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So none of them lost on ground in Iran. No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Iran has been prepping forever for this with Russian/Chines

So none of them lost on ground in Iran. No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Iran has been prepping forever for this with Russian/Chinese equipment. This sounds identical to previous arguments I saw of how hard it would be for US to beat Iran in open conflict. China is different but comparing theoretical ability with reality is different also. The only reality we have as of now is that f35 completely dominated the enemy on every single front. It's insane to see discussions like these when we just witnessed one of histories greatest showcases of technological dominance. There is no technology or method in this conflict that would have changed the current state. If a nation wants to toss cheap drones at you there's basically nothing that can be done. Another example is US blockade, without something that can take an F35 down there is actively nothing Iran or China could do to prevent a complete crippling of their country.

santoshalper 6mo ago
So we should expect the Strait of Hormuz to be open tomorrow, then?
- johnsmith1840 6mo ago
  Nothing in the world would have stopped iran launching cheap drones at civilian ships. Article is trying to say F35 is a problem when clearly it's not.
- donavanm 6mo ago
  You're conflating operational efficacy and strategic incompetence. Operationally, and tactically AFAIK, the US has been dominant. Strategically it appears to be a massive failure, mainly because there was no actual achievable strategic goals going in to this war. Read some of the reporting on JCS advice and cabinet level decision making leading up to the war. It's illuminating (again and again) of the risks on overly loyal advisors and getting the advice you want, not the advice you need.
- hcurtiss 6mo ago
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- deleted 6mo ago
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- knodi123 6mo ago
  Don't be silly. There's a third option, neither side gives up for a while.
virtualritz 6mo ago
The US blockade of the strait does not affect Iran's ability to blockade the strait. And the latter hurts the US (and the rest of the world) way more that the blockade by the US hurts Iran. No amount of F35s will change that. Iran has no reason to try to attack US military vessels or aircraft. Surprisingly (actually unsurprisingly) relevant: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ Especially the part about who blinks first ...
- gpt5 6mo ago
  You are missing the point above - the F35 has enabled complete air dominance over Iran, and ability to perform any operation with impunity over Iran's land. Iran is leveraging its geography and asymmetrical warfare against civilian ship (as done by its proxies), but if the US has build tons of cheap attack drones, that wouldn't have changed anything about this equation. The US already has the ability to strike anywhere in Iran. Eventually, defense capabilities against drones may catch up and change the equation, but this is all research at this point.
  - virtualritz 6mo ago
    Maybe re-read the last sentence of parent which my reply was to? Your presumably Ai-generated reply missed that, unsurprisingly, because you probably just copypasta'd parent and my reply in there? P.S. air dominance in Iran is meaningless in this conflict. Read e.g. the blog post I linked to for context.
    - lenerdenator 6mo ago
      > P.S. air dominance in Iran is meaningless in this conflict. Read e.g. the blog post I linked to for context. It's meaningless now. If the US, for some reason, decided to say, "For each drone or missile that you fire at one of your Arab neighbors or Israel, we launch an old-fashioned B52 raid on your industry or infrastructure. Come to the negotiating table." and actually carried out that threat, well, there would be nothing the Iranians would be able to do about it. That's not the case because of the currently scattered nature of US leadership, but it is a possible contingency that the Iranian government has to take into account. There's a reason they're not actively targeting US warships in the region.
golden-face 6mo ago
IIRC Israeli special forces knocked out almost all of Iran's advanced radar systems last summer right before the nuclear program strikes so to say the F35 dominated is somewhat disingenuous.
Thaxll 6mo ago
You completely oversell Iran capability, I guarantee you that f35 would go down in a war with a country with decent anti air such as Russia or China. Iran never invested in such technology, they put all their money in drones and ballistic missiles which were extremely effective, we are a month in and the strait is still close. Their strategy was never to try to sink us ships, it was disruption in the region to extend the conflict which was again very successful.
- johnsmith1840 6mo ago
  Pretty sure Iran didn't plan on being obliterated. Why did they have a navy if this was their only plan? Also blocking the straight is funny because the only people it hurts is everyone in the world but the US.
  - Thaxll 6mo ago
