For decades, Iran has been preparing for something like this.

Always with eyes turned toward Israel and the US, it has been building air defenses and creating a military that was supposed to counter what was coming.

Iran failed.

The US did something so massive to Iran that it will go down in history.

The 10,000th target has just been hit and Iran has practically nothing left to stand.

On March 25th, US Central Command or Sentcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper delivered his newest breakdown of everything the US has achieved during Operation Epic Fury so far.

The headline was also one of the first things out of Cooper’s mouth as he proclaimed, “We’re in the fourth week of the campaign and remain on plan or ahead of plan in achieving very clear military objectives for eliminating Iran’s ability to project power in meaningful ways outside
its borders,” Cooper began.

He then delivered the number stating, “US forces have struck more than 10,000 military targets.

In fact, we hit the 10,000th Iranian target just hours ago.

” Now, Kooper went on to explain that 10,000 is America’s number.

When you add Israel and its air strikes into the mix, several thousand more targets have been hit.

Many thousands more, in fact.

On March 13th, the Wall Street Journal reported that US Secretary of War Pete Higgsef had claimed that the US and Israel had combined to strike 15,000 targets, which was over 1,000 targets per day at the time of the statement.

The sheer scale and ferocity of Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion have wound down somewhat since that announcement, likely due to Iran having fewer military targets to strike.

But given that 15,000 was the joint number before Cooper made his statements, it’s not inconceivable to believe that the US and Israel have combined to hit somewhere close to 20,000 targets since February 28th.

But even taken alone, 10,000 targets struck by the US is massive news.

And to clarify, these are 10,000 targets, not 10,000 munitions fired.

Those targets will be varied from the massive such as Iran’s underground military and nuclear bunkers to comparatively small targets such as drones.

Each is an individual weapon or military node that has gone down with the largest targets likely to have been struck with multiple munitions, perhaps even repeatedly over days to take them out of commission.

And what we’re seeing here is a level of aerial dominance that hasn’t been achieved in any other modern war.

America’s layered campaign, which began with strikes conducted by stealthy airframes such as the B2 Spirit and F-35 before evolving to incorporate airframes as old as the B-52 and A10, has shown us that the US can operate with impunity in Iran’s skies.

Now, that may not mean that Operation Epic Fury is coming to a close.

What comes next could change everything all over again and will catch everyone off guard if the US follows up with its threats.

But for now, it’s enough to know that so much of Iran’s military infrastructure has been obliterated as the US plots a course for its next move.

And according to several in the US, Iran is now desperate to achieve some sort of end to Operation Epic Fury.

US President Donald Trump claims that Iran is begging to reach a deal.

And the US has responded by delivering a 15-point plan that could make that deal happen.

Iran has responded to these claims, stating that the US and Iran aren’t talking and the US is negotiating with itself.

Now, the truth may lie somewhere in the middle as it seems unlikely that Iran isn’t open to any sort of talks, but it is perhaps not as desperate as Trump claims it to be.

Now, Cooper has also said in his piece that the combination of US and Israeli air power proves that the two countries are stronger together.

He also outlines the extent of the damage done to Iran’s military infrastructure, stating, “Our precision strikes have overwhelmed Iranian air defenses, and our combat flights over Iran are having tangible effects.

” Now, let’s get into those tangible effects with a roll call of what the US has achieved so far in Operation Epic Fury.

10,000 strikes completed is an impressive enough number on its own.

US attacks on Iran risk global conflict, Russia and China warn

But it doesn’t mean much without the context of what those strikes have achieved.

And with that context, the reaction goes from, “Wow, that’s a lot of strikes.

” to, “How on earth is Iran’s regime still standing after all of this?” Well, we’ll start with Iran’s missiles.

Now, Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion have had a clear focus on Iran’s missile launch sites, which are key to Iran’s main approach of threatening its Gulf neighbors with ballistic missile strikes for as long as the US continues its attack.

We have some numbers covering how many of these launches have gone down.

The Israel Defense Force or IDF claimed on March 15th that about 70% of Iran’s missile launches have been destroyed so far, which puts a massive dent not only in Iran’s ballistic missile strategy, but also in its ability to launch cruise and anti-ship missiles and US Navy warships and merchant vessels.

Now, the Wall Street Journal in its own report on Israel’s claim provides a more concrete number as it says that Israel claims that Iran has lost 330 of its 470 mobile missile launch platforms.

Now, that works out to about 70% as the IDF claims.

And while questions can be asked, such as how Israel and the US know precisely how many of these mobile missile launches there are when Iran tries to keep them underground, there’s still no denying that the figure is impressive.

And satellite photographs published by the Washington Post highlight this.

The first four weeks of Operation Epic Fury have seen the US and Israel utterly destroy 29 of Iran’s ballistic missile launch sites, each of which would have been home to dozens of launches.

And above ground facilities have been taken out of commission.

Underground facilities have been targeted with bunker busting bombs.

