[Culled]
The state of Israel has shown the ‘power’ of F-35s when it destroyed almost all of Iran’s air defenses without a loss, UK admiral says.
The top military officer from United Kingdom confirmed Israel used F-35s during its October strikes against Iran.
Israel showed the “power” of the F-35 stealth fighter jet during its late October retaliatory strikes against Iran, Britain’s top military officer said on Wednesday.
Adm. Tony Radakin, the UK’s chief of defense staff, disclosed that Israel used its F-35s to carry out the widespread October 26 strikes against military sites across Iran, including air-defense systems and facilities for missile manufacturing.
This disclosure is a first confirmation from any Western government that Israel had used its fifth-generation aircraft in the operation, which came in response to a massive Iranian missile attack at the start of the month.
It was reported at the time that Israel flew its F-35s and fired air-launched ballistic missiles.
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“Israel used more than 100 aircraft, carrying fewer than 100 munitions, and with no aircraft getting within 100 miles of the target in the first wave, and that took down nearly the entirety of Iran’s air-defense system,” Radakin said during a Royal United Services Institute lecture in London.
“It has destroyed Iran’s ability to produce ballistic missiles for a year and left Tehran with a strategic dilemma in how it responds. That is the power of fifth-generation aircraft, combined with exquisite targeting and extraordinary intelligence,” Radakin said. “And that was all delivered from a single sortie.”
He said the operation demonstrated the “disproportionate advantage of modern ways of fighting.”
The Israel Defense Forces has yet to give a response when contacted about Radakin’s remarks.
The F-35 is a single-engine, multi-role stealth aircraft made by the US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. There are several variants of the fighter jet, which took its first flight nearly 20 years ago and is now flown by a handful of countries around the world.
Israel was the first to use the F-35 in combat in 2018. It operates just under 40 F-35I jets, a subvariant of the F-35A model, though this fleet is set to expand to 75 in the coming years.
The F-35I is Israel’s only fifth-generation aircraft. It also has older, American-made F-16 and F-15 fighter jets.
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