    I'm sure Americans are finding it funny to pay for $3+ a gallon. The entire economy suffers from it.
    - carefree-bob 6mo ago
      $3 a gallon is less than a dollar per liter. Do you live in Saudi Arabia or a gulf state? Here are historical real (inflation adjusted) gas prices for the US. You can decide how terrible this is: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1UWwx https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1UWwx
      - hedora 6mo ago
        I can’t decide if the economy has bifurcated or if these inflation stats are totally bogus. Diesel is almost $7/gallon here. All the stuff we buy (food, services, electronics) are up 30-100% since the beginning of last year, but federal inflation stats claim 3%.
        carefree-bob 6mo ago
marcus_holmes 6mo ago
> If a nation wants to toss cheap drones at you there's basically nothing that can be done. Ukraine is doing something. It has to, because this is what it faces from Russia.
kshri24 6mo ago
The blockade is like a nuclear bomb detonated on all countries. 30% of World's oil supply is at risk. Not to mention critical elements needed for semiconductor production. Even the US is suffering passively because of this. Only saving grace for US is to restore navigation in the straits. Quicker it does it the quicker we can stop hell that'll be unleashed on the World. You really don't want to be responsible for 30% of Earth starving and dying of hunger because critical fertilizers never reached the masses for food production.
- hedora 6mo ago
  The fertilizer and helium shortages are unfortunate, but expensive gas has ~ doubled global demand for EVs. That’s an ecological miracle, given the idiocy of the US government. That’s probably where the good news ends though. If spent on humanitarian aid shortfalls, the funds wasted by just the US on this war could have saved 87M lives: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/20/us-spending-on-reckless-iran-war-could-have-saved-87m-lives-says-un https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/20/us-spending-on... To put that in relative terms: WWII killed ~85M globally; 2/3 of them were civilians. So that’s killed 150% as many as the war crimes committed by Stalin, Hitler and the Japanese occupation of China combined. I don’t mean to minimize the famine that’s definitely coming later this year.
- ted_bunny 6mo ago
  Sounds like mass famine in the global South would be a feature to them, not a bug.
throwaway302340 6mo ago
> So none of them lost on ground in Iran. Do we really need to play these semantic games? An F-35 was confirmed successfully targeted and hit by Iranian Air Defenses. The pilot was confirmed (by the DoW) to have been injured. The plane in question seems to have been able to make its way back to friendly territory. Every other detail about this incident is cloaked in fog of war with Vietnam-era narrative stealth technology and semantic evasive maneuvering. Since it didn't crash in enemy territory the Americans claim it wasn't 'downed' by the enemy. But did the F-35 actually land? like on its own wheels on an actual runway or was it a 'hard landing' (i.e. crash) as NPR's sources claim. Did the pilot eject? What is his condition? What is the condition of the airframe? >No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Again if one was, would we every know? Would we be told? The f-35 incident has been broadly emblematic of this entire war. Lot of bluster and downplaying and covering up losses. Its like Russia in the Ukraine War; Frequently having to check with Iranian sources to corroborate claims made by the Americans. Whether it is with satellite imagery, or on the true status of the Hormuz or control of Iranian airspace. https://www.twz.com/air/usaf-f-35-makes-emergency-landing-after-allegedly-being-hit-by-iranian-fire https://www.twz.com/air/usaf-f-35-makes-emergency-landing-af... https://x.com/gbrumfiel/status/2034972525222838351 https://x.com/gbrumfiel/status/2034972525222838351
- johnsmith1840 6mo ago
  US lost more planes to friendly fire and accidents than the enemy. We've killed more senior leadership than total US deaths in the war. Iran has not killed a single pilot or sailor. That's a generational ass whooping.
  - paintbox 6mo ago
    > US lost more planes to friendly fire and accidents than the enemy Truly a force to be reckoned with.
  - sofixa 6mo ago
    Funnily that's all utterly irrelevant. Like Vietnam showed, it doesn't matter how much better numbers than the enemy you have, because kill counts don't win wars. Iran is still the one closer to achieving its objectives (survival for the regime), because they don't need to do much for that to happen. Apply pressure to the Gulf states and global energy and fertiliser markets and at some point, the US will cave. The American public will not tolerate high gas and everything related prices for long, and especially with an election coming up, there will be significant pressure. US/Israel's war goals are basically unachievable. They can't enforce regime change on a regime backed by millions of fanatical loyal men, with defence and terrain on their side. They can certainly try a land invasion, but that would take years and cost a lot in casualties.

