⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - US Air Force SEAD pilots target Iran
01:48 - 1965 Vietnam War origins of Wild Weasels
06:06 - Modern SEAD tactics in Yemen and Ukraine
09:26 - US military destroys 80% of IRGC defenses
11:52 - Can Iranian air defenses survive US stealth strikes?
Discover how US Air Force pilots execute high-risk SEAD Wild Weasel missions to dismantle enemy air defenses. Flying F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters into hostile airspace, these pilots act as bait to expose Iranian IRGC radar systems before launching precision AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles. From the Vietnam War to modern air combat operations in the Middle East, learn how American fighter jets neutralize lethal surface-to-air missile threats.
Sources:
https://pastebin.com/VEfYuiXT
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
00:00 - US Air Force SEAD pilots target Iran
01:48 - 1965 Vietnam War origins of Wild Weasels
06:06 - Modern SEAD tactics in Yemen and Ukraine
09:26 - US military destroys 80% of IRGC defenses
11:52 - Can Iranian air defenses survive US stealth strikes?
Discover how US Air Force pilots execute high-risk SEAD Wild Weasel missions to dismantle enemy air defenses. Flying F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters into hostile airspace, these pilots act as bait to expose Iranian IRGC radar systems before launching precision AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles. From the Vietnam War to modern air combat operations in the Middle East, learn how American fighter jets neutralize lethal surface-to-air missile threats.
Sources:
https://pastebin.com/VEfYuiXT
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
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NewsTranscript
00:00July 8, 2026
00:02The short-lived ceasefire between the United States and Iran is all but over.
00:08Iran has once again violated the terms of the deal,
00:11carrying out multiple missile strikes against commercial vessels
00:15travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:17The US cannot allow such actions to go unpunished.
00:20The war is about to restart,
00:23and orders are sent through to those who will play perhaps the most important role
00:27in the days to follow, fighter jet pilots of the US Air Force.
00:31Climbing aboard their F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft,
00:35these courageous pilots take to the skies,
00:38soaring through the air at almost supersonic speeds,
00:41leaving the relative safety of their European bases in Germany
00:44and the United Kingdom behind as they rush towards a far more dangerous location.
00:49Within just a few hours, they'll be in Iranian airspace,
00:53ready to conduct some of the most dangerous aerial operations known to man.
00:57They wouldn't be tasked with simply launching missiles towards enemy infrastructure
01:01from relatively safe distances before turning tail and heading back to base.
01:05No, these pilots, the best of the best and the bravest of the bravest,
01:10would be flying into the most heavily guarded areas of Iran,
01:13flying directly into the line of sight of the enemy's air defences,
01:17using themselves as bait in order to lure out Iranian attacks
01:20and pinpoint the precise locations of the IRGC's missile systems.
01:25They will be putting their lives at the greatest possible risk,
01:29counting on their own aerial skills and the advanced hardware of their aircraft
01:33to make it out alive.
01:34This is the brutal reality of suppression of enemy air defences, or SEAD, missions,
01:40otherwise known as Wild Weasels.
01:43Chapter 1. The Wild Weasels
01:45The idea of sending in the fastest and most agile aircraft to engage enemy air defences
01:50dates back several decades to the Vietnam War, when the term Wild Weasel originated.
01:56It was in 1965, to be exact, that this idea came into existence.
02:01In March of that year, the US initiated its Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign.
02:07This involved a mixture of Air Force and Navy tactical fighter bombers,
02:11carrier-based attack jets,
02:12and heavy strategic bombers being used to strike targets across North Vietnam.
02:17Some of the aircraft used in these attacks were among the finest of their era,
02:21like the Republic F-105 Thunder Chief,
02:24and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
02:27The US was relying on these strikes to disrupt North Vietnamese logistics
02:31and provide a major morale boost to the forces of South Vietnam.
