Many US ships do have anti-missile systems. It would need to be the right kind of ships obviously, carriers can perform this obvious, aegis cruisers are specialized at it so they can as well. And enough or the right kind of missiles can get through much of the time.

It will be really interesting to see if Iran can make good on its threats in a sustained way. If they can the US is in a pretty bad spot in a lot of ways. Still I expect the US will goad a couple of ships to try, if even some ships get through Trump will be leaning heavily on those countries to keep the ships running even if they're taking losses. At a certain point the countries will likely get a spine and explain ship replacement lead times are too much and they have to stop sending them because if they don't they'll be stuck with inadequate shipping capacity for years after this conflict. At that point we really enter the cool zone.

[–] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I guess for some reason I just assumed they had guarantee kill hypersonic missiles but I guess I haven't heard anything specifically about Iran having those

[–] MarxMadness@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Iran might have hypersonics? Trying to remember the news I've seen in the past few years, and of course the secrecy makes the magin of error huge.

If they do, I can see a few reasons for not using them already:

Maybe they don't have a bunch, and think they can fight off the U.S. without using them. And if they use them all and the U.S. keeps at it, that's not good.
Maybe they are less "guaranteed" and more "high success," and the odds of success improve if you deplete a bunch of anti-missle defenses first.
Iran is fighting two nuclear-armed countries that have very recently shown they don't care about civilian deaths at all. Trading Tehran for an aircraft carrier is not something Iran wants to do.

[–] Lussy@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think it’s 3, it’s reflected by their diplomacy in the past. The entities are fucking psycho and will gladly glass the entire region.

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

I would imagine that hypersonic missiles have reduced payload. I don't know if the physicis situation behind them is widely known. It doesn't seem to be talked about in the same way conventional arms are