santoshalper 6mo ago

So we should expect the Strait of Hormuz to be open tomorrow, then?

johnsmith1840 6mo ago
Nothing in the world would have stopped iran launching cheap drones at civilian ships. Article is trying to say F35 is a problem when clearly it's not.
donavanm 6mo ago
You're conflating operational efficacy and strategic incompetence. Operationally, and tactically AFAIK, the US has been dominant. Strategically it appears to be a massive failure, mainly because there was no actual achievable strategic goals going in to this war. Read some of the reporting on JCS advice and cabinet level decision making leading up to the war. It's illuminating (again and again) of the risks on overly loyal advisors and getting the advice you want, not the advice you need.
hcurtiss 6mo ago
[dead]
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
knodi123 6mo ago
Don't be silly. There's a third option, neither side gives up for a while.

virtualritz 6mo ago

The US blockade of the strait does not affect Iran's ability to blockade the strait. And the latter hurts the US (and the rest of the world) way more that the blockade by the US hurts Iran. No amount of F35s will change that. Iran has no reason to try to attack US military vessels or aircraft. Surprisingly (actually unsurprisingly) relevant: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ Especially the part about who blinks first ...

gpt5 6mo ago
You are missing the point above - the F35 has enabled complete air dominance over Iran, and ability to perform any operation with impunity over Iran's land. Iran is leveraging its geography and asymmetrical warfare against civilian ship (as done by its proxies), but if the US has build tons of cheap attack drones, that wouldn't have changed anything about this equation. The US already has the ability to strike anywhere in Iran. Eventually, defense capabilities against drones may catch up and change the equation, but this is all research at this point.
- virtualritz 6mo ago
  Maybe re-read the last sentence of parent which my reply was to? Your presumably Ai-generated reply missed that, unsurprisingly, because you probably just copypasta'd parent and my reply in there? P.S. air dominance in Iran is meaningless in this conflict. Read e.g. the blog post I linked to for context.
  - lenerdenator 6mo ago
    > P.S. air dominance in Iran is meaningless in this conflict. Read e.g. the blog post I linked to for context. It's meaningless now. If the US, for some reason, decided to say, "For each drone or missile that you fire at one of your Arab neighbors or Israel, we launch an old-fashioned B52 raid on your industry or infrastructure. Come to the negotiating table." and actually carried out that threat, well, there would be nothing the Iranians would be able to do about it. That's not the case because of the currently scattered nature of US leadership, but it is a possible contingency that the Iranian government has to take into account. There's a reason they're not actively targeting US warships in the region.

golden-face 6mo ago

IIRC Israeli special forces knocked out almost all of Iran's advanced radar systems last summer right before the nuclear program strikes so to say the F35 dominated is somewhat disingenuous.

Thaxll 6mo ago

You completely oversell Iran capability, I guarantee you that f35 would go down in a war with a country with decent anti air such as Russia or China. Iran never invested in such technology, they put all their money in drones and ballistic missiles which were extremely effective, we are a month in and the strait is still close. Their strategy was never to try to sink us ships, it was disruption in the region to extend the conflict which was again very successful.

johnsmith1840 6mo ago
Pretty sure Iran didn't plan on being obliterated. Why did they have a navy if this was their only plan? Also blocking the straight is funny because the only people it hurts is everyone in the world but the US.
- Thaxll 6mo ago
  I'm sure Americans are finding it funny to pay for $3+ a gallon. The entire economy suffers from it.
  - carefree-bob 6mo ago
    $3 a gallon is less than a dollar per liter. Do you live in Saudi Arabia or a gulf state? Here are historical real (inflation adjusted) gas prices for the US. You can decide how terrible this is: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1UWwx https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1UWwx
    - hedora 6mo ago
      I can’t decide if the economy has bifurcated or if these inflation stats are totally bogus. Diesel is almost $7/gallon here. All the stuff we buy (food, services, electronics) are up 30-100% since the beginning of last year, but federal inflation stats claim 3%.
      - carefree-bob 6mo ago

marcus_holmes 6mo ago

> If a nation wants to toss cheap drones at you there's basically nothing that can be done. Ukraine is doing something. It has to, because this is what it faces from Russia.