02:35Unfortunately, they came up against a surprisingly robust air defense,
02:39with North Vietnamese forces making use of Soviet-supplied MiG fighter-interceptor jets
02:44and sophisticated surface-to-air or SAM missile systems to strike back against the enemy aircraft.
02:51On July 24, 1965, for example, four US Air Force F-4C Phantoms were involved in an airstrike
02:59on a munitions storage depot and factory in North Vietnam.
03:02All of the aircraft were struck by SAMs, with one being shot down and the other three suffering damage
03:09but managing to make it back to base.
03:11It was the first time ever that American aircraft had suffered a SAM attack,
03:15but it wouldn't be the last.
03:17The strikes continued as Operation Rolling Thunder rolled on,
03:20and by the end of 1965, 180 US aircraft had been lost.
03:26American forces realized that this couldn't continue.
03:29Something had to change.
03:31And then President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized attacks on all known SAM positions.
03:37Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese forces had anticipated this as well.
03:41They'd prepared dummy positions, using painted piles of bamboo to imitate missiles,
03:46luring the Americans directly into another trap.
03:49More planes were lost trying to take out these false SAM sites,
03:53and America's tactical planners were sent back to the drawing board.
03:57Eventually, they came up with a different strategy.
04:00One that would involve a great deal of risk, but that could, if executed successfully,
04:05eliminate the SAM threat once and for all.
04:08And it all began with a relatively simple idea.
04:11What if America could send in its fastest, most fearsome combat aircraft as bait,
04:16giving the North Vietnamese a reason to activate their radars in order to track them?
04:20From there, US forces will be able to use radar warning receivers to lock onto the exact origins of those
04:27radar emissions,
04:28pinpointing the enemy's air defenses, which could then be wiped out with the aid of anti-radiation missiles,
04:34specialized munitions designed to track and home in on radar waves,
04:37or by marking the sites with smoke rockets to facilitate follow-up strikes.
04:42Of course, this would involve putting the pilots at enormous risk,
04:46but American pilots were already at enormous risk.
04:48They were being shot at and even shot down on a regular basis,
04:52and all of their attempts to change the state of play up to then had failed.
04:55This seemed like the only way out.
04:58And so the wild weasel operation began.
05:02Boldly flying directly into danger,
05:04they had to abandon so much of their training and shift into a totally different mindset.
05:08They weren't trying to bypass the enemy's defenses,
05:11and they weren't even allowed to use their own radar jamming systems to evade detection.
05:15They were literally giving the North Vietnamese a massive target to aim at,
05:19inviting them to open fire.
05:21In fact, the success or failure of the entire mission depended on that very fact.
05:26It was only when the enemy had activated its SAM sites
05:29that the wild weasels would be able to find out where they were situated
05:32and strike them with their anti-radiation munitions.
05:35In the meantime, however, they had other missiles to contend with,
05:39missiles that were sometimes traveling three times faster than the fighters themselves,
05:43and the pilots would have to pull off daring aerial maneuvers
05:46like sharp turns and sudden dives to get out of their way.
05:49Hey, some succeeded, but not all.
05:52While the wild weasel strategy ultimately turned the tide of the aerial campaign
05:56and allowed America to eliminate large numbers of North Vietnamese SAM sites,
06:01fortunately, technology and tactics have come a long way since then.
06:04Chapter 2. The Evolving Strategy
06:07As the years went by, the fundamental rules of the wild weasel strategy largely remained the same,
06:13but American military technology evolved at a rapid rate.
06:17Faster and smarter jets were developed with far more advanced avionics and radar systems,
06:22while new anti-radiation missiles were also manufactured,
06:26introducing the ability for American pilots to strike at SAM sites and other air defenses from further away.
06:32Of course, at the same time, air defense technology also improved.
06:36New systems were designed and refined, equipped with stronger radars to detect targets at greater distances
06:41and more powerful missiles to bring them down.