And it has all been done to degrade one of the most significant threats that Iran poses to the US, Israel, and their Gulf allies.

We’ve seen the impact of this portion of the 10,000 strikes emerge very quickly.

Cooper says as much himself as he points out that Iran’s missile and drone launchers are down by more than 90% since the beginning of the war, which is a sign that whatever missile saturation strategy that Iran had prepared hasn’t gone to plan.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Iranian missiles aren’t being fired.

70% of launches downed still leaves 30% that can fire and that amounts to about 140 mobile launches that the US still needs to find and destroy before Iran’s missiles become a non-factor.

There are also the missiles themselves.

While missiles become useless without launchers, which is what has led the US down the strategic route it is now taking.

You could argue that the US and Israel haven’t quite done enough about Iran’s missiles, even after 10,000 plus strikes.

According to the Guardian, US intelligence suggests that about a third of Iran’s missile stockpiles are confirmed to have been destroyed, and another third of the stockpile seems likely to have been damaged, buried, or otherwise made unusable due to America’s attacks on Iran’s underground tunnels and bunkers.

There have also been 1,400 confirmed missile launches by Iran since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

And though most of these would have occurred at the beginning of the war, this tells us that Iran is still a missile threat, though one that has been severely downgraded compared to what it was before.

But this is where things start to shift on the Iranian missile front.

It’s not just launchers and stockpiles that have been taken out of commission in the 10,000 strikes.

The US has also taken aim at Iran’s missile and naval production facilities.

As Cooper explains, Iran has large-scale manufacturing capacities to not only build naval vessels, missiles, and attack drones, but also to advance and proliferate these technologies to regional and global bad actors, Cooper explains.

He adds, “Today, we’ve damaged over 2/3 of Iran’s missile, drone, and naval production facilities and shipyards before he delivers the chilling warning that the US isn’t done with all of this yet.

The elimination of Iran’s wider military manufacturing apparatus is also on the agenda.

” Koopa proclaims.

Now, this is bad news for Iran because it means that what’s left of its ballistic missile strategy is now on a time limit.

As more launches and production facilities go down, every Iranian missile launch that follows is made using a stockpile that can’t be replenished.

This isn’t just about taking out what Iran has.

The US is focusing on what Iran might try to build, which means it’s crippling the regime’s missile focused doctrine for the long term.

Now, we mentioned that the 10,000 strikes against Iran have included attacks on Iran’s ship building and naval production facilities.

There’s a lot more to cover on the naval front, but before we dive deeper into that, this is a quick reminder that you’re watching the Military Show.

There’s a lot more where this comes from, so hit subscribe if you’re getting value from the insight that our channel offers.

Beyond naval production facilities, the US has also focused on taking out as much of Iran’s existing seafaring capacity as it possibly can.

We see a similar strategy as the one taken with Iran’s missiles, which is to destroy what already exists and then follow up by taking out the facilities that could build more.

Now, on the already exists, or should we say used to exist front, The Times of Israel reports that the US has sunk 92% of the Iranian Navy’s large vessels.

Now, this percentage likely accounts for frigots, submarines, and Iran’s makeshift aircraft carriers, and perhaps doesn’t cover the fast attack boats Iran has been using to wreak havoc in the straight of Hormuz.

Still, 92% of Iran’s large vessels, tells us that the regime’s naval might, at least on the pure power projection front, has been shattered.

Pentagon figures put the total number at 130 vessels down by March 26th, though it’s unclear how many of these are the large ships already mentioned and how many account for fast boats and other Iranian vessels such as its Gadier class [ __ ] submarines.

We do know that the 130 figure includes 40 mine layers and 11 submarines and that Iran has been using its fast boats that lay mines in the straight of moose.

America’s approach right now seems to be that anything that sails for Iran is a fair target.

As with the missiles, it’s not accurate to say that Iran’s navy no longer presents a threat.

With missiles, Iran has fallen back to a strategy where it conducts small and precise launches, which at least allows it to maintain some sort of threat.

When it comes to the naval part of the battle, Iran was never truly going to be able to contend with the aircraft carriers and associated warships that the US brought to the Persian Gulf region.

Don’t get us wrong, the regime absolutely did not want to lose so many of its warships and submarines.

Still, the goal for Iran was always to leverage an asymmetric naval blockade strategy in the straight of Hormuz.

And that’s a problem with which the US still has to contend.

Now, Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty pointed that out in a March 12th piece where it noted that Iran’s conventional navy was practically gone, but the threat to the straight of Hormuz wasn’t.

Not a lot has changed at the end of March.

Iran’s fast boats and [ __ ] submarines are still attacking merchant ships in that straight, as are its drones and anti-hship missiles.

It’s not about volume here.

Iran doesn’t need to attack every ship that attempts to move through a waterway that is responsible for the flow of 20% of the world’s oil.

Attacks every so often are enough to make journeys so risky that insurers won’t pay out and ship captains won’t sail.

The first 10,000 strikes crippled Iran’s conventional navy.

