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The real air supremacy story
American Thinker ^ | 4 Apr, 2026 | J.R. Dunn

Posted on 04/04/2026 4:50:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Legacy media is doing what it does best – spread misinformation and confusion – in regard to Friday’s downing of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle in western Iran.

Legacy media is doing what it does best -- spread misinformation and confusion -- in regard to Friday’s downing of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle in western Iran. According to the usual suspects, this means that America has lost “air supremacy” and marks the moment when the tide turns completely in Iran’s favor and, sweeping all before them, enables them to achieve absolute victory by Sunday. Monday at the latest.

In truth, air supremacy (sometimes called “air dominance”) has nothing to do with anti-aircraft fire or the losses that it can incur. The USAF considers air supremacy to be the highest level of air superiority, when air assets can operate without meaningful opposition from enemy air forces. What this means is that the enemy will choose not to confront your air assets at all and will instead run like the wind, as has currently occurred in Iran. (With air superiority, while enemy aviation may attack, they can be easily dealt with and chased back where they came from.)

This does not mean that the enemy is totally helpless. If they possess anti-aircraft cannon and missiles, as the Iranians do, they can shoot down attacking aircraft, as we saw on Friday. But what does this have to do with air supremacy? Absolutely nothing. There is no way that flak (as the Germans called it) can dispute air dominance by a superior air force. In late 1944, when the U.S. achieved air superiority over Hitler’s Luftwaffe (apart from a handful of Me-262 jets), German flak was still taking down hundreds of Allied aircraft. In response, the USAAF assigned several wings of heavy bombers

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: albertatroll; cheeringforiran; domesticenemies; enemedia; iran; media; mediabias; msm; tds
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To: Alberta's Child

You are outdoing yourself as a TDS sufferer.


41 posted on 04/04/2026 9:28:10 AM PDT by central_va (I won’t be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Alberta's Child

“You will convince me that the U.S. is waging a necessary, existential war when I see Barron Trump and a bunch of Donald Trump’s older grandchildren in military uniforms.”

That isn’t even an attempt at logic. Seriously?

Hint: My kids went to the Middle East, as I did. The daughters of GWB did not, but that didn’t make us wrong.

Heck, the large majority of Americans don’t volunteer for the military, and certainly the very wealthy rarely do. That reflects badly on them, but has nothing to do with the morality or NECESSITY of any given war.

Remember how unpopular Vietnam was? Yet it was part of the 50 year Cold War that brought down the Soviet Union and freed East Germany and Poland, among others. It wasn’t the Poles or Germans who defeated the USSR....

Part of what makes the USA the greatest country on Earth!


42 posted on 04/04/2026 9:33:08 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
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To: spetznaz
and the combat losses/casualties on the US side are super low.

I like to compare the war in Iran to the casualty rate in Chicago, which the MSM ignores.

The total casualties for the month of March in the windy city are 39 shot and killed and another 107 shot and wounded.

Year to date: 94 shot and killed, and another 296 shot and wounded.

43 posted on 04/04/2026 9:41:49 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: Mr Rogers
My kids went to the Middle East, as I did. The daughters of GWB did not, but that didn’t make us wrong.

Maybe you should go back and see what Donald J. Trump had to say about U.S. military engagements in the Middle East before 2026.

HINT: It directly ties to the earliest entry on my profile page ...

I voted for Donald Trump because I was tired of draft-dodging Ivy League globalist pr!cks running this nation’s foreign policy. Anyone who still thinks the invasion of Iraq was a good idea shouldn’t even be allowed to clean the toilets in the White House.

44 posted on 04/04/2026 9:52:20 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: All
This does not mean that the enemy is totally helpless. If they possess anti-aircraft cannon and missiles, as the Iranians do, they can shoot down attacking aircraft, as we saw on Friday.

This is what President Trump said on Wednesday night:

"They have no anti-aircraft equipment, their radar’s 100% annihilated, we are unstoppable as a military force."

As Rush said, "Words means things". Hyperbole to the American public is not necessary to make the case for war with Iran. Yet, the hyperbole continues.

45 posted on 04/04/2026 10:15:05 AM PDT by Fury
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To: Alberta's Child

Why are you helping to undermine Trump?


46 posted on 04/04/2026 10:34:52 AM PDT by TexasGator (-11..)
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To: spetznaz

It may require a limited incursion. I wouldn’t rule it out completely. Enough to require Iran’s dispersed forces to concentrate in the manner of the early part of the Afghan war so they can be blown up more efficiently.

Year U.S. Fatalities
2001 *12
2002 49

The vast majority of the fatalities occurred during the “screwing around” phase.

2009 317
2010 499
2011 418
2012 310

Likewise, in Iraq, the actual warfighting phase had about half the annual fatalities as the “occupation” phase.


47 posted on 04/04/2026 10:43:03 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: TexasGator
Why are you helping to undermine Trump?

1. I'm not.

2. To the extent I vehemently disagree with him, I'm setting him straight and reminding him what got him to where he is now.

He's not omnipotent and he's not infallible. It is utterly dangerous to this country and to our political cause when we treat him that way.

48 posted on 04/04/2026 10:46:40 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: Alberta's Child

Your setting bom straight? LOL! When is therapy starting? Sooner the better.


49 posted on 04/04/2026 10:52:11 AM PDT by central_va (I won’t be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Alberta's Child

Guess you proved you are wrong about a lot of things. Including believing that Donald Trump was an isolationist.


50 posted on 04/04/2026 10:52:58 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
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To: MtnClimber

RE: air supremacy over Europe in WWII, the strategery of the air campaign changed after the Tehran Conference and the tentative date for Operation Overlord was set.

