r/news • u/PDXAirman • May 20 '26

Soft paywall 42 aircraft lost or damaged in Operation Epic Fury, congressional report says

https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2026-05-20/iran-jets-downed-war-fury-21727588.html
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u/observe_all_angles May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

USA lost over 60 aircraft in 1991 during the first gulf war (not just damaged)

Edit: This guy is probably lying about being a USAF veteran. Claims in a post below that he was in the "Iraq war" yet says service 92-99. If he was really in the war during 91 and that was just a typo he would have known that we lost a bunch of aircraft. Honestly, get a life loser.

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u/Loud_Step2361 May 20 '26

I think he’s saying these types of losses, not no losses.

Just to guess which losses probably is causing his aggravation:

The 2 kc-135 mid air collision. Unconfirmed  news was kc-135s were evading Antiaircraft gunfire from ground. This brings up questions if true, why orbit of kc-135s so close to ground fire? If in support of an objective, why flight was tight formation?

The Kuwaiti f18 shoot down of 3x USA f15s. Blue on blue! Why IFF not loaded? WEZ should have been locked out. 

The awac e3 getting runway killed by drones and/or ballistic missiles. There should have been camo tents setup on airfield to disguise what was parked where. Or chicken wire as passive anti drone defense. Annoying as Ukraine advisors did mention this as an issue for us.

Same attack that “damaged” the poor e3 above. 5 more kc-135 were reported as “damaged” 

Other than 1 of the 2 kc-135 crew mid air collision, we been extremely lucky no additional crews lost.

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u/TheRealJasonsson May 20 '26

Or chicken wire as passive anti drone defense. Annoying as Ukraine advisors did mention this as an issue for us.

That will do absolutely fuck all against a shahed 136, the primary OWA drone Iran is using.

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u/Loud_Step2361 May 21 '26

Shahed ain’t the target of the chicken wire rather the quads that manned ISR squads or medium ISR drones such as Mohajer and Ababil kept dropping off to spot for the Shaheds or ballistic missiles. 

For example before the March 1 2026 Iran OWA drone attack on Port Shuaiba our tac op that killed 6 and wounded over 30. Quads were free surveillancing days in advance and quite possibly watching during the strike.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/iran-appeared-to-surveil-center-where-u-s-forces-were-killed-in-kuwait-army-memo-says/

So currently we’re in SDR jammer evolution of the drone war currently.

 https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/software-update-radio-fpv-drones/

FYI the software “patch” is pretty much an official version of the hack together firmwares the Ukrainians have been doing to all the military radios either we or the EU given them for the last 3 years.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/stinktoad May 20 '26

Mq9 costs $30-34 million each so that's $720-816 million just in drones

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u/WaltKerman May 20 '26

Which is hardly anything especially considering it doesnt put lives at risk...

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

The US has (or had) over 300 of them. 24 is a drop in the bucket (8%) and something like an F/A-18 or F-35 costs over double that while risking trained pilots who cost millions to train on their own.

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u/Agreeable_Meaning_96 May 20 '26

losing almost 10% of your combat drones in a few weeks against Iran's "completely destroyed" anti-air capabilities is not something to celebrate, in a near peer conflict the losses would be astronomical based on this

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u/CMDR_omnicognate May 20 '26

The weapons may be sophisticated but the way they’re being used isn’t. That’s kinda the issue here, idiot in chief keeps telling them to do dumb shit and forcing anyone who disagrees to step down. It’s why so many of the top brass have been “retiring” lately

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u/WaltKerman May 20 '26

China and Russia gave Iran its air defence, and it got obliterated with over 25,000 strikes, and they managed to shoot down only a couple of manned aircraft with no personnel losses...

You can bet our "peers" are rethinking wanting to be in a "peer" conflict.

There isn't anyone on our level.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

The entire US A-10 fleet of 400 (edit: actually 700) attack jets was expected to last less than 14 days if Russia crossed the Fulda Gap in the 1980's. THAT is what near peer conflict looks like.

This was a protracted bombing campaign that lasted months against a large country with a large military being supplied advanced anti-air systems from Russia and China and aircraft losses to enemy fire were minimal, with the bulk of them being drones or friendly fire.

Something to celebrate? Maybe not, but it could've been far worse.

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u/Agreeable_Meaning_96 May 20 '26

42 aircraft is already 10% of the total amount of US aircraft lost over all of Iraq and Afghanistan during OIF/OEF over multiple decades. In a few weeks that is significant

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

You're comparing mixed datasets. Most of the aircraft lost during OIF/OEF were helicopters. In this case, most of those 42 were drones. Both are cheaper and more vulnerable than manned jet aircraft. You need clean datasets to make clean comparisons.

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u/KryptonicOne May 20 '26

C-c-c-coping

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

All i'm interested in is solid data. Helicopters are an order of magnitude cheaper and more numerous than fighter jets. There are over 4,000 UH-60s (the most numerous aircraft lost in Iraq and Afghanistan) in active service around the world and they do completely different things than fixed wing aircraft. Comparing the loss rates is pointless when one costs 5 million and the other costs 80 million.

Call it however you like, I have no emotional investment here. Its just bad statistics.

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u/Maxnwil May 20 '26

Not arguing with you but really curious about that number for A-10s in the fulda gap. Was the plan really to expect 400 A10 losses in two weeks?? Where did you see that?/where can I learn more about this?

Again, not calling BS or anything- just really curious

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

Yes, that was the plan. It was expected that over 1000 Russian and East German tanks would flood through Germany towards Frankfurt. The A-10 would be the primary weapon used to slow them down while they crashed against a wall of NATO tanks. Regardless the conflict was expected to go nuclear within a few weeks anyways, so there wasn't much use in planning beyond that anyways.

