EckerNet.Com

Damn it, I hate Blogger. Can’t leave a comment unless you also have a Blogger login. So instead I’ll leave a comment here. Especially since it’ll be rather long.

The First Ringer discusses the possibility of Israeli military action against Iran. In that post he mentions the following :

Those in favor of military action, mostly in the U.S. but somewhat (if silently) abroad, continue to hope Israel will do the West’s dirty work and eliminate Tehran’s nuclear facilities ala Osirak in 1981. The task is not impossible but highly unlikely. The Israeli Air Force has an estimated 430 fighters/bombers that could theoretically hit Iran’s nuclear targets. However, with an individual aircraft sortie rate of 4 to 7 per day, it’s fairly clear the IDF lacks pilots. With targets scattered across Iran, some perhaps even out of Israeli fighter range and an Iranian air defense that even the IDF declares “good”, could Israel do anything other than dent the Iranian program, setting it back by months at most? And, at what cost for the Israeli Air Force?

First of all to be fair to The First Ringer, I present the quote in context because his overall statement is largely correct. However, I do take issue with the bold portion. When I first heard mention of the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program many months ago I had my doubts whether Israel even had the ability to do so. I looked into to it, even had a great post worked out, until I did more research into the CFT (to be discussed later) and I realized they definitely had the ability. However, the IAF certainly does not have 430 aircraft capable of striking Iran.

Most of the IAF is only capable of reaching the Iranian border at best. Plus consider that weather is rarely ideal, the approach is never a straight line and most of the trip will have to be flown at low altitude, something that is bad for mileage. And since the Iranian air defense isn’t exactly sub-par, there WILL be alot of evasive flying involved, another action that sucks up alot of fuel.

Really the ideal aircraft for this type of strike is the F-15I. Indeed, it’s what it was designed for. Unfortuanately they only have 20 of them and no more are on order. And keep in mind that all aircraft are extremely unlikely to be available. In general, a 80% availability rate is a good guesstimation (The US Air Force rate for F-15s is 81%).

However, they also have the F-16I, which is roughly equivalent in capability to the F-15I. The bad news is that F-16s generally don’t have that type of range. However, the F-16Is being sold to Israel are capable of using Conformal Fuel Tanks (CFTs) which on average increase range by 60-70%. Using these, they would be very capable of reaching most of Iran, including Tehran and Natanz (the location of the uranium enrichment facility). And since they have roughly 50 (and another 50 on order) F-16Is, this gives them quite a pool of resources. However, since these aircraft have just recently been delivered whether the pilots are up to the task is another matter.

It should be noticed that the CFTs can be manufactured internally. While there is no indication that they have retrofitted older F-16 A/B/C/D models with the CFTs, it would not be overly difficult and could be done without foreign assistance. This would also give those aircraft the necessary range. Although the capabilities of these older aircraft would also have to be considered.

What does this all mean??

While they don’t have 430 fighters capable of hitting Iranian targets, they very likely do have the necessary aircraft to conduct a single coordinated strike on Iran’s nuclear program. A sustained campaign, however, is very unlikely. Consider the wear and tear on the pilots, which are harder and slower to replace than simple aircraft. Combine an already limited inventory, with the human factor of the pilots, and then consider the losses that are likely to result, and it becomes pretty obvious that the first strike would have to be successful.

Personally I’d be concerned with the sucess of that first strike. Iranian air defenses are impressive by any standards. And with an already limited number of aircraft available for such a strike. The margin of error is incredibly small. Use of long range missiles along with an airstrike would minimize that risk to some extent, however.

In the end, we probably shouldn’t put all our chips on an Israeli air strike. It’s a possibility, but not a sure thing.