The next 10,000 will likely place a bigger focus on the asymmetrical aspects of Iran’s naval approach.

But by now, you may be wondering how all of this is possible for the US.

Yes, it clearly has the dominant air force long before Operation Epic Fury started.

But Iran was supposed to have a layered air defense system that would stop the US in its tracks.

That network failed, and the initial strikes that made up part of the 10,000 were a large part of the reason why.

Air superiority has been achieved.

And the numbers when it comes to Iran’s air defenses reveal all.

Now, as early as March 5th, the IDF was claiming that about 80% of Iran’s air defenses had been taken out of commission, either through direct destruction of the systems themselves or by taking out radars through strikes and cyber attacks.

And at that point, the IDF conducted around 2,500 strikes and expended around 6,000 munitions, which itself gives us an idea of just how many weapons the US may have used in its 10,000 strikes.

Now, some simple math tells us that the US may have used as many as 24,000 munitions to hit the 10,000 target mark, though this assumes that it is using the same amount of munitions as Israel.

Not a huge amount has changed on Iran’s air defense front since.

Not that it really needs to.

With 80% of its network already down, Iran has to resort to attempting to defend its skies with isolated systems that are too spread out and often incapable of dealing with the threat that the US poses from the sky.

This early shattering of Iran’s air defenses has created the air superiority that paved the way for the 10,000 targets hit that Koopa claims.

Now, Kiba also points out that the air superiority has extended to the point where America now has its B-52 bomber force executing a high volume of strikes into Iran and demonstrating our unmatched dominance in the air.

That statement is revealing because the B-52 is far from the most modern bomber that the US has in its arsenal.

First flying in the mid 1950s, the B-52 isn’t stealthy, and it isn’t all that technologically advanced.

What the bomber offers is a ton of storage for munitions that can be dropped in huge volumes in Iran.

If Iran’s air defenses were still viable, this bomber wouldn’t be able to operate in the country’s skies.

The B-52 is too big and too easily spotted, even by the older Russian and Chinese air defense systems that make up Iran’s network.

The fact that it’s flying at all showcases just how comprehensively Iran’s air defenses have been taken out of the game.

And the same could be said of the A-10s and Apache helicopters that the US has deployed in the straight of both of which are able to fly repeated sorties because the threat that Iran poses to them is now limited to a smattering of isolated air defenses.

And with these kinds of airframes in the mix, it’s clear that the US has moved from surgical to sledgehammer in Operation Epic Fury.

 

10,000 targets hit and counting is being made possible because Iran’s air defenses are so weak that the US can deploy non-stalth aircraft with massive payloads into the country.

But there may be a problem with America’s air-based approach.

Earlier in the video, we told you that what comes next on Operation Epic Fury may change everything.

The Guardian puts this more cynically in a March 26th article where it claims that the US may have been under a delusion that an easy air victory was at hand only to find that Iran still has not capitulated to the volume of force of its 10,000 strikes.

In other words, the US may not be able to win through air power alone, no matter how effective that power may have been in terms of destroying Iran’s military infrastructure.

The US may have to follow up and that would mean boots on the ground.

Now, ideally, the US won’t end up sending soldiers into Iran.

Trump himself has already said that Operation Epic Fury is winding down, and there are several off-ramps that the US is trying to make available to Iran.

The 15-point peace plan we mentioned earlier is one of them, as the Trump administration hopes that the damage caused by the US hitting 10,000 targets is enough to cow Iran’s regime into submitting to a peace deal that limits its power and nuclear ambitions.

That deal would also reopen the straight of Hormuz, which is the one major lever that Iran still has in play.

But if that off-ramp doesn’t work, the second offramp was hinted at by the White House press secretary Caroline Levit on March 25th when she said, “President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell.

Iran should not miscalculate again.

” Translation: Agree to the peace plan or the US is sending in the soldiers.

US is already preparing for this possibility and at the time of this video’s creation, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were on route to the Middle East.

The US has also deployed two marine expeditionary units or MEUs, one of which has already arrived alongside an amphibious assault group led by the USS Tripoli.

Now, that means 3,500 American soldiers, including around 2,000 Marines, are already in the Persian Gulf.

The arrival of the second MEU will approximately double those numbers, and there may be as many as 3,000 paratroopers.

This is a ground invasion force, but it’s not one large enough to tackle mainland Iran.

Their likely targets will be the islands in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which the US may aim to control both to forcibly reopen the strait and to place massive pressure on Iran’s economy.

The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has prepared strategies for several weeks of ground operations in Iran, which likely include the seizure of the key Iranian oil hub, K Car Island.

However, Trump has yet to approve these plans.

The US is clearly waiting for Iran’s next move.

Perhaps Iranian Parliament Speaker Muhammad Bara Galibbah has already hinted at what that move will be.

In its March 29th live reporting of operation epic fury, the BBC reported Galibbath has claiming that Iran is waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground so they can re fire upon them.

Now Iran’s strategy then is clear.

