Images geolocated by NBC News showed a command and control E-3 Sentry jet heavily damaged after the Iranian strike that also wounded soldiers.
The destruction by Iran of a warning and control system aircraft on an American base in Saudi Arabia on Friday could affect the U.S. military’s ability to monitor threats — and raises questions around its preparedness for a “longer war,” experts say.
Images verified by NBC News after they surfaced online appear to show much of the back end of the E-3 Sentry jet was destroyed at the Prince Sultan Air Base, the tail lying at an angle on the ground surrounded by debris.
Several American service members were injured in Friday’s strike on the facility, which sits around 80 miles southeast of the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh. At least one aircraft was also damaged in the strike, two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed to NBC News.
They wanted to replace them with E-7As anyway. Last time I checked they planned to buy 26 of those
Losing a vital plane now when you are at war then it doesn’t really matter if it might get replaced sometime far in the future
Yeah I know, I just don’t think E-3s should be mourned lol, let alone in this war
You should become Trump advisor, you seem to know how to fight wars, and how to relativize losses to make them sound less bad. /s
The bar is so low I’d need to get a pickaxe to even hope to see it lol
How about this? “With every US loss the hope for a less militarized US grows”
But have they? And how soon until they are operational?
They can want to procure a lot of planes, ships, etc. But it means nothing until they are in hand and troops are trained on the new systems. We shouldn’t down play the USA taking loses when there is the potential for a wider conflict.
Thanks to the streamlined procurement process it will arrive on time in 2027, and then only be delayed another 10 years to allow the budget to balloon by 600% with a full 50% of the systems functioning 30% of the time. The Maintenance requirements will be 250% higher and only cost 75% more. But don’t worry, the mark II version shares 23% of the parts and performs 7% better. At which point, it will almost match the previous capabilities 80% of the time except in the weird fringe category that isn’t tactically relevant anymore.
Taking unnecessary losses. This is one guy who started this, followed by a bunch of yes-men and wanna-be profiters. There was no need for this at all. Yet here we are, and it isn’t going to suddenly go away, even with the most optimistic of efforts (which is not at all what is being tried).
Not my intention to downplay. I think it’s less likely they’ll bother repairing this E-3 if they’re set on getting new toys, it’s probably about as expensive. And considering it’s Boeing I don’t expect it to be quick with either option