The Iranian proxy forces had this cheap victory of US forces using a drone version of a 82 year old tactic that torpedoed the USS Yorktown (CV-5) at the battle of Midway.
The Iranian drone followed closely behind a US drone to get past air defenses, just like the IJN torpedo 1/
...planes did at Midway and Japanese Kamikazes did in the last 11 months of WW2.
It is very likely the trailed US drone had no IFF transponder at all, as the MX12B micro Mode 5 Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) transponder was only certified in 2021.
In all likelihood these dead servicemen are victims of a sluggish Pentagon procurement system geared to maximize the opportunities for Congressional campaign contributions and post DoD career opportunities.
The need for micro-IFF Transponders for small drones was a stated
3/
...military requirement in the late 1990's, that is, 30(+) years ago.
This was in the aftermath of 1994 American friendly fire deaths when two USAF F-15's shot down two UH-60 Blackhawk over Kurdistan in 1994.
And even if the US drone approaching Tower 22 had a MX12B micro Mode 5 IFF transponder, there is no guarantee procedures for its use in an air tasking order were being followed.
It wasn't in 1994, which is one of the reasons why 26 US military and civilians were killed.
5/
Getting electronic identification friend or foe right takes highly professional, multi-service and well trained air defenders.
A skill category that the US Military ran into the ground early in the post Cold War "Peace Dividend."
Demobilization is always a deliberate policy
6/
...of firing all the best & most skilled specialists in the military, government and industry as "unnecessary costs."
They are always the first let go under the "End of History" delusion.
It has ever been thus in the USA.
7/
And US Military always pays dearly via:
"Learning by Doing,
Learning by Dying"
...to get those specialist military skills back again in the next war.
8/8
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Remember all the professionally incompetent yo-yo naval officers & hangers on claiming FPV drones were not a threat to naval warships in 2023 WHEN I TOLD THEM THEY WOULD BE?
Reality just kicked them one and all in the 'nads...
I told these professionally incompetent US navalists accounts on X/Twitter in 2023 that both containerized drones and FPV drones were a deadly threat to every naval vessel on the water they were ignoring to their crew's peril.
We need to have a talk about Russian military corruption and its effects on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
It's kind of like these sun-rotted missile truck tires that make my reputation on Twitter.
Corruption happens slowly, then all at once.
Corruption🧵 1/
The Russian Army issued a "live off the land" order in early March 2022 resulted in lots of Russian enlisted stealing outside the line of sight of Russian junior officers.
This hollowed out discipline the RuAF "Professional Volunteers" in early 2022.
More information has come out on the FP-5 Flamingo which gives insights io both the systems and production engineering involved for low cost production.
I'm going to use the WW2 F6F Hellcat & M4 Sherman as examples of Ukrainian FP-5 design choices.
The FP-5 GLCM production photos released today shows what looks like a combination of carbon fiber composite, molded thermoplastics, and sheet metal.
Cruciform tail controls are all moving.
Wings are attached before launch like a 1960s USAF MGM-1 Matador. 2/
The FP-5 Transporter Erector Launch (TEL) trailer looks like a new custom build.
Iryna Terekh, head of production at Fire Point, stated to the AP that "Fire Point is producing roughly one Flamingo per day, and by October they hope to build capacity to make seven per day."
...With a similar configuration, drag will not be dominated by lift induced wing drag but will form drag which is typical for 500 knots air speed jets and missiles with low aspect ratio wings.
2/
...So a rule of thumb estimate is that you will need around 4 x the thrust of a Tomahawk F107-WR-402 700 lbf (3.1 kN) engine for an FP-5 Flamingo GLCM.
3/
Slowly, with a lot of notice, Trump is morphing into Pres. Biden
This territorial concession malarkey is exactly what the Biden Administration was playing games with in Nov 2021 via an op-ed by Samuel Charap of RAND in the Nov 19, 2021 Politico.
That Op-Ed advocated, in effect, that the US abandon Ukraine to Russia in exchange for other concessions by Russia, greenlighting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It was understood in Nov. 2021 era DC that Charap...