06:44With better weapons and stronger technologies on both sides,
06:47there wasn't always a great need for fighter pilots to put their lives at risk as they had done during
06:52the Vietnam War.
06:53But in the 2020s, the wild weasel approach has made a major comeback.
06:57In the spring of 2025, for example, the US launched Operation Rough Rider to target the threat of Houthi terrorists
07:05in Yemen.
07:06The Houthis had been carrying out attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea throughout 2024 and into 2025,
07:12putting a vital waterway under increasing pressure and jeopardizing the flow of trade between Europe and Asia in the process.
07:19However, the Houthis had also established quite a robust ring of air defenses,
07:23especially around the country's capital city of Sarnar.
07:26Many of these defenses were well hidden or had the ability to be repositioned relatively quickly to new hiding spots,
07:33so F-16 pilots from the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron were tasked to take them out.
07:39Following in the footsteps of the brave Vietnam War pilots who had pioneered the strategy decades ago,
07:44they sped towards Houthi-Sam sites, triggering missile launches before firing their own anti-radiation missiles in return.
07:51We saw similar events in January 2026 when US forces stormed into Venezuela to capture the country's former President Nicolas
07:59Maduro.
08:00Once more, the US was wary of Venezuelan missile batteries that had been set up along the coast
08:05and around the capital of Caracas to guard against a potential invasion or aerial attack.
08:10The finest jets, manned by the bravest pilots, were therefore sent in to spearhead the strike,
08:17dismantling the enemy's defenses and clearing the way for special operations forces to rush in behind,
08:22onboard helicopters in order to touch down and extract Maduro all in under three hours.
08:27The modern-day wild weasels were also seen during Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran,
08:32opening up safe aerial corridors that allowed US bombers to pass behind and reach Iranian nuclear sites,
08:38onto which they were able to drop massive bunker-busting bombs, setting the country's nuclear program back years.
08:45Even Ukraine has adopted the wild weasel technique in its war with Russia.
08:49Reports emerged in May 2024, for example, of Ukrainian pilots,
08:53with the aid of US-supplied AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missiles, or HARMS, and Soviet-era jets,
09:01baiting Russian air defenses into activating before returning fire and wiping them off the map.
09:06These stories prove the viability of the wild weasel technique, even half a century after it was invented.
09:12And in July 2026, the US once more needed its best and boldest pilots to take charge of the situation.
09:19Chapter 3. The Weasels Return
09:21By early July, the Iranian military was in tatters.
09:26Earlier bombardments, carried out by American and Israeli forces from late February onward,
09:30had reduced the country's armed forces to a fraction of their former glory.
09:34The IRGC had suffered serious casualties, including many of their most important commanders during the opening acts of the war,
09:41and had lost enormous amounts of ground and naval assets.
09:45That included huge numbers of air defenses, with hundreds upon hundreds of targets being struck week after week.
09:51So when the ceasefire came to an end on July 8th, Iran was a far weaker force than it had
09:57been just a few months prior.
09:58But there's a difference between being weak and being unable to fight.
10:02Even in its depleted state, the IRGC was still able to call upon a reasonable amount of air defenses,
10:08around 20% of them to be exact.
10:10According to a statement from Air Force General Dan Kane, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said,
10:15U.S. Central Command Forces destroyed approximately 80% of Iran's air defense systems,
10:21striking more than 1,500 air defense targets,
10:24more than 450 ballistic missile storage facilities,
10:27800 one-way attack drone storage facilities.
10:30All of these systems are gone.
10:32Many were indeed gone, but some were left over,
10:35and Iran had every intention of making the most of the systems it had left
10:39to defend its territory and take out as many American assets as it could.
10:43To make matters worse, many of the air defenses that Iran still had were mobile systems
10:48that could be easily transported from one place to another.
10:51This made them very hard to track,
10:53and the IRGC actively repositioned its defenses in different locations on a regular basis,
10:58never leaving them in just one place for any extended period of time.
