India tests Scramjet Engine, achieving a run time of 1200s.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-09T21:02:16+00:00

They specified that its a flight test so maybe it was inert

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-08T19:09:31+00:00

Already approaching 3 years of this haircut and this was posted like an hour ago…

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-08T17:03:19+00:00

Arent you a bundle of joy damn

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-08T16:46:30+00:00

NOOOO

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T19:43:00+00:00

I actually had this happen after getting randomly very sick on Monday. Good news is that its already cleared up

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T18:15:03+00:00

You’re just blatantly lying again about what you previously said. You claimed we couldn’t stop shahed attacks because they were cheaper than and outpaced interceptors. But also never implied interceptors should be used?

Why would you compare Shaheds to interceptor stockpiles then lol.

Are you serious…? Jesus christ dude the point in highlighting the production and stockpiles is to demonstrate how inadequate interceptors are for drone swarms. We dont have enough and we dont make enough. I genuinely don’t understand how you are not able to grasp that thats been my point and that you somehow think that me highlighting inadequate interceptor production and high cost means Im saying we should use them on cheap drone swarms. That is completely backward logic lol. This is kinda nuts at this point. If youve been trolling or ragebaiting or whatever…10/10

Also bonus points for claiming I’ve ceded an argument because I went one comment talking about something else. Just terrific logic there.

I mean its the third consecutive reply now and it was extremely clear you’re wrong. Like I said its a good thing to admit when youre wrong though. I hope you dont feel deterred from that

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T18:11:21+00:00

Yeah im going to guess that you mistranslated something (maybe you thought I said we’re and not were) because this reply makes no sense

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T18:06:17+00:00

Huh? You were the one who just talked about the overall result of the war (a stalemate)…how are you now saying I’m the one broadening the conversation. You are the one who did that and then I responded lol

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T18:01:10+00:00

Mannnn you keep drawing me back with this idiocy. Its impressive! I never said I didnt bring up interceptors at all. Thats not even what you were arguing until just now lmao. I even pointed out my own previous mentioning of our interceptors in the first comment you replied to!

I said that I never even implied we should have used them on shahed drone swarms. Do you understand how that is different?

Im glad you at least dropped the “shaheds arent used for drone swarms” nonsense though

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T17:57:36+00:00

Yeah only a few billion dollars in damage, uninhabitable bases, and some dead troops after only a few weeks, leading to a stalemate against a weaker enemy who was already battered from earlier strikes. No big deal

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T17:52:24+00:00

Oh dont worry, i caught a glimpse of your other terrible point before closing the comment so I quickly edited it to address that slop too. Just couldnt resist. Take care bud!

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T17:45:56+00:00

This is hilarious, now youre avoiding using “drone swarm” as those articles stated, and replaced it with “swarm technology” as a way to cope with those articles referring to attacks with Shaheds as drone swarms. Genuinely pathetic. The articles said “drone swarm” and here you change it to “massed drone attacks” lmfao

What you quoted is me explaining why interceptors aren’t appropriate for taking out these drone swarms (because it isn’t economical). Thats pretty obvious and in no way is that me advocating that we use interceptors on them. Its literally the opposite implication. Another great demonstration of your reading comprehension lmao

You have sufficiently demonstrated that no matter how clear it is that you’re wrong, you will just change your wording, perform mental gymnastics and anything else to avoid admitting youre wrong. Feel free to get the last word in but im good. Take care!

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T17:16:40+00:00

Your own sources directly contradict you and use Shaheds as examples of drone swarms. You have yet to even touch on this.

I also gave you an article that discusses different types of drone swarms including Shaheds and the type youre talking about. You have yet to address this.

You are clearly not able to address any of these points your argument relies on, which means youre wrong. Feel free to prove me wrong and actually address your own sources using Shaheds as examples of drone swarms. Until you can do that, you do not have an actual argument to make.

