After Iran's missile attack on the Israeli mainland on the night of April 13, speculation swirled online about whether the Israeli army wanted to retaliate against Iran. As a result, on the afternoon of April 14, local time, New York Times in the United States and Israeli TV News Channel 12 successively released news, saying that after discussions between Biden and Netanyahu, Netanyahu admitted to it and announced that he would temporarily abandon immediate retaliation against Iran.
Immediately afterwards, Israeli President Herzog came out and said that Iran's actions were an "act of declaration of war" against Israel, but again, even if it was an "act of declaration of war", it did not mean that Israel would carry out an immediate counterattack. Later, it was reported that at the Israeli wartime cabinet meeting, opposition leader Gantz and others demanded an immediate counterattack against Iran, which was held down by Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevy......
It seems that Biden is indeed a little anxious this time, and he took control of the field in a hurry, and he really controlled it, but it is not clear whether Netanyahu will be coerced to continue to run amok in the future. With the intermission of this round of Iran-Israel conflict, we can also evaluate the tactics, results, gains and losses of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force's attack on Israeli military bases.
Strike strength and effect
In Ivan's view, the missile attack carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps this time is quite organized, the attack intensity is not very high, and the penetration capability is not bad:
Israeli anti-aircraft missiles constantly rising into the air
It is said that the organization of this attack is quite orderly, and the round of missile attack carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Space Force has well planned the timing and sequence of the attack. First, a slow-speed drone is used to enter from a low altitude, with the intention of depleting the Israeli army's anti-aircraft missile reserves, and then the "Sourmar" cruise missile is launched, and the two are coordinated to approach the Israeli mainland, and after the slow-speed drone and cruise missile are approaching, the ballistic missile is launched, and the three arrive at the same time, creating the greatest interception difficulty for the Israeli army's air defense forces to organize interception operations. This is a relatively modest ballistic missile swarm assault tactic, and it has proved that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Space Force has carried it out well.
Footage of a suspected successful breakthrough interception and hitting an Israeli position
In terms of attack intensity, we can only say that the intensity of the missile attack on Iran carried out by the Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force is not high. Despite the Israeli army's rhetoric that the Revolutionary Guards launched more than 100 ballistic missiles and more than 100 small motorcycles, the claims of the destroyers deployed by the US military in Israel's coastal waters that they engaged four or six ballistic missile targets seem to prove that the Revolutionary Guards' bomb cluster assault was not as large as it had imagined.
At the same time, the performance of the ballistic missiles launched by the Revolutionary Guards is also uneven, and the Revolutionary Guards have at least three types of missiles in the videos they have released. There is the Kheybar-Shekan ballistic missile, which was first unveiled by the Revolutionary Guards in February 2023, the improved Ghadr missile of the older Meteor-3 missile, and the Emad missile, which is based on the Meteor-3 body and a maneuvering warhead and has certain characteristics of a hypersonic vehicle.
The wreckage of an Iranian missile, which Israel claims to have recovered from the Dead Sea, is suspected to be a missile body that was separated after the warhead entered the final stage
Among these missiles, the best strike effect should be the relatively new "Kheybar-Shekan", "Emad" seems to have a good penetration effect, and the body of the missile that fell in the Dead Sea may have come from the Emad (the warhead had been separated at that time). As for the Ghadr missile, its performance is relatively old, it is just a typical conventional ballistic missile, and it is estimated that it is improved with the reserve "Meteor-3" missile body, and it is more likely to be used to consume the stock and be used as cannon fodder.
Missile cluster warheads previously demonstrated by Iran
Therefore, according to Ivan's estimate, the number of ballistic missiles fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps may only be a few dozen, but some of them may be misjudged as two targets by the "turquoise" radar of the anti-missile interception system equipped by Israel after entering the final stage.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps also announced that it used decoy penetration and cluster warheads (RVs) in the attack, and it is also possible that they were misjudged as multiple targets on the Turquoise radar, leading Israel to believe that Iranian ballistic missiles were everywhere. The US side is even more bizarre, saying that some Iranian missiles "self-destruct" and "disintegrate" during flight, which is more likely to be the separation of the warhead and the missile body in the re-entry stage, and as a result, the Americans forcibly honored the Iranian missiles as "disintegrating" in order to slander the poor quality of Iranian missiles......
Footage of an Iranian missile hitting an Israeli target at an accelerated end of the term
For a missile attack, and relative to the number of missiles of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the intensity of this strike is not high, and no second wave of strikes has been planned. After all, in terms of missile offensive tactics, the first wave of the defender's air defense intensity is the highest, but with the passage of time, the defensive intensity gradually decreases, and after the first wave is fought, take advantage of the opportunity of the opponent's replenishment of ammunition to arrange multiple waves of attacks, which can achieve the best strike effect.
