And fired Iran Last April 13, more than 300 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles were launched, in an attack that was much larger than expected. US ArmyAccording to CNN.
Fighter pilot Benjamin Coffee, nicknamed “Irish,” said that he did not expect to run out of missiles while confronting the Iranian attack on Israel.
According to CNN, Coffee reported that he and his colleague, weapons systems officer, Captain Lacey Hester, nicknamed “Sonic,” received instructions to use all available weapons to confront the attack.
Covey and Hester described how they flew near one of the… Iranian drones At an altitude well below the safe limit for an F-15, they used the cannon in an extremely dangerous maneuver as darkness prevailed against a target that could barely be seen.
Kofi explained: “You feel the rush of the terrain, and that you are getting closer and closer to the ground. The risk was too great to try again after we failed the first time in shooting down the Iranian march.”
CNN indicated that the pilots, technical officers, and crews on the ground who participated in the operation described their feelings. With exhaustion At times while repelling this massive Iranian attack, which was the US Air Force’s first real test against a large-scale, sustained attack using drones, the fighters remained in the air for hours throughout that night.
Another challenge was revealed by Colonel Curtis Culver, nicknamed “Voodoo,” who said that the most effective weapons of fighter jets against Iranian drones were being quickly exhausted.
“That night, the mission was to shoot down the drones with whatever weapons we had available to protect our ally,” Culver added. “We ran out of missiles very quickly, maybe 20 minutes.”
He pointed out that the next mission, more difficult after that, was landing at the American military base, where Iranian missiles and drones intercepted by air defense systems exploded.PatriotAt the base, debris rained down on the runways.
Some fighter planes were forced to land with a missile hold, an emergency situation in which a missile is launched, but it malfunctions and no actual explosion occurs.
On the ground, troops were advised to head to bunkers, but many did not, remaining focused on getting planes back into the air to continue the fight.
For his part, Pilot Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Causey said that fighter pilots did not have enough time to train before that, adding that “attack marches represent a low cost and low risk for the enemy to use them. They can send huge quantities of them, and we have to confront them to protect civilians and protect our allies. We had not We have started practicing extensively yet.”
