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Iran hit more U.S. military targets than has been reported, satellite images
- WorkerBee28474 5mo agoThis is normal. Confirming hits gives your enemy valuable information about their accuracy.
- sieabahlpark 5mo ago[dead]
- AnimalMuppet 5mo agoIt also gives them propaganda wins.
- iugtmkbdfil834 5mo agoSigh, there would be no need for propaganda wins or worrying about enemy learning about their accuracy level if this elective war did not take place at all. But none of it is a surprise, is it? Iran was on the list for a while now and last time I mentioned it on this forum, I was laughed, because "it didn't happen yet" either missing the concerted effort to make it happen or being part of the deflection campaign.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- dylan604 5mo agoTo me the propaganda win would be showing Hegseth saying the US is doing really well and not acknowledging losses while showing all of the damage the US has sustained. In this day and age, only the die hard loyal MAGA followers are unwilling to accept these bald-faced lies, and even their eagerness is waning.
- acdha 5mo agoThere’s always a tension in democratic societies, however, where civilian oversight is important. Claiming the war is going really well until asking for $200,000,000,0000 because it isn’t has little military benefit compared to the political ramifications of preventing public oversight.
- resters 5mo agoWe learned from WikiLeaks that the US government classified (hid) significant information that was not relevant to national security, simply to conceal information about the war effort that would likely have turned public opinion against the war. That is a clear abuse of power, which like most of the abuses revealed by Wikileaks, Snowden, etc., get solid bipartisan support.
- muteh 5mo agoIt’s not 1943. They know they hit.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- seg_lol 5mo agoAnd so does every satellite operator.
- dylan604 5mo agoWhy is it assumed that they cannot get that information in other ways? If only they had an ally with satellite imaging capabilities that have a vested interest in seeing the US struggle. Sure, they can tune into CNN and see what's being said there too, but to assume that's their sole source of information is just farcical.
- snickerbockers 5mo agoThere's a limit to how many photos you can take with somebody else's satellite. Even if the russkies are complying with every Iranian request, that would at least serve to deny russia the ability to use their own surveillance resources to their fullest potential.
- tzs 5mo agoDon't satellites have very limited abilities to change their orbits? A request for Iran would be for Russia to photograph something when the Russian satellite is in the area anyway. Unless Russia happened to want to concentrate on something else in that area this shouldn't impede their own surveillance. Also, I'd expect that everything Iran wants to see Russia also wants to see.
- dylan604 5mo agoAt this point, China would be interested as well. If Xi decides to get on the despot raiding party bus, he'd like to know how effective Iran's capabilities have been on US assets. At this point, North Korea might be looking south too.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5mo agoHuh? Satellites follow fixed orbits, they don't get moved around to fly over a specific location. They can take images of everything they pass over.
- snickerbockers 5mo ago
- globalnode 5mo agothose satellite images are from the "enemy" lol
- Thaxll 5mo agoThis is nonsense, they have the same information as everyone else right? Iran knows because Russia knows. Even the private sector has satellites. There is no secret.
- Waterluvian 5mo agoAmericans have a very low tolerance for the true cost of war (which I think is probably a good thing when they’re in the aggressor role). The full truth of the situation going public is probably one of few ways to pull back on this unchecked government behaviour, given Congress seems all but dead.
- pbhjpbhj 5mo ago>unchecked government behaviour // It's not "government behaviour", it's unchecked dictator's behaviour. It's not democratic, and the former service personnel who are doing it know they're contravening the constitution, committing war crimes, and so breaking their vows and promises. And all seemingly to just be a lever for Trump and his cronies to pull on to steal multi-generational wealth from everyone invested in USA markets; to add to the multi-generational wealth they're stealing via contracts and just taking as bribes, clear as day, right under the noses of congress. USAians who support Trump seemed to tolerate his militia and the former USA army being used against your own citizens, and tolerate war-crimes that are written as the definition of the types of orders that soldiers must refuse to carry out. I wonder how long it took the provinces of Rome to realise Rome had fallen.
- Tanoc 5mo agoOne thing I do not understand is the sheer ridiculousness of the participation rate within the military. As you stated, many of these people in positions of command know exactly what they're violating, be it domestic law, international law, standards of decency, or their own morals. Enough of them seem to disagree with the current directions being given that they could refuse orders and draw down, effectively paralyzing the military with a sizable non-compliant command structure. And if they're all removed from their posts the ensuing chaos would ensure the implosion of the current operation and likely cripple the military for decades. There's a very powerful position these people are in, and they know as much. What's even more important from this entire interaction is that they stand to lose more than they would gain from continuing the war, while they would gain nothing but lose very little if they just stopped and refused. The continuation is actively detrimental to the military because it increases fear of petty or capricious reprisal, reduces trust, makes international cooperation during crises less likely, and pushes foreign militaries away from buying U.S. equipment. So why continue listening to the order to punch the brick wall and break their knuckles? There's some deeper cultural issue at play here, likely that's been there since Vietnam and only grown over the last sixty years, where refusal of orders even if clearly detrimental is a betrayal of your country and fellow servicemen rather than an exercise in judgement and consideration of consequences.