However, the Revolutionary Guards Space Force did not carry out the second wave of attacks, but immediately announced that they would stop, which also proves from the side that the Revolutionary Guards were actually fighting and did not press with all their might, otherwise more than one of Israel's targets would have been raised long ago.
Therefore, the missile attack carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps against Israel this time has a small number of missiles of average intensity and penetration, and since no follow-up waves of attacks have been arranged, the strike effect is great, and Ivan thinks that it can score 5 out of 10 points. At present, the targets identified by Iranian missiles should be the runway and taxiway of Ravatim Air Base, some buildings in the base, and the US media said that a plane in the base was damaged.
Considering the construction area of the Ravatim airbase, as well as the dense fortifications of the strong aircraft in the base, Big Ivan feels that if you want to give this base a blow, you need at least 100 ballistic missiles with more than 1,000 kg warheads. It is also necessary to ensure repeated attacks, and even the need to cooperate with the use of cluster warheads, which are used to hit the sappers who are repairing the airfield after the use of anti-personnel and penetrating bombs. As a result, Iran hit only 4 missiles at the airfield, and it is obviously impossible to disable the airfield......
However, judging from the satellite photos, a few missiles actually hit the airport runway, the junction of the runway and the taxiway, which proves that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps still has two brushes, that is, the strike intensity is not high, if the strike intensity is high enough, it may really paralyze the Ravatim air base.
Therefore, judging from the results of the Revolutionary Guards' attack on Israel, Big Ivan tends to define the missile attack of the Revolutionary Guards Space Force as a "small test", because the ability of the missile group to penetrate the defense is average, and the paralyzing effect on targets such as airfields is also average. However, whether it is the ability of the bomb group to penetrate the defense or the ability to paralyze the airport, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has shown great potential, and if the two sides are free to fight, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps really has the ability to create big problems for Israel.
How to look at it
Iranian strikes
Finally, let's talk about the gains and losses of Iran's missile attack on Israel.
At the tactical level, Big Ivan believes that there is no doubt about the tactical role that ballistic missiles can assume. We've been talking about ballistic missiles washing the ground or something, and it turns out that ballistic missiles are still impossible to wash the ground, but it's completely fine to use them to hit solid targets, or hit key combat nodes or something. For example, the use of ballistic missiles to suppress airfields, ground-guided positions, and strikes at the enemy's combat hubs and command centers has the advantages of fast strike speed, strong penetration capability, and high lethal efficiency.
Yesterday. The Revolutionary Guards only used a few quasi-hypersonic vehicles with early maneuvering warheads, and it is said that Israel did not stop any of the seven that were fired...... It can successfully penetrate the defense in the anti-aircraft and anti-missile fire of the US Navy destroyer, the anti-missile fire of the Israeli Army's "Patriot" and "Arrow-2/3", and the penetration capability of hypersonic vehicles is indeed powerful.
At the campaign level, although the missile offensive campaign organized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was not large in scale and was only a tentative attack, it really gave us a scientific science of how the missile offensive in modern warfare was organized, and even gave us a lot of inspiration and lessons.
For example, in ensuring the suddenness of the missile attack, the Revolutionary Guards used the tactics of coordinated penetration of small motorcycles and ballistic missiles, which certainly achieved the maximum penetration intensity for Israel's air defense system, but the flight speed of small motorcycles was too slow, and it took eight hours to fly from Iran to Israel, which was equivalent to giving the Israeli army eight hours to calmly warn and organize defense.
Another example is the Iranian missile attack on the airport, after the attack, you have to organize a supplementary attack, and you have to fight the engineering units that come to repair the runway, what is the precondition for this? is that you must maintain situational awareness of the airport. Whether it's using drones for reconnaissance, placing a reconnaissance group around an airport, or using a spy satellite with a high data refresh rate over the top, situational awareness of your targets is essential. This is indispensable for organizing missile offensive campaigns and for the cycle of the kill chain in missile offensive campaigns.
Finally, at the strategic level, this time the Jordanian royal family actually jumped out, not only jumped out, but also formed a high degree of operational coordination with Israel and the United States to jointly intercept Iranian targets aimed at Israel. It is obvious that Iran has not clearly predicted the "anti-rebellion" of the Jordanian royal family, and it seems very stunned, but judging from the performance of the Jordanian royal family since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is obvious that Jordan has been "pretending to be loyal" for a long time.
However, for Iran, this is not a big problem, anyway, Jordan is not the only way to reach Israel, next time it will be rerouted to Syria, or even fly directly over the Golan Heights. However, the Jordanian royal family's rebellion this time also shows us from the side the complexity of the Middle East issue, which may be the most unexpected gain.