The Allies’ emphasis no longer would be using bomber missions to neutralize Germany’s war industry, the new emphasis was on depleting the Luftwaffe’s complement of fighter pilots by using bomber missions to lure them out ... and kill them. That was when Allies’ escort fighter pilots were given a blanket order to leave the bombers once they’d delivered their bomb loads and turn their attentions to hunting and killing every Nazi in the air.

Germany had been building a corps of combat-experienced pilots since 1937. But on 6 June 1944, only 1% of Luftwaffe’s remaining fighter pilots had flown a combat mission before 1 Jan 1944. In the five months since New Years Day, the Allies had wiped out the Nazi’s wealth of combat-experienced aviators, killing 99% of all Luftwaffe pilots who were flying before 1944. Those left had little flying experience, and far less combat flying experience.

So the Allies didn’t achieve air supremacy by shooting down German planes faster than the Germans could build them (they still had planes to spare). Instead, the Allies minimized the threat to D-Day from the Luftwaffe by killing its pilots faster than they could grow new ones with combat experience.


51 posted on 04/04/2026 10:53:58 AM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: Tallguy

every administration since 1945 has sought ways around asking for that consent.


More properly, a declaration of war changes the legal system in ways that no President wants to add into the costs of the war. That a President can launch attacks on perceived enemies/threats has been well established since Jefferson - but a Declaration of War is something else, and our education system hasn’t bothered to address that. Think suspension of habeas corpus, death penalty for a variety of crimes, enhanced penalties against military members, and a wide variety of additional controls authorized while under a War Declaration. Really, that is most of what a Declaration of War gets you.

If we decided “Hey, let us take Mexico and keep it”, that would require a declaration of war. If the cartels attack across the border, or even attack Americans in a resort town in Aruba, that is long established (1801) as not requiring a declaration of war.


52 posted on 04/04/2026 10:56:32 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: lepton

Good post. I would say the biggest distinction is that a nation like ours is set up to declare war to defend a sovereign country from foreign adversaries. These other military campaigns are designed to have the U.S. take sides in civil wars all over the globe in places that don’t threaten us in any way.


53 posted on 04/04/2026 11:00:45 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: Mr Rogers
All I wanted from him was a President who wasn’t George W. Bush.

Up until 2025 I’d say most Freepers agreed with me. Now I know that’s not true, because I’m going through the same nonsense with these geriatric parrots that I was going through in 2003.

54 posted on 04/04/2026 11:05:25 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: Hot Tabasco

I like to compare the war in Iran to the casualty rate in Chicago, which the MSM ignores.


I recall doing an analysis of death rates and finding that during the battle fighting part of the Iraq war, the death rate for soldiers in Iraq was roughly equal to being just 38 in New Jersey. I also analyzed the death rate compared to being a 20-year old driver in NJ and it wasn’t all that different.


55 posted on 04/04/2026 11:07:15 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Alberta's Child
Now I know that’s not true, because I’m going through the same nonsense with these geriatric parrots that I was going through in 2003.

Sounds like you're sucking up to Macron now. You hoping for a French kiss?

When this is over, which it will be soon and you Canadians and the rest of the world give a sigh of relief, are you going to admit you're wrong?

And for the record, you stinking Canadians purchased all of the 500 metric tons of Yellow Cake uranium that Iraq wasn't supposed to have, and the US shipped it to you.......So there's that...

Pentagon announces 500 tons of Uranium shipped from Iraq to Canada

500 tons of uranium shipped from Iraq, Pentagon says

And the chemical weapons you and the rest of the Iraq war deniers claimed Hussein never had.......

Syria's Chemical Weapons Came From Saddam's Iraq

Neither one of those stories made it to the MSM, clearly for a reason........

56 posted on 04/04/2026 12:06:37 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: Alberta's Child

“THAT is the political environment today. And I know this because this is why millions of Americans voted for Trump in the first place.”


Dumb argument, as usual from you.
A majority of Americans and a super majority of Republicans agree with Trump on this war. They saw how Trump dealt with the Maduro marxist regime.


57 posted on 04/04/2026 12:25:36 PM PDT by miniTAX
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To: Hot Tabasco
Dude:

Go read those "sources" you cited and tell me how reliable you'd consider them if they all said the exact opposite.

And then after what we've witnessed in the "U.S. intelligence community" over the last ten years, please explain to me why any American should consider anyone in the U.S. government a reliable source about ANYTHING.

P.S. -- I am not a Canadian.

58 posted on 04/04/2026 12:26:49 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: miniTAX
A majority of Americans and a super majority of Republicans agree with Trump on this war.

Maybe you should go back to the spring of 2003 and see how many Americans supported the invasion of Iraq. Public support for the war was stronger then than it is now.

And five years later, that retarded baboon GWB left the White House in such ignominious disgrace that his family name has been poison on the American political scene ever since.

P.S. -- You can even go back through the FR archives and find that I was saying the exact same thing about Iraq that I am now saying about Iran.

59 posted on 04/04/2026 12:30:01 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (If I leave here, it’s because I’m tired of arguing with geriatric parrots wearing MAGA hats.)
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To: Alberta's Child

“You can even go back through the FR archives and find that I was saying the exact same thing about Iraq that I am now saying about Iran.”


So you mean you KNOW a majority of Americans are for Trump’s war yet, you didn’t hesitate to lie by implying that the current political environment is against Trump’s war, yeah, got it.

And you talk nonsense all the time, who cares about the supposed reliability of your sooth sayings, let alone ones 20 years ago?


60 posted on 04/04/2026 12:38:24 PM PDT by miniTAX
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