Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Now, Some Speculation.

Rumor (from trusted by me sources) has it that Iran MAY have a couple (or even more) Su-35s and that Iran's claims about shootdown of Israeli F-35s actually have bases in reality. Israeli AF was operating from the airfields in Iraq and did not to the best of our knowledge penetrate Iran's airspace, or if it did--it was very shallow. That brings us to a serious not only possibility but fairly high probability that Iranian SU-35s even with R-77 (forget R-37) could have downed one or two F-35s. 

The experience of RuAF Su-35s in Syria testifies to the fact that Su-35s Irbis radar (read WiKi's article with a huge pile of salt) has no problem detecting, tracking and developing firing solution on F-22. Generally speaking, US "stealth" aircraft are not that "stealthy" and considering grossly overstated range of the US only capable AAM AIM-120 AMRAAM which is still shorter than that of Russian R-77 (not to speak of R-37 which makes US AA missile arsenal look obsolete), it is not only possible but highly probable that those F-35s have been shot down in Iraqi airspace by something launched from Iranian airspace. And with the exception of a single video where one can see wreckage of what seems to be F-35, those losses, naturally, have been classified. But as the SMO and Iran strikes demonstrated with absolute certainty--all, without exception, claims of capabilities of NATO weapons systems, especially American ones, are pure fiction. Most of them are good only for fighting wars from 1990s against opponents who cannot shoot back. But for now it is only speculation on this F-35s issue and take it also with a grain of salt, albeit I didn't, but it is just me.