11:02What's more, Iranian officials were also boasting about a new air defense system,
11:07reportedly rolled out during the latter days of May,
11:09and it quickly proved to be effective, successfully eliminating a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone.
11:15Drones aren't the same as jets or bombers,
11:17but it was clear that there was still a serious threat of Iran being able to target
11:21and destroy American aircraft by the time the war resumed,
11:24and the U.S. couldn't afford to run the risk of sending its bombers or other planes
11:28into airspace that could be guarded by these defense systems.
11:32It was a surefire recipe for disaster,
11:34because even if U.S. forces were able to drop their bombs
11:37and fire their missiles on Iranian infrastructure,
11:40they were likely to suffer some grave losses of their own in exchange.
11:44And so the call was made.
11:45It was time for the wild weasels to fly again.
11:49Chapter 4, The July Strikes
11:51Once Iran had broken the ceasefire, there was no time to lose.
11:55Orders were radioed through to pilots stationed at RAF Lakenheath in the UK
11:59and Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.
12:01The pilots had returned to these bases and had been awaiting further orders
12:04following the announcement of a ceasefire deal several weeks prior,
12:07but they knew they had to be ready to spring back into action
12:11and climb back aboard their fighters at a moment's notice,
12:14since the situation was in such an unstable state.
12:17And on July 8th, that moment came.
12:19What CENTCOM called a new round of retaliatory strikes had been given the green light,
12:23and it was up to the F-16 and F-35 pilots to lead the way.
12:28Fortunately, they had some of the greatest aircraft in the world to work with.
12:32The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a veritable miracle of modern engineering.
12:38A compact, multi-role fighter that can reach speeds in excess of Mach 2
12:42and is almost unrivaled in terms of aerial agility.
12:45Known as the Swiss Army Knife of the Skies,
12:48it was made to handle almost any sort of mission
12:50and survive in the most inhospitable of environments.
12:53The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is even more impressive.
12:58A fifth-generation stealth fighter.
13:00It comes equipped with state-of-the-art sensor fusion,
13:03electronic warfare systems, and stealth capabilities
13:05to appear almost invisible on enemy radar screens.
13:09But how can a stealth jet like the F-35 act as bait if it's supposed to be invisible?
13:14Well, stealth doesn't actually mean invisible.
13:17It means hard to see.
13:18An F-35's radar signature is a fraction of a conventional fighter's,
13:23shrinking the range at which enemy systems can spot it
13:26and denying them the clean, stable lock they need to guide a missile home.
13:30But get close enough or catch it with the right kind of radar
13:33and it can still be detected.
13:35That's exactly why these two aircraft work as a team.
13:38The F-16 is the classic wild weasel,
13:41wading into the enemy's kill zone to draw fire
13:43and hammer the radars that light up in response.
13:46The F-35, meanwhile, uses its stealth and cutting-edge sensors
13:50to slip in closer than any other jet would dare,
13:53hunting down air defenses that would otherwise stay hidden,
13:56then either striking them itself
13:57or feeding their coordinates to the rest of the strike package.
14:01One draws the enemy out,
14:02the other makes sure they never see what's coming.
14:05Several of both kinds of these aircraft
14:07were soon taking off from their European bases,
14:09swiftly picking up speed and heading directly for Iranian airspace.
14:13Within a few hours, they were entering the lion's den.
14:17Armed with an array of anti-radiation missiles
14:19and precision-guided bombs,
14:20as well as electronic warfare systems
14:22and protective measures to help them make it out in one piece,
14:25the pilots rushed onwards towards their targets.
14:28The ground below them appeared silent,
14:30but Iranian radar systems were already beginning to activate.
14:34And that's what the pilots were counting on.
14:36Moving almost as fast as sound itself,
14:39they continued even deeper behind enemy lines,
14:41monitoring their heads-up displays and information feeds
14:44for the first signs of incoming missiles or defense system lock-ons.