Its regime has managed to survive the US hitting 10,000 targets from the air.

Now it’s trying to hold to force a ground operation that increases the risk of the US losing more personnel in Operation Epic Fury.

Boosts on the ground seem almost inevitable unless something drastic changes very soon.

Duran’s regime must remember one thing.

It’s 10,000 strikes in counting, not 10,000 targets and done.

If America’s marines and paratroopers do enter Iranian territory, they’ll likely be doing it under a firestorm of missiles and bombs that will likely target everything from the remains of Iran’s military infrastructure to the soldiers and armor Iran intends to deploy to counter America’s ground forces.

Boots going on the ground could mean big trouble for K Island.

>> When US and Israeli forces began their attack on Iran, there weren’t only Iranian air defenses standing in their way.

Thran also had an exciting ace up its sleeve.

A so-called worldclass air defense weapon provided courtesy of Beijing.

The HQ9B, a variant of the HQ9 longrange surfaceto-air missile system.

Unfortunately for Iran and for China, the system failed to live up to the hype.

It was utterly crushed beneath the weight and intensity of American air strikes, proving to be little more than an expensive and embarrassing flop.

As far as China is concerned, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

The HQ9 is supposed to be one of the flagship products of the Chinese defense sector.

Work began on this system back in the 1970s with full-scale development commencing soon after in the late 1980s.

Since then, several models have been released, including the original HQ9, the naval HHQ9 variant, the slightly improved HQ9A, which entered service in 2001, and the HQ9B, which boasted extended range and improved technologies.

Aside from China, several other nations have invested in and currently operate HQ9 systems, including Pakistan, Egypt, Aabaijan, and Iran.

And it’s easy to see why there’s been so much active interest in this system from various countries across the globe.

As Chinese officials marketed it as a truly world-beating entry into their air defense sector, they claimed that it could perform up to the same standard as the Russian S300, which has long featured in lists of the best air defense systems in existence.

Officials also boasted about the HQ9 surpassing the US Patriot system, another of the world’s top air defenses in certain aspects.

They highlighted its remarkable range with the HQ9B variant able to strike targets at distances of around 160 mi or 260 km, as well as a phased array radar system, giving it the ability to track up to 100 targets all at once and engage anywhere from 6 to 8 simultaneously.

Other key features of the HQ9 include its vertical cold launch and 360° omnidirectional coverage, and its missiles are said to reach speeds in excess of Mac 4 or more than 3,000 mph with warheads weighing close to 400 lb or 180 kg.

In theory, any country using a system like this should find it much easier to defend its airspace and protect its most valuable assets and key infrastructure locations, nullifying the threat of enemy jets, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, too.

China clearly believes in the HQ9 as it uses it to protect several strategic areas within its borders and beyond in places like Beijing, Tibet, and the South China Sea.

But it’s one thing to boast about technical specifications and claim that your system can rival some of the best in the world.

It’s something entirely different to actually put it to the test in realworld combat conditions.

That’s when you find out if the hype was worth it and if a weapon or piece of equipment can truly fulfill its potential or if it’s just a lot of hot air and bluster doomed to fail as the first sign of danger.

And Iran was banking big on the HQ9 being able to stand up and prove its metal when that time finally came.

According to one of the country’s officials, Iran received a significant number of these systems in 2025 in the months following the 12-day war during which Israel and the United States carried out a surprise strike on the country’s nuclear facilities, killing numerous military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, as well as Iranian civilians over the course of less than 2 weeks.

Clearly shaken by that intensive assault on its territory, Iran wanted to step up its defenses in anticipation of another Israeli or American attack.

It not only bought a number of Chinese HQ9 systems, negotiating an oil forarms deal with Beijing to do so, but also set about building a multi-layered air defense network far and wide across its territory.

This network was made up of domestically developed platforms like the Bavar 373 and the Cordad 15 along with imported air defenses like the Russian Pansier S1 and S300.

Iran also had numerous mobile defense systems at its disposal capable of quickly moving from place to place and taking up strategic positions wherever they were needed.

Made up of so much powerful technology, this air defense network could and perhaps should have made Iran’s airspace almost impenetrable, helping the country’s regime guard its most valuable and strategic locations like the Tehran compound of its supreme leader, Ali Kame, and its various nuclear facilities, military bases, and airfields.

And the HQ9 should arguably have been one of the stars of the show, tracking dozens of American and Israeli aircraft and missiles and taking them out one by one with speed and efficiency.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, on February 28th, 2026, the US and Israel began their attack.

Israeli F-15 fighter jets took to the skies, launching Sparrow missiles and other precision munitions at key locations like Ali Ham’s compounds, killing the Supreme Leader in the opening hours of the conflict.

Israel also successfully eliminated numerous other Iranian officials, including the Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, the Iranian Minister of Defense, and some of Ham’s closest advisers.

Meanwhile, US fighters and bombers also penetrated Iranian airspace, carrying out strikes on literally hundreds of targets in a matter of hours.