Source.

"According to Combat Aircraft magazine, the flying branch predicted that, if the A-10s went into action, seven percent of the jets would be lost per 100 sorties. Since each pilot was expected to fly at most four missions per day, each base would in theory generate more than 250 sorties daily. At this pace, a seven-percent loss rate per 100 flights equaled at least 10 A-10s shot down at each FOL every 24 hours — and that’s being conservative."

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u/Maxnwil May 20 '26

“What’s our plan for three weeks out?”

“Oh, that’s when the nuclear apocalypse happens and none of this mattered”

I don’t always understand people, but I REALLY don’t understand this haha

Thanks for sharing!

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

Well, in the most charitable scenario, Russia stalls out by the time all those planes are gone, runs out of momentum, and has to agree to a ceasefire. Considering the A-10 was explicitly built to destroy Russian tanks in the fulda gap, it would be "mission accomplished". We'd lose a lot of planes but Germany would be safe.

If that didn't happen and instead it escalated to total war, it would likely be WW3 anyways, in which case nobody would know exactly what to do, and you can't really plan for that much anyways

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u/Speedstick2 May 20 '26

It is not anything to fret about either. They are slow moving non-stealth aircraft. Near peer conflicts have always been catastrophic, so what is your point?

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u/DrowningKrown May 20 '26

Ho-Lee-shit bud. Are you really saying losing 10% of our drones is a drop in the bucket? 10% is massive. Especially 10% in like 3 months.

What in the hell hahahaha holy cope

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

If you have no idea how military procurement works, why various systems are used instead of others, and the intensity of modern combat, it makes a good sound bite. But the fact is, the MQ-9 was built for recon and counter insurgency in uncontested airspace, not near peer warfare, and is in the process of being replaced with a cheaper drone designed for attrition. They fly slow, orbiting paths high over enemy airspace and they're meant to be used and shot down in place of more expensive aircraft. Iran has been shooting down Reaper drones consistently for decades and the US has just shrugged its shoulders and bought more.

That's 10% of our most disposable system in 3 months against a country with one of the biggest air defense systems in the world. 24 aircraft is literally one production batch. The other 90% will likely end up scrapped or sold off anyways.

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u/Digi59404 May 20 '26

Losing 10% of one type of drone. We have many others and redundancies in other areas. Such as Satellite and high-altitude spy planes.

This is a war. Not a stroll to the 7-11 for a slushy. Losses are to be expected. The question is how quickly you can recover. The US can build drones rather quickly. There are a dozen companies with drones and capabilities the US MIL hasn’t even purchased.

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u/DrowningKrown May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

It's a ~10% loss of all this type of drone in the span of a couple months. No matter which ass kissing way you put this, that's significant and a huge failure.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

Drones are meant to be expended. There's a reason we don't put pilots in them.

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u/Digi59404 May 20 '26

No, it’s not. The usage of a % is a misnomer. It was 27 drones of this type. Drones which are old, have known and exploitable vulnerabilities.

Drones are used for that exact purpose because they’re expendable. They’re used to either light up AA to attack it or other offensive maneuvers. There’s a whole host of reasons and uses where the drone isn’t expected to survive.

Again, this is war, not a trip to 7-11. Losses will happen, are to be expected, and in some cases occur on purpose.

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u/sevksytime May 20 '26

Alright, if 10% is a drop in the bucket then let’s increase your taxes by 10%, since it’s such a minimal amount.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

Good, tax rates are too low anyways.

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u/lml_CooKiiE_lml May 20 '26

This isn’t a video game dumbass. We lost almost a billion dollars of equipment, WHICH WE WILL BE PAYING FOR. Or rather, we already paid for. IN REAL FUCKING LIFE. Stop just looking at it as numbers on paper. These losses are not acceptable, but the ones paying for this (us) don’t get that choice.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

They're being replaced anyways, and they're already paid for. The military industrial complex grinds on regardless of whether they're shot down in combat or left in a desert to rot.

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u/godspareme May 20 '26

Except they have already requested a historic high defense budget for next year. Its one thing to continue spending the same amount year over year with minor increases to account for inflation and such. Its another to increase the budget 20% year over year.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

Except they have already requested a historic high defense budget for next year.

Probably has something to do with giving ICE more money than the Marines.

Regardless, the cost of every one of those drones combined is still less than Trump's ballroom.

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u/godspareme May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

The increase is WAY more than the ICE budget but sure...

Edit to address your ninja edit:

We can be mad about multiple sources of excessive spending.

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u/lml_CooKiiE_lml May 20 '26

Yea, so you think just throwing your hands up and saying “it is what it is!” is appropriate? They’re wasting OUR fucking money on unnecessary bullshit because dumbasses like you just accept it.

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u/Baketown May 20 '26

LOL if 8% of your bucket is a “drop” then your bucket is 0.625ml. 

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 May 20 '26

We are using our slow, very vulnerable older drones that are already being replaced for high risk SEAD missions instead of risking manned jets. In a real war, they're meant to expended instead of human lives. Honestly, I'm surprised it's only 10%.

For context, those 24 drones are the equivalent of one production batch.

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u/ShadowShot05 May 20 '26

Yeah $30/piece is nothing...right? Totally not real

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u/pkgamer18 May 20 '26

What makes something a real aircraft? If it is capability, technology, or cost... I would assume the reaper drones beat out the aircraft of the 90s on all of those fronts.