14:48Within seconds, the whole scene roared to life.
14:51Iran took the bait with IRGC air defenses
14:54that had been hidden away in coastal cracks and caves
14:57suddenly springing into action.
14:59Radar systems were activated
15:00as ground teams hurried to lock onto the American aircraft,
15:03believing that a major bombardment was about to begin.
15:06The IRGC soldiers are confident.
15:09They've used the downtime of the ceasefire
15:11to prepare for an assault like this.
15:13They've repaired and re-armed their defensive systems,
15:15placing them in the perfect locations
15:17to preempt the American attack,
15:19and they believe that they're ready for anything.
15:21But their confidence is misplaced,
15:23and they're about to walk right into the US's trap.
15:26Moments later, the first SAMs are launched into the air.
15:29It's exactly what the Wild Weasels wanted to see.
15:32In no time at all,
15:33their jet sensors and electronic warfare systems
15:35have triangulated the precise launch locations
15:38of the missiles headed their way.
15:41Instantaneously, the battlefield,
15:42which had been a murky haze moments before,
15:44becomes a much clearer picture
15:46as the specific coordinates of enemy air defenses
15:49are mapped out across the pilots' HUDs.
15:51And only seconds later, the pilots issue their response.
15:54Locking on, they launch their AGM-88s.
15:57Measuring up at nearly 14 feet in length
16:00with a total mass of almost 800 pounds
16:02and a 150-pound blast fragmentation WAU-7B warhead,
16:07these missiles are more than strong enough
16:09to wipe even the biggest and toughest air defenses out in a flash.
16:13And thanks to their Tierkol SR-113 TC-1
16:17dual-thrust rocket engines,
16:19they leave the enemy almost no time to react,
16:22since they're able to reach maximum speeds of Mach 2.9
16:25or over 3,200 feet per second.
16:28Relying on their passive radar homing systems
16:31with GPS and inertial navigation to assist them,
16:34if needed,
16:35the missiles speed mercilessly towards their targets.
16:38The Iranians had no chance.
16:40Even the most mobile of air defenses
16:42still needs time to actually pick up speed
16:44and leave a position.
16:45When a missile is screaming towards it
16:47faster than the human mind can even process,
16:50there's no time for evacuation or disassembly.
16:52There's no time for anything at all.
16:54In the blink of an eye,
16:56the first AGM-88s hit their targets.
16:59One explosion rang out after another on the ground
17:01as Iran's remaining defenses were wiped out one by one.
17:05Up in the air, meanwhile,
17:06the fighter pilots still had the threat
17:08of interceptor missiles heading their way,
17:10but knew exactly how to counter them.
17:12Using all of the benefits of their training
17:14and the unrivaled agility of their aircraft,
17:17they banked left and right,
17:18making sharp turns,
17:20sudden breaks and swift changes in altitude
17:22to break the missile's locks.
17:24Their huds and cockpits were ringing out
17:26with beeping sounds of incoming threats,
17:28but they somehow managed to keep their cool
17:30as they ducked and dived to stay alive.
17:32And by the time the mission was done,
17:34the American jets were headed home,
17:36all intact,
17:37all untouched by Iran's interceptors.
17:40For the IRGC,
17:42it was a very different story.
17:44U.S. Central Command reported
17:45that 80 Iranian targets had been taken out,
17:48including air defenses,
17:50coastal radars and small boats too,
17:52with bombers and other strike aircraft
17:53following on from the wild weasel jets,
17:55taking advantage of the safe spaces they'd created.
17:59Once more,
17:59Tehran's defenses had been decimated
18:02and the U.S. had demonstrated
18:03its extraordinary ability
18:05to adapt to any military situation
18:07in order to stay one step ahead of its opponent.
18:10We'll see you on the next battlefield.
18:12We'll see you on the next battlefield.
18:12We'll see you on the next battlefield.
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