New reporting that an A-10 ~was also shot down~ has also gone down (unconfirmed if it was shot down)

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/03/world/iran-war-trump...

> A second Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region on Friday, and the lone pilot was safely rescued, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The A-10 Warthog attack plane went down near the Strait of Hormuz about the same time that an Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, the officials said. In that incident, one crew member was rescued and search-and-rescue operators are looking for the second airman. Officials provided scant details about the A-10 crash, including how and where it happened.

there's some additional osint rumor mill that a blackhawk helicopter involved in rescue operations was also shot down but claims that crew been recovered

In the first Iraq war, the KARI system in Iraq, which was built by Thompson-CSF, had its specifications leaked and the US obtained access to back doors and codes that allowed it to bypass and/or disable much of that system. You need to remember that the US and much of the West had friendly relations with Iraq and provided some infrastructure assistance and military support because Iraq invaded Iran.

No such analogous advantage exists in Iran, which is a much larger country, with better air defenses, and no western contractors ready to provide back doors into systems.

> An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.

Why? We don't know exactly what happened but its easy to imagine that Iran held some anti-air systems in reserve for this phase of the war. They aren't trying to defend a target, their goal was likely to stay hidden and wait for an opportunity. They could keep the radar off and use a passive sensor network to notify them when it was in range, then turn the radar on to get a lock for the shot. Or even just IR. Recall, the Houthis gave stealth F35s some near misses over Yemen, no doubt supplied and trained by the Iranians.

https://www.twz.com/air/how-the-houthis-rickety-air-defenses...

> During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement.

was it because F-15 was used as superiority fighter at that time and now they use it as heavy bomber? I assume plenty of bombers likely was shot down in Iraq.

It seems like the Iraqis were relatively poor operators of their systems. A few days ago I was reading about the Nato bombing of yugoslavia on wikipedia and it had the following entry:

"Yugoslav air defences were much fewer than what Iraq had deployed during the Gulf War – an estimated 16 SA-3 and 25 SA-6 surface-to-air missile systems, plus numerous anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) – but unlike the Iraqis they took steps to preserve their assets. Prior to the conflict's start Yugoslav SAMs were preemptively dispersed away from their garrisons and practiced emission control to decrease NATO's ability to locate them."

So their SAMs likely just got stealth bombed / bombed from a distance.

Operation Desert Storm was only 43 days long. Epic Fury is most of the way there.

That was 35 years ago. That only shows that the plane is pretty old. I assume SAMs evolved since then.

Surely SAMs have improved since 1991? Have the F-15s improved significantly? (I know nothing about military stuff.)

> An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.

Wrong. It's a great sign. We have had enough of the barrage of US aggression around the world.

The latest reporting is that only 50% of Iran's missile capacity has been destroyed

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/iran-missiles-us-mil...

Doesn't break out anti-air, but Iran absolutely has a lot of teeth left.

You can't really take out "the whole" air defense system because there will always be folks out with MANPAD-type things, those will score hits on occasion. That's probably what we saw here. I doubt MANPADs were nearly as common in the early 90s as they are today.

Iran has systems they can pull out of a cave and deploy in a couple hours or less. We will never get all their anti air out.

My concern is that other countries can aid Iran with weapons in a direct and indirect way. There is no guarantee to block the railroads from East and the shipments from North.

> An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.

Not to dispute that but what about the comparison makes it not a good sign? Iran has much more capable radar and missiles now than Iraq did 35 years ago, doesn't it?

[dead]

Seriously. Makes me glad we attacked when we did. They could have bolstered their anti air defenses even more.