understand the limitations Israel face in doing the strikes.... too many sorties, too few tankers, incorrect ordnance, flight paths, intelligence gaps and then obviously retaliation dynamics.

However, Israel are very capable and COULD halt MUCH of what Iran is developing (personally I don't actually think Iran is going for a bomb right now.. as it stands) and certainly in damaging a few large sites with large bombs Israel would definitely delay the current nuclear technology development happening within Iran right now... by... well nobody has a feckin clue nor could they possibly... but it would be more than months... and likely less than 5 years. AND as people have said many times such a strike COULD FORCE/HIGHLY MOTIVATE Iran to head straight for the bomb, do not pass go, in a bigger way then they are 'feared' to be in the first place and that would just be so utterly counter productive it's laughable... ahem sort of.

The VERY FIRST reason for NOT doing the strikes however at this pint with all that is going on in the middle east is simply that striking Iran is potentially so fukin stupidly dangerous it could set into motion so many variables that nothing is impossible right up to and including all-out regional war between many parties so here's hopin that fukin grinning foooool - Netanyahu... is kept on a leash by his 'supposedly' 'dissenting' Ex-Mossad and Military calmer heads! of which there are a few.

Somebody should sedate him, hood and gag him and put him in a closet for a few years til this thing calms down and progress is made on the diplomatic front. Himself and Ahmadinejad are like matches in a dry forest. They both need a power-hose to the face! ..ahem figuratively speaking of course. Aging Ideologues are soooo dangerous... I've always said it. Saying that, older politicians can also be very brave and face the system down because they fear repercussions less.

Anyway yeah Israel would find it hard to do an extensive strike ... or even one worth doing... and the risks are too great. Luckily, Iran AND Israel are actually and should be deemed to be for the purpose of international relations and potential military action - both - RATIONAL PLAYERS so... a bit of faith AND take rhetoric with a few grains of salt and this thing won't kick off like our sadistic Hollywood conditioned minds kinda wish it did in a way... ahem... or maybe that's just me sometimes ; )

Just imagine what would happen to Oil price. Impossible to predict but based on previous spikes and their causes - I'd say experts would be saying anything up to 200% increase is possible... not that it would be dependent on the actual gulf situation where 30% of oil ships through each day .... because the oil market is interwoven everywhere around the world in the same way and what happens somewhere ripples violently everywhere, as yee all know.. I'm just sayin.

haha yeah that about sums it up.....

pawns, proxies, political bullsh1t, game theory, brinkmanship, lies, predictions, propaganda, ideologies, religion, economic warfare and a bunch of what are they called again.... yes...civilians... in the middle of it all just trying to get on with their lives.

Real World War Games. We act like we literally have no recollection of the world wars... and I suppose we don't... apparently we need to see the show up close as reading about it in books seems not to be adequate, the way we're acting.

See with me personally I thought I knew what was rhetoric and hot air and 'shapes' ... ya know when politicians say sh1t just ya know as part of the games they play... and in reality foreign policy is not easily swayed and rationality usually wins the day... and there are so many mechanism and institutions which disallow chaotic unraveling into international war... that's how I used to think. But then sadly... the ****in lunacy of the likes of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Armitage and Rumsfeld belched its way out of life's asshole and were.... somehow... in some weird drug induced day-trip from sanity... were listened to, given endless power and influence and clicked their fingers and next thing ya know the US army is invading the sovereign state of Iraq - 7000 miles from home in their hundreds of thousands LIVE on TV 24/7 destroying thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians (not on purpose though so that's ok)... so I kinda don't feel as cool about Netanyahu-type rhetoric as I once would have. At least the neocon types were discovered... and outed and explained to the world for what they are and want and did so it makes it hopefully (fingers crossed) a lot harder to dupe everyone in Washington into doing MENTAL CRAZY SH1T.... like invading Iraq, again.

Morpheus wrote: »

I believe this may be unfounded, there was a plan in the public domain there a while back that the Israelis planned to use a number of Direct Hard Target Strike Weapon's, launched in sequence which would strike the same location consecutively minutes apart, allowing them to drill down deep enough to damage the facility?

right so after a bit of checking it seems that Israel has 55 GBU-28 bombs which they received form the US in 2009.... although there seems to be some drama about the fusing... which Israel is working on. Anyway those bad boys can get down through 20 feet of concrete according to available test data which isn't bad.

But I don't think 20 feet does it. Certainly not deep enough to cross off specific sites for sure so begs the question why bother? .. unless as you say they plan on doing a perfectly calculated sequence of repeated hits... that aughta do it alright but man you'd need to get that right... and the remember the second and third guys comin in are going to be under severe pressure and would need to drop from a decent altitude to stay outa reach which I assume increases difficulty. Anyway I can see some guys arguing a plan to use these 55 bombs on a few hardened sites but not as easily as if they had this bad boy, which is just MENTAL! check it out



That would deffo do the job but alas the US hasn't made many of these and certainly hasn't handed over or plans to hand over any MOPs to Netanyahu.

Plus what plane has Israel got that could carry a couple of MOPs anyway? I mean the Spirit can only take 2 (which is impressive enough).

Interesting, the more ya learn about these weapons and planes the more a picture forms in your head of how the US would theoretically hit a half dozen deep Iranian nuclear sites. It seems they would use B2 Stealth bombers carrying a couple of MOPs each... but you'd need to be sure you got the job done so you'd need at least a half dozen B2's operating in one quick high altitude perfectly targeted and sequenced sortie and assuming these bombs have inaccuracy of say 25 feet around bulls eye it would all have to go off without a hitch and to maintain pilot safety you'd want to keep em over 10,000 feet minimum and they'd need to be supported by Raptors flying off carriers in the Gulf. US only has 15 or so operational B2 Stealths (who can blame them at $2 billion per plane!)

And remember you gotta hit multiple targets/tunnel entrances etc at BOTH Fordow AND Natanz to achieve your primary goals of delaying enrichment by years.

Best data I can find on Fordow says it's down 260 feet beneath the ground/Mt with an unknown quantity of concrete reinforcement. That seems to suggest (if true) that only the most creative use of repeated sequenced GBU-28 hits could do enough damage to close up shop for years but it's a complex situation and needs more good data and thinking about. I'm 100% sure that Israel would not go in on the ground under any circumstances NOR would they use a B61-11 NUCLEAR EARTHPENETRATING WEAPON (or variant thereof) so this whole thing is an air-strike or nothing at all.... and it's severely smelling of nothing at all right now unless you got some other data that says they could do it and it would be worth trying... I'm only looking for other perspectives. I clearly don't want Israel to do a dam thing but I'm open to opinions.

right hahaha got it : )))

There has been talk in the US and Israel and the media about the possibility of using nukes on the Iran sites. Here's why that very prob wont/shouldn't ever happen.