- sgnelson 5mo agoI'm going to go with a "lol, Iran doesn't have access to Russian and Chinese state-based and public satellite imagery?" Sure, "this is fine."
- stavros 5mo ago"This is actually good news for the US."
- plugger 5mo agoIran currently has tasking control of a single Chinese military spy satellite with sub meter resolution. They struck this arrangement before the war. This capability has provided them targeting/tasking info as well as post attack BDA capabilities. The delay on commercial imagery purchase isn't to hinder Iran, it's to hinder our understanding of the conflict.
- spwa4 5mo agoYes, Iran's tactic is to take as many hostages as they can and then vilifying their opponent. Denying or just resisting that tactic, obviously, means denying as much of this as possible, while keeping general correct information about the conflict available.
- JohnTHaller 5mo agoIran already has confirmation from Chinese satellites
- Game_Ender 5mo agoApple News Link for those that have it: https://apple.news/ATepjelNTSd-GZ0GpBtjjxw https://apple.news/ATepjelNTSd-GZ0GpBtjjxw
- tonetheman 5mo ago[dead]
- OutOfHere 5mo agoTrump and Hegseth have been hiding and covering up way too much about the war wrt the damage incurred.
- mythz 5mo agoEveryone has to rely on Iran's satellite images to find out what's happening because Trump is censoring the war by forcing a blackout of commercial satellites from providing any images.
- Ancapistani 5mo agoThe highest resolution imaging satellite Iran has is "Paya", and it's 5m base resolution. These do not appear to be that at all.
- Waterluvian 5mo agoI’d bet all the money in my pocket they’re getting imagery from the Russians, who obviously want to maximize pain for the Americans.
- Ancapistani 5mo agoOf course they are, but I don’t see how that relates to this statement: > Everyone has to rely on Iran's satellite images to find out what's happening No one - not even Iran - is relying on Iran’s satellite images.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Kavelach 5mo agoIran has had access [0] to a satellite capable of capturing images with 0.5 m resolution [1] since 2024. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-used-chinese-spy-satellite-target-us-bases-ft-reports-2026-04-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-used-chinese-spy-sa... [1] https://thedefensewatch.com/product/tee-01b-earth-observation-satellite/ https://thedefensewatch.com/product/tee-01b-earth-observatio...
- leereeves 5mo agoHaving access to the images doesn't make them "Iran's satellite images"
- diego_moita 5mo agoBrazilian proverb: when gangsters fight, I cheer for the fight. Among Trumpistan, Israel and Iran there is no good guy in this war.
- cwillu 5mo agoToo bad about the bystanders.
- ignoramous 5mo agoThere's a gulf between run-of-the-mill Brazlian gangsters and military superpowers.
- dyauspitr 5mo agoSad because in the US, more than half are the “good guys” with no way to stop what is happening. I’m sure the same is true of Iran too and maybe Israel.
- stavros 5mo agoOf these three countries, only one has been trying to stop what is happening so hard that tens of thousands of its people have died protesting.
- diego_moita 5mo ago> and maybe Israel. I doubt. Israel is a racist project and zionism is just apartheid with better PR.
- elephant81 5mo agoI cant recall a war in my lifetime (45 years) where is has been impossible to have any idea of damage. Very little coming out of Iran, very little out of the US. The whole conspiracy around the downed airman https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/a-ruse-to-snatch-uranium-iran-s-conspiracy-theory-on-downed-airman-20260407-p5zlpp https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/a-ruse-to-snatch-urani... only adds to it.
- bix6 5mo agoPaywall. They were trying to take Uranium out?
- tristanj 5mo agono, it's confirmed bullshit, the uranium is buried under a mountain of rubble and the equipment brought with the special forces (2 MC-130Js worth and ~100 soldiers) is not enough to retrieve anything. There are several tons of uranium buried under the mountain. Any operation to retrieve tons of buried uranium would require dozens of heavy vehicles and weeks to carry out. the narrative exists for Iranian propaganda purposes because if you look at what happened (US forces set up a forward-operating-base deep within Iranian territory, held it for hours, found the airman, then left without casualties) it's very embarrassing for the Iranians.
- SanjayMehta 5mo agoAccording to multiple sources, the uranium of interest is under 500 kgs and easily transported using relatively light motor vehicles. Ted Postol of MIT has done multiple interviews explaining how it would have been managed. Iran could have easily scattered the material over multiple locations well before the US/Israel hit the site. Having said that, I find it incomprehensible that if Iran had the material, they didn't finish the task of building a working weapon. If you have resources the US wants to steal, and you have no nukes, you get attacked.