Locations in more than 20 of Iran’s 31 provinces felt the full force of American bombs and missiles with bases, compounds, infrastructure, and military assets like radars and air defense systems wiped off the map or reduced to smoldering piles of wreckage and rubble.

With every minute that passed, more reports came in of explosions and destruction.

Iran’s assets were being systematically wiped out one by one, and its air defense network, which had been so carefully constructed and was supposed to been able to keep the country safe against attacks of this kind, was nowhere to be seen.

Iran’s commanders never saw it coming.

They knew that they would inevitably suffer some losses due to the sheer intensity of the American and Israeli air strikes, but they at least thought that they’d be able to strike back and dish out some damage to their opponents.

And they were relying on the
HQ9 to make that happen.

It was supposed to be able to detect incoming aerial threats from over 150 mi away.

After all, it should have been able to spot Israeli jets and American missiles many minutes before they made impact, firing its own interceptors with speed and precision to counteract them, saving lives and protecting valuable infrastructure in the process.

Its phased array radar system should have allowed it to lock on and track dozens of enemy assets at once, providing invaluable intelligence to ground teams and other systems, giving Iran the data needed to plan its next steps and execute key counter measures.

Its high-speed missiles, traveling four times faster than the speed of sound and equipped with advanced navigation and homing technologies, should have had little trouble intercepting the enemy’s attacks or blowing American aircraft right out of the skies.

Instead, the HQ9
was rendered almost entirely useless from the very first moments of the fight.

And it’s all because of one massive weakness with this system, its vulnerability to electronic warfare, EW.

According to reports from various news outlets, the US deployed its Boeing EA18G Growler EW aircraft in a bid to jam Iranian radars and air defenses, thereby creating safe pockets and pathways for the jets and bombers to travel through without fear of being fired on.

and taken out.

Many modern air defenses are designed and developed with EW in mind, fitted with their own clever countermeasures to deal with jamming or signal interference.

It seems, however, that the HQ9 was woefully unprepared for this kind of invisible attack, facing intense electromagnetic interference from the Growlers.

The systems communications failed.

They were unable to achieve seamless integration with their command centers, effectively becoming both blind and mute, all in the blink of an eye.

From there, the systems much hyped phased array radars failed to function as they should.

They were supposed to be able to track 100 targets at once, but struggled to even lock onto one.

Interference signals filled their screens with false targets, while real ones in the form of F-35 fighter jets and Tomahawk missiles slip by undetected.

Blinded, paralyzed, and incapable of accurately identifying any enemy targets, let alone firing on them, the HQ9s became little more than extremely expensive, but utterly ineffective lumps of metal.

Easy targets for American and Israeli forces to pick off at their leisure.

And it wasn’t the first time that these systems failed to live up to expectations.

But before we go deeper into that, there’s more where this came from.

So if you’re getting value from the military show, don’t forget to subscribe.

Now, the HQ9’s catastrophic collapse in Iran is actually its second high-profile failure so far.

Back in May 2025, Pakistan deployed some of these systems in order to defend its bases and important infrastructure in key locations like Karachi and the [ __ ] against India’s operation Synindor attacks.

Pakistani commanders hoped that the highly rated Chinese HQ9 would prove tough enough to deal with India’s missile attacks.

They were wrong.

Just like how Israel and the US were able to successfully bombard Iran despite its layered air defense network, the Indian military managed to strike numerous targets across various Pakistani regions, breaking its enemy’s defenses with relative ease.

India made smart use of Israeli EW technologies to jam Pakistan’s radars and communications, rendering at least some of its air defenses, including the HQ9, worthless.

It followed up with a mixture of kamicazi drone attacks and bramos supersonic cruise missile strikes causing widespread devastation.

If China’s claims about the HQ9 were true, then none of this should have happened.

The HQ9 should have had little trouble spotting incoming threats from far away, launching its high-speed missiles to eliminate them.

Instead, its screens were filled with static, its radars went blind, and its missiles failed to launch without any clear targets to actually aim at.

After that incident, those wishing to defend the Chinese systems could have argued that it was a result of operator error or the fact that the HQ9 had been deployed in an unfamiliar setting, very different from where it was originally intended to be used in China.

Now, however, the HQ9 has failed not once, but twice in two very different locations against two very different enemy forces.

That can’t be simply excused or written off as an unfortunate incident.

It’s clear to see that these air defenses, despite all the bluster and boastful comments that have made them sound so impressive, are simply not fit for purpose.

And part of this comes down to experience.

The best air defense systems in the world are those that have proven themselves in real combat conditions again and again.

Israel’s Iron Dome, for example, has withstood numerous attacks from various enemy forces over the years, protecting millions of people in cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and preventing incalcable amounts of damage and destruction.

The US Patriot System 2 has proven to be remarkably effective, having undergone a veritable trial by fire in the Persian Gulf War of the early 1990s, going on to see extended use during the US invasion of Iraq in the 2000s and various other conflicts.