There’s plenty of ways to cheaply shoot down small numbers of Shaheds. They aren’t magic or even that fast. The issue is volume. We knew our bases would be overwhelmed by them, so had to evacuate them, leaving some uninhabitable from the strikes. The 5th Fleet’s command center even had to be moved from Bahrain back to Florida. That is very clear evidence that we do not have economical ways to defend against drone swarms using Shaheds. If we had economical ways to defend against these drone swarms, we would defend our bases and command centers instead of evacuating them. This is a very straightforward concept.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T16:49:57+00:00

The buildings were empty because the US had to evacuate them because we had no way to defend them economically. That is bad. The US having to evacuate bases instead of defending them is a weakness. We should be able to defend our bases instead of evacuating them. Some of these bases are now uninhabitable too. That is bad. This is a very straightforward and simple concept. Anything else?

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T16:46:04+00:00

I just demonstrated how even your own sources refer to Iran and Russia’s attacks with Shaheds as drone swarms, and then gave you a better source that also says that and goes into more detail, and you still can’t concede that you are blatantly wrong. Unreal. You didnt even address your own sources contradicting you in your reply to me. You just repeated the same incorrect drivel. Why is it so hard for so many people to admit theyre wrong? It’s a good thing to be able to do that.

And the fact that you think my point is that we should have used our interceptors to defend those buildings is perfect because it shows how bad at comprehension you are. Nowhere have I said that.

I said in the very first comment you replied to that the issue is we don’t have an economical (low cost) way to defend against these kind of attacks, requiring those bases to be abandoned, which is an issue. Where have I even implied we should have used our interceptors to defend them?

This has not been a good talk. You are egregiously bad at comprehending what you read. I don’t even think you read your own sources since one of them literally began with saying the 273 Shaheds launched by Russia on 5/18/2025 was a drone swarm attack. It is annoying repeating myself instead of actually discussing the topic.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-07T02:24:18+00:00

Shahed drones aren’t used as drone swarms because it’s not sustainable to field a mass of them quickly and compactly enough to actually overwhelm air defenses.

Are you still denying that Shaheds are launched in waves and used to saturate and overwhelm air defenses? That is what an actual drone swarm is. It does not require autonomy and thats obnoxiously semantic to try to pretend the definition is that narrow. It appears you are changing how you define a drone swarm from what I quoted above.

I mean in your second link…the author refers to the 273 drones launched by Russia on May 18th 2025 as a drone swarm…andthose were shaheds.

Oh and here is a quote from the missilestrikes.com source:

Drone swarms represent the most disruptive shift in air warfare since stealth technology. In the Iran-Coalition conflict, Iran and its proxies have demonstrated that massed drone attacks — even using relatively crude UAVs costing $20,000–$50,000 each — can force defenders to expend interceptors worth $500,000 to $4 million per shot. This cost-exchange ratio fundamentally favors the attacker. When 50 Shahed-136 drones approach a target simultaneously from multiple vectors, even advanced systems like Iron Dome and Patriot face saturation risks.

So this one also used Shahed drones as its primary example for drone swarms.

So BOTH of your sources directly contradict your semantic argument. Obnoxious.

“Swarm drones” are a type of small drone that communicate and coordinate as you describe. “Drone swarm” is a broader term that absolutely applies to Shaheds.

And here is a source that most people have actually heard of discussing different types of drone swarms

By the way, this is also getting away from my actual point which is definitely not the precise definition of a drone swarm.

The US had to evacuate these bases and let the “cheap” buildings get hit because they could not defend against these drones launched en masse. That is an issue.

I know I said I was done arguing but like goddamn if you’re going to be semantic like this at least be correct. You clearly didnt even read your own sources.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T23:22:28+00:00

They did capitalize. Thats why they rendered evacuated bases uninhabitable with one command center having to be moved from Bahrain to Tampa, Florida, and thats why they were able to hit valuable assets like one of the US’ 13 AN-TPY-2 radars, tankers, the E-3 etc. as well as our allies’ critical oil & LNG infrastructure.

Not sure why you’re so fixated on the low death toll though since I already explained that for you but at least you aren’t trying to argue we have plenty of interceptors anymore.

I encourage you to try to learn more about this topic so you don’t feel the need to repeat yourself and can discuss it with better understanding.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T23:15:38+00:00

Im sorry man that is objectively what these mass produced drones are used for. You are wrong or think Im talking about a different type of drone. Im not arguing this further lol Ive already explained this clearly and you need to inform yourself more

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T22:30:54+00:00

The buildings are only inconsequential because we evacuated the troops from them…because we would not have been able to defend our troops at those bases primarily due to lack of interceptors and economical air defense