Trump: "The Big Wave" of Attacks on the Islamic Regime Occupying Iran Hasn't Even Started Yet
Speculation: The "Ground Forces" Phase of This War May Be Fought Entirely With Drone Hunter-Killers

Via Instapundit, from CNN:

"We're knocking the crap out of them," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I think it's going very well. It's very powerful. We've got the greatest military in the world and we're using it."

Trump addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the expected length of the conflict, his surprise at Iran's widespread retaliation and the country's expected succession plan.

On how long the war might last, the president said, "I don't want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we're a little ahead of schedule."

Asked if the US is doing more beyond the military assault to help the Iranian people regain control of their country from the regime, Trump said, "Yes."

"We are indeed. But right now we want everyone staying inside. It's not safe out there."

And it's about to get even less safe, the president said.

"We haven't even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn't even happened. The big one is coming soon."

Why is Trump even talking to this shitlipped gayboy?

It's literally true that the "big wave" hasn't started yet, or has only barely started.

The first waves of the attack were Tomahawk missiles and then stealth fighters. Those attacks degraded Iran's radars, air bases, and fighter fleet, so that the later waves could include B-2 bombers dropping tons of explosives.

I saw a report that B-2s already flew from Missouri to start blowing up Iran's underground stores of ballistic missiles. I imagine Trump is suggesting that we're going to get more and more B-2 strategic bombing.

Iran's ballistic missiles are its most dangerous weapon at the moment. Both the US and Israel are working hard to take them out:

After all of Iran's air capabilities and ballistic missiles are taken out, I imagine the war will then turn to killing the Revolutionary Guard and the riot police and the remaining thugs.

Now, I had thought that there was no way to win a war without ground forces. I didn't envision the US or Israel sending ground forces. I imagined that we would have to start air-dropping in tons of guns, grenades, and encrypted radios so that the population could arm itself in preparation for street fighting.

They may still do that.

But there might also be a way to fight ground forces... with air power.

In the Ukraine, drones have proven to be the most deadly weapon in the war. It's the new artillery. Artillery, historically, had been the part of the military that actually killed the most enemy forces.

But instead of lobbing huge shells, the new drone warfare consists of using $10,000 to $40,000 drones to carry grenades and repurposed landmines directly over vehicles and groups of enemy soldiers, and then dropping that small munition with pinpoint accuracy. If you're extreme accurate, you can kill a lot of people with a tiny amount of explosives. (If you're inaccurate, you need to drop huge bombs with a huge blast radius.)

I saw one drone attack in Ukraine in which the drone dropped a landmine through the open sunroof of a Russian SUV, killing all four people in the vehicle. Drones routinely drop grenades on soldiers taking cover behind walls or in ditches. You can't take cover from them. They have changed the geometry of the battlefield.

Over the weekend, Iranian "Riot Police" -- thugs and torturers, in other words -- rode their motorcycles into the city to attempt to reclaim it from protesters.

Had they made it to the protesters, they would have slaughtered them.

But they were attacked by a drone:

So is this the Trump/Israeli warplan? First take out all strategic threats with missiles and heavy bombs, and then shift to a tactical counter-infantry war by just killing every Regime enforcer they see with drones?

I think it must be.

Iran has thousands of drones. Those are knock-offs of more expensive American drones.

But Pete Hegseth -- who I was assured was an incompetent drunk and meathead -- did something clever. He ordered up new drone designs which are knock-offs of the Iranian knock-offs of the American originals -- and the new knock-offs are half as expensive as the Iran-made knock-offs.

They only cost $35,000 each. We can flood the country with thousands of these Hunter-Killer Terminators without any Americans being exposed to enemy fire.

VodkaPundit:

In July of 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth headed up a Pentagon event showing off 18 American-made drone prototypes, that had gone from drawing board to development in just an average of 18 months. By comparison, the Navy's F/A-XX to replace the aging F/A-18 multirole jets with a modern platform started in 2012, and they haven't even chosen a design.

One of the prototypes shown off by Hegseth looked more than a little familiar to anyone following the Russo-Ukraine War drone campaign, because it was a virtual copy of Iran's infamous Shahed drone, now made in Russia, too, and manufactured in the thousands. Only this one is made in Arizona by a startup called SpektreWorks.

They cost roughly $35,000 apiece and have an attack range of roughly 450 miles.

...

At the time, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael told reporters, "It's an extraordinary achievement. This kind of thing was going to take five, six years."

...

Trump called it "unleashing American drone dominance," and not even a year later, here we are.

On Saturday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that LUCAS flew in combat for the first time during Operation Epic Fury, not much longer than two years after SpektreWorks began developing them: "Task Force Scorpion Strike, for the first time in history, is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury. These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran's Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution."

"For the price of a single Tomahawk, you can launch 57 LUCAS drones," analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera posted over the weekend.

More:

U.S. Central Command officials have confirmed that airstrikes launched on Iran on Saturday involved the first combat use of the U.S. military's new autonomous kamikaze drone.

The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS drone, was launched as part of Operation Epic Fury, which targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, CENTCOM officials announced.

...

The LUCAS platform is a one-way attack drone reverse-engineered after the Iranian Shahed-136.

Built by the Arizona-based SpektreWorks, the drone, which can be launched via catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff and mobile ground systems, is a spinoff of the company's FLM 136 target model, one designed for counter-drone training while simulating Iran's Shahed variant.

The FLM 136 model carries a range capability of around 500 miles, with a maximum payload of 40 pounds, or "roughly twice the explosive yield of a hellfire missile," according to Alex Hollings, host of Sandboxx News' FirePower.

With a maximum takeoff weight of 180 pounds, the FLM 136 is significantly lighter than the Iranian Shahed. The platforms are also immensely more cost-effective -- and scalable -- compared to the more advanced munitions in the U.S. arsenal, carrying a price tag of around $35,000 per unit.

...

"To simulate the modern battlefield, senior officers must overcome the bureaucracy's instinctive risk-aversion on everything from budgeting to weaponizing and training," Hegseth wrote in the July memo. "Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars."

What an incompetent drunken meathead.

Update:

Those Shahed style drones are not suitable for targeting personnel. They are meant for fixed targets. Enter the GPS coordinates and send them off on thier own.

-- Serious Cat

Ah maybe, yes, I guess these particular drones are "kamikazee drones," which fly into their target and blow up.

But I imagine we have a lot of the kind they use in Ukraine for anti-personnel missions. Those are store-bought commercial drones lightly modified for military use. They cost like $5,000.

Speculation: The "Ground Forces" Phase of This War May Be Fought Entirely With Drone Hunter-Killers&bodytext=Via Instapundit, from CNN: "We're knocking the crap out of them," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I think it's going very well. It's very powerful. We've got the greatest military in the world and we're using it." Trump addressed a...&topic=world_news"> posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:46 PM

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