It’s even been used in the Russia Ukraine war, helping Ukraine defend its town, cities, and military sites against Russian missile attacks.

Because these systems have been used so extensively and have so much experience, there’s also vast amounts of relevant combat data that operators can use to inform their future strategies and extract even more value from these air defenses.

This in turn has allowed systems like the Patriot and the Iron Dome to essentially evolve over the ages, getting stronger, smarter, and more efficient.

The HQ9, in stark contrast, enter the air defense arena with no notable experience outside of carefully controlled testing sites like those in China’s Tackla Macan Desert.

there.

It may have proven itself capable of taking out slowmoving drones, flying along pre-programmed trajectories, but that’s simply not the same as having to contend with the real conflict.

With the enemy can deploy a whole host of different weapons against you, with missiles and drones that come from all directions, and with state-of-the-art EW systems doing everything in their power to nullify your offensive capabilities.

Exposed to the real heat and intensity of the battlefields of Pakistan and Iran, the HQ9 was found wanting.

That should be a massive source of concern for all the countries that have invested in Chinese military hardware in recent years and there are a lot of them indeed.

Recent data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which is one of the top research bodies when it comes to conflict and military spending data shows that China is responsible for around 6% of the world’s arms exports.

Maps show that dozens of countries across several continents have bought up various amounts of Chinese weapons and defense systems in recent times.

That includes almost all of Africa as well as large parts of Asia and several countries across Europe and the Americas, too.

Some countries rely almost exclusively on China for their defense.

Pakistan, for example, is Beijing’s best customer, accounting for 63% of Chinese arms exports from 2020 to 2024.

Other countries from Myanmar and Bangladesh in Asia to Nigeria and Algeria and Africa have also bought up large amounts of Chinese drones, tanks, aircraft, armored vehicles, missiles, and small arms.

For many of these countries, which don’t have the same big military budgets as Western nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, buying from China makes a lot of sense.

Chinese systems are typically much more affordable than American, European, or Russian equivalents.

And China does a good job of hyping up its innovations with lofty claims and impressive tech specs.

But as they watch on and witness as China’s HQ9 systems failed to perform as expected, first in Pakistan, then in Iran, those countries that have opted for cheaper Chinese equipment over proven Western alternatives may now start to regret their choices.

Many are likely to be realizing as we speak just how flawed, faulty, and inefficient these pieces of equipment truly are.

That in turn could see some of these nations starting to shift away from importing any additional Chinese weapon systems in the notsodistant future, looking to other countries like Russia or the nations of the European Union to bolster their defenses instead.

That’s bad news for China, and it’s not the only reason why this whole story should have Beijing worried.

The Asian giant has in recent years made a big show of investing heavily in its military and producing more weapons and defensive systems domestically, relying far less on imports from other countries.

It has on numerous occasions shown off its latest missiles and other military innovations at grand parades and defense events, flaunting its technologies in an attempt to intimidate any countries that could dare to oppose it in the future, like
the United States, for example.

But there’s not much point in showing off weapon systems if they turn out to be utterly useless in real combat conditions like the HQ9.

Indeed, high-profile failures like this are not bolstering China’s reputation as a world leader in defense, but fracturing it.

All of a sudden, the Chinese military doesn’t seem as scary or imposing as it has so desperately tried to appear.

Instead, its flaws are being laid bare for all to see.

flaws like haphazard assembly, lowquality electronic components, plagiarized designs, and patchwork blueprints that may look good on paper, but fail to deliver real results where it matters on the battlefield.

Modern warfare demands high-end technology, seamless system integration and software that’s just as advanced as the hardware, allowing weapon systems to not merely pack a punch and fire enormous explosive warheads, but also to withstand the highlevel electronic warfare tactics in
use around the world.

Unfortunately for Beijing, it appears that the weapon systems it’s been working on just aren’t cut out for this kind of combat.

Similar in many ways to Russia, it appears to be being left behind, adearing to outdated philosophies and driven by a desperate desire to constantly create weapons that are bigger, stronger, and faster than those that have come before, but refusing to put in the necessary technical work to make those kinds of weapons actually viable in the conflicts of today.

Because the truth is that it
doesn’t matter how fast a missile can fly if it’s not able to reliably evade enemy defenses.

Nor does it matter how much range an air defense system has or how many targets it can track simultaneously if it doesn’t have worldclass EW defenses and other crucial technologies to protect it when the likes of Growlers come into range.

This is why the HQ9’s failures matter so much.

It’s not just that they allowed American and Israeli missiles to strike Iranian targets, decapitating the country’s regime and eliminating a large part of its defenses.

It’s also about what this means for China moving forward.

The country’s credibility as an arms exporter has taken a huge hit.

For years to come, buyers will look back at this incident and second guessess any potential investment into Chinese hardware.

Allies will be less likely to believe Beijing’s propaganda machine and buy into outlandish claims about the latest missile systems and defenses.

within China, too.

While they may not admit it openly, the country’s commanders will slowly but surely realize that the systems simply aren’t anywhere near as powerful as claimed.