kshri24 6mo ago

The blockade is like a nuclear bomb detonated on all countries. 30% of World's oil supply is at risk. Not to mention critical elements needed for semiconductor production. Even the US is suffering passively because of this. Only saving grace for US is to restore navigation in the straits. Quicker it does it the quicker we can stop hell that'll be unleashed on the World. You really don't want to be responsible for 30% of Earth starving and dying of hunger because critical fertilizers never reached the masses for food production.

hedora 6mo ago
The fertilizer and helium shortages are unfortunate, but expensive gas has ~ doubled global demand for EVs. That’s an ecological miracle, given the idiocy of the US government. That’s probably where the good news ends though. If spent on humanitarian aid shortfalls, the funds wasted by just the US on this war could have saved 87M lives: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/20/us-spending-on-reckless-iran-war-could-have-saved-87m-lives-says-un https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/20/us-spending-on... To put that in relative terms: WWII killed ~85M globally; 2/3 of them were civilians. So that’s killed 150% as many as the war crimes committed by Stalin, Hitler and the Japanese occupation of China combined. I don’t mean to minimize the famine that’s definitely coming later this year.
ted_bunny 6mo ago
Sounds like mass famine in the global South would be a feature to them, not a bug.

throwaway302340 6mo ago

> So none of them lost on ground in Iran. Do we really need to play these semantic games? An F-35 was confirmed successfully targeted and hit by Iranian Air Defenses. The pilot was confirmed (by the DoW) to have been injured. The plane in question seems to have been able to make its way back to friendly territory. Every other detail about this incident is cloaked in fog of war with Vietnam-era narrative stealth technology and semantic evasive maneuvering. Since it didn't crash in enemy territory the Americans claim it wasn't 'downed' by the enemy. But did the F-35 actually land? like on its own wheels on an actual runway or was it a 'hard landing' (i.e. crash) as NPR's sources claim. Did the pilot eject? What is his condition? What is the condition of the airframe? >No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Again if one was, would we every know? Would we be told? The f-35 incident has been broadly emblematic of this entire war. Lot of bluster and downplaying and covering up losses. Its like Russia in the Ukraine War; Frequently having to check with Iranian sources to corroborate claims made by the Americans. Whether it is with satellite imagery, or on the true status of the Hormuz or control of Iranian airspace. https://www.twz.com/air/usaf-f-35-makes-emergency-landing-after-allegedly-being-hit-by-iranian-fire https://www.twz.com/air/usaf-f-35-makes-emergency-landing-af... https://x.com/gbrumfiel/status/2034972525222838351 https://x.com/gbrumfiel/status/2034972525222838351

johnsmith1840 6mo ago
US lost more planes to friendly fire and accidents than the enemy. We've killed more senior leadership than total US deaths in the war. Iran has not killed a single pilot or sailor. That's a generational ass whooping.
- paintbox 6mo ago
  > US lost more planes to friendly fire and accidents than the enemy Truly a force to be reckoned with.
- sofixa 6mo ago
  Funnily that's all utterly irrelevant. Like Vietnam showed, it doesn't matter how much better numbers than the enemy you have, because kill counts don't win wars. Iran is still the one closer to achieving its objectives (survival for the regime), because they don't need to do much for that to happen. Apply pressure to the Gulf states and global energy and fertiliser markets and at some point, the US will cave. The American public will not tolerate high gas and everything related prices for long, and especially with an election coming up, there will be significant pressure. US/Israel's war goals are basically unachievable. They can't enforce regime change on a regime backed by millions of fanatical loyal men, with defence and terrain on their side. They can certainly try a land invasion, but that would take years and cost a lot in casualties.