- tristanj 5mo ago
- jmyeet 5mo agoThere are some observations we can make here: 1. Drones are a relatively recent evolution but are really a continuation of asymmetric warfare that has been wildly successful post-1945. The US has been woefully unprepared for cheap, mass-produced drones that, as evidenced by these satellite images, are equivalent to high-precision missiles in terms of effectiveness but are substantially cheaper; 2. Censoring these images serves no military purpose. Iran, China and Russia (among others) have access to accurate satellite imagery so censoring these images really just belies a fear of public opinion. Any cost estimates of this war given by the administration (which tend to be $1-2B/day) don't seem to include repairing and replacing lost weapons, radars, facilities, aircraft and other base infrastructure. That's going to be billions more; 3. It seems clear that this war so ill-considered and the US was so unprepared that (IMHO) will go down as the biggest strategic blunder in US history as the US military and Gulf security guarantees have shown to be a paper tiger and there is no military out of this conflict short of the use of nuclear weapons; 4. Despite claims to the contrary, the US does not appear to have air superiority over Iran. The evidence for this is the continued use of missiles and other so-called "stand off" weapons (ie fired at range to avoid SAMs and anti-aircraft batteries); 5. Despite administration claims to the contrary, there are now desperate shortages of munitions for missile defences, Tomahawk missiles and various other missiles. Some of these had already been dseriously depleted in the 12 day War. This has made things substantially worse and it will likely take years to replenish supplies; 6. The future of Gulf bases and secruity guarantees is now unclear given it's now been demonstrated that the US can't protect them; and 7. I'm not sure the UAE (and Duabi in particular) ever recovers from this. The image that Dubai is some stable center for business and finance in the MIddle East has been shattered. Will the wealthy come back knowing the US can't protect Dubai? I honestly don't know. Dubai is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" (to quote Star Wars). It's key in Iran evading sanctions, Russia evading sanctions and instrumental in the South Sudan genocide (ie there's a trade between UAE arms from the US and stolen South Sudanese gold from the RSF). The UAE has left OPEC. I honestly don't know if this will be a good or bad decision long-term. There are 3 players in this war and they all have very different goals. Israel wants to wreck Iran. The US wants out. Iran simply needs to survive. I'm not sure where we go from here. To back down, the US would need to split with Israel and that's a pill likely too difficult to swallow given that Israel is the only reason we're in this war at all. Looming over all this is the upcoming summit between the US and China, currently set for next week. It's already been delayed once because of this war. Having this situation unresolved is going to greatly weaken the American negotiating position. The US may well want to delay it again. If so, (IMHO) China may well cancel it entirely.
- xbmcuser 5mo agoThis was known long ago maybe even days into the attack if you follow independent journalists. Made US ask some satellite data companies to stop releasing images to individuals. Now they are just releasing it slowly for US media consumption so that people don't realize how bad it is. They had to bring back installed equipment from South Korea pointed at China that tells you how badly they were hit.
- nalinidash 5mo agoCan you list few of them?
- tristanj 5mo ago> [the US] had to bring back installed equipment from South Korea pointed at China This didn't happen. The only thing that was sent from Korea was interceptors, which there is a global shortage of. Korea-based THAAD system was not dispatched to Middle East, says USFK commander https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2026-04-22/thaad-south-korea-middle-east-iran-21450171.html https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2026-04-22/tha...
- mikeyouse 5mo agoPer your link, he denied they moved THAAD but admitted they moved other radar systems… > In previous moves, radars were taken off the peninsula, Brunson said, without specifying their types. “This was in advance of Midnight Hammer,” he said of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June. Some of those have not yet returned to South Korea, but the THAAD systems remain on the peninsula, Brunson said. And I’m not sure taking the word of the US military in the comment section of an article about how the US Military has been lying about the war is super convincing..
- tristanj 5mo agoPer the link, those were removed prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, which happened in 2025, which nearly a year before last month's operation. I'd interpret that as unrelated. > an article about how the US Military has been lying That's a gross mischaracterization of the submitted article. FTA: "The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported." There is no "lying". The US government is not making false statements, they are declining to fully state losses. Every single military on earth does this. The US nor its military is under no obligation fully report combat losses. > I’m not sure taking the word of the US military in the comment section of an article [...] is super convincing So you'd rate an unsourced claim by an anonymous internet commentator as more credible than a statement from the commander of USFK?
- drivingmenuts 5mo agoSomething tells me we're (the US) not winning this war nearly as well as the Trump administration wants us to believe. It's starting to smell like it's not exactly a rose-strewn walk in the park that they thought it would be. We are burning a lot of money for not a whole lot of tangible results and we're burning even more credibility. All this to bury the Epstein files.
- smartbit 5mo agohttps://archive.is/OcpgB https://archive.is/OcpgB