That in turn will make any future military operations of the People’s Liberation Army, like a prospective takeover of Taiwan, much more perilous and riskier.

The myth of Chinese military dominance has been shattered, and there’s no going back from here.

The US has introduced a new airborne strike weapon that has the Russian military panicking because they can’t stop it.

It’s not a new hypersonic missile, directed energy weapon, or other multi-million dollar ultra advanced system.

Although the Russians are distraught about the latest US iterations of those systems as well.

Rather, the weapon in question, the Lucas one-way strike drone, is one of the cheapest strike weapons in the vast US arsenal.

And Russia already has a wellestablished analog of its own.

But the Lucas has a feature that could turn out to be the decisive factor in the war in Ukraine and in a major clash between Russia and the US or NATO.

And to say that the Russians are alarmed about it is putting it mildly.

So let’s take a closer look at the Lucas, that special feature, and how it might change the face of warfare as we know it.

First, Lucas stands for lowcost uncrrewed combat attack system made by innovative US defense contractor Spectre Works in Arizona.

It’s the latest addition to the US’s growing array of advanced unmanned weaponry.

It made its combat debut during the US and Israel’s assault on Iran on February 28, having been revealed the previous July and first showcased in December.

On the face of it, it’s a bit baffling why the Lucas has the Russian military bloggerosphere in such a flap.

The drone joins a growing arsenal of low-end US unmanned strike aircraft, including the Rathon Coyote, Anderil Roadrunner, Switchblade 600, and at a stretch, the BAE Systems APKWS2, a laserg guided rocket conversion kit for 70 mm Hydra 70 unguided rockets.

Like these systems, and as its name indicates, the Lucas is designed to be a lowcost airborne strike weapon.

Navy Captain Tim Hawkins described it as follows.

Costing approximately $35,000 per platform, Lucas is a lowcost scalable system that provides cuttingedge capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional longrange US systems that can deliver similar effects.

Nothing is surprising there.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated unambiguously the impractical cost tokill ratio of using high-end expensive missiles to shoot down much cheaper kamicazi drones.

A Tomahawk missile cost an estimated $2 million.

A Patriot Pack 3 interceptor missile around $4 million.

An AGM 158 Jim ER missile $1.

2 million.

And even a Switchblade 600 drone cost around $120,000.

Compared to those, $35,000 for a Lucas is vastly more affordable.

They’re also much quicker to turn out than any of the aforementioned missiles, making stockpiles easier to grow and replenish.

So, it’s not the use case that’s so innovative.

In fact, superficially, the most distinguishing feature about the Lucas seems to be that it’s a rare modern example of the US reverse engineering a weapon system from a major adversary.

That adversary is Iran.

And the Lucas is a reverse engineered version of Iran’s notorious Shahed 136 drone.

That’s notable because historically it’s usually been the other way around.

As early as the 1970s, Iran reportedly reverse engineered its Tufan anti-tankg guided missile from the US’s BGM 71 tow missile.

Its ALMAS family of advanced missiles was developed by reverse engineering Israeli spike MR missiles captured by Hezbollah in Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon war.

Iran is also believed to have built at least five radar evading drone models like the jetpowered Shahed 171 CMorg by reverse engineering a Loheed Martin RQ 170 Sentinel drone.

The drone had strayed over the border from Afghanistan and landed in Iran in 2011.

The Shahed 136 was almost certainly the product of Iranian reverse engineering itself.

It appears to be derived from the Israeli II harpy anti-raar loitering munition which in turn was derived from a 1980s era German design called D short for the Dron anti-raar or the anti-raar drone.

Now, the US has turned the tables by reverse engineering Iran’s most widely used contribution to modern warfare, the Shahed 136.

And just to rub the irony firmly into Iran’s face, the first use of the Lucas in combat turned out to be against Iran itself.

Back in May 2025, President Donald Trump had praised the Shahed’s quality and cheapness to produce, calling it very good and fast and deadly.

He criticized US manufacturers for not being able to manufacture an equivalent.

Then the US seems to have obtained a down version from Ukraine and reverse engineered it.

Russia has been tormenting Ukraine with large-scale raids by Shahed and it’s domestically produced Jiren analog since 2022.

Ukraine has brought down thousands, however, and at least one intact Shahed seems to have been transferred to the US.

The result is the Lucas, more or less a US analog of the same drone.

The Lucas first appeared as a Spectre Works drone design called the FLM136.

The number is a clear reference to its Iranian roots.

While the exact specifications of the Lucas have not yet been made public, the FLM136 has a stated maximum range of 444 nautical miles and can stay aloft for up to 6 hours.

Its total payload capacity, excluding fuel, is 40 lb, and it cruises at a speed of around 74 knots with a dash speed of up to 105 knots.

The Lucas’ specs likely match or exceed the prototypes, but those are roughly the same specs as the original Iranian Shahed and Russian Jiren, and they’re in some cases inferior.

For example, when Iran debuted the Shahed 136 in 2021, its estimated range was 940 to 1,240 mi, two to three times greater than the FLM136.

And Russia has subsequently introduced more advanced versions of the platform from its massive factory in Alabuga, Tartastan, including the jet powered Jiren 3.

That means the Lucas is hardly an unknown quantity for the Russians.

Russia has launched an estimated 50,000 Jiren Shahed drones at Ukraine since 2022 after all.

So what is it about the Lucas that has the Russian military brass in a cold sweat? In a nutshell, Starlink.

Soon after the news of the US’s use of Lucas drones against Iran broke, Russian military bloggers began sharing footage released in December by the Pentagon of a Lucas based test launch.

In that launch, the US Navy had test fired a Lucas drone from the Independence class literal combat ship USS Santa Barbara.

The bloggers honed in on a telltale communications box on top of the drone.

The box is clearly a terminal for Starlink, or even worse for Russia, the US’s specialist military satellite communications network built on top of Starlink called Star Shield.

Influential Russian Telegram channel Rybar, which has over 1.

5 million subscribers, succinctly summed up the overarching concern.

What was inevitable has happened.

Starlink terminals have been installed on American Garner-like Lucas drones, allowing jeristant communication anywhere in the world where Elon Musk network operates.

What does that mean? Well, according to Rybar, the effectiveness of enemy drone strikes will increase by an order of magnitude.

The obsessed with war channel was just as concerned.

What do we see? They wrote a Starlink receiving antenna which will allow the drone, if it’s not shot down, to be guided precisely to its target while remaining connected until the very last split second.

Now, Starling has already increasingly become a word that causes smoke to come out of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ears.

Starling has long been at the core of Ukrainian military communications, especially on the battlefield.

During 2025, Russia had increasingly been piggybacking on the Starlink system, even introducing Starlink guided geron drones.

That came to an abrupt halt when Starink pulled the plug on Russian Starlink connectivity in February, ending Russian experiments with it, causing chaos as communications crumbled and leading to a stalled offensive and vigorous Ukrainian counterattacks.

But effective as it is as a communications tool, in terms of drones, its greatest value is that Starling guided drones are practically jam-proof.

Now, one of the primary methods of countering drones for both Ukraine and Russia is the use of electronic warfare or EW to jam the signals that guide them to their targets.

Jam signals cause drones to miss, crash harmlessly, or even be redirected and captured by the opposing side.

Most FPB and larger loitering kamicazi drones use GPS or in the Russian case it’s GLONAS analog for guidance.

So both Ukraine and Russia have as a matter of necessity mastered the art of this kind of anti-GPS jamming EW and are constantly refining their capabilities.

According to legendary Ukrainian electronic warfare specialist Seri Basgresnov, also known by the call sign flash, they the Russians captured all types of our main UAVs as trophies.

Of course, they studied all the electronics communication systems inside our UAVs and navigation systems.

But Starlink guided drones are a nightmare for EW systems because as the Russian military bloggers confirm, they’re much much more difficult to bring down than GPS guided drones.

It’s a question of signals.

GPS, Glonass, and other navigation type satellites operate in medium Earth orbit or MO.

That’s around 12,500 mi above the Earth.

There are also relatively small numbers of these satellites in orbit.

31 GPS, 24 GLONAS, 35 Chinese bedu, and 25 of the EU’s Galileo network, respectively.

From such a huge distance away, they transmit relatively low power navigational signals and over narrow bands.

By the time these signals reach ground, they’re weak, and that’s what makes them relatively easy to jam.

Jammers essentially produce signals in the same bands that drown out the GPS signal.

If your jammer delivers more power than the GPS signal at the receiver, it can drown out the GPS signals and cause the drone receiving them to veer off course or crash.

On a front line, as long as the one in Ukraine, you don’t need huge signal producing jammers for effective EW across a wide area.

That’s not how it works.

What you really need is a range of jammers powerful enough to drown out GPS signals and spread out across the front lines.

Russia’s solution has been to develop a fleet of mobile truck mounted jammers like the R330 ZH Zaitel 1RL257 Kushuka 4 and RB 341V Lear 3.

They’ve proven pretty effective against drones and even GPSG guided missiles like the JDAM whose signals fall squarely within the Zaitel’s range.

Now those are the kind of details that make the military show stand out from other military themed channels.

Subscribe to the channel and make sure you enable notifications so you never miss out on the latest news from the most important hotspots on the planet.

Now, Ukraine is constantly changing the frequencies it uses to guide drones, as is Russia, creating a never-ending game of measures and counter measures as both sides adapt.

Sometimes the drones of one side have the upper hand while the other side figures out how to adjust its jamming counter measures.

Or as the Russian commander Ishtuganov puts it, the enemy plays with frequencies.

We reconfigure our electronic warfare systems.

The enemy begins to suppress us with electronic warfare.

We switch to other frequencies.

All of this is made possible by the weak signals from those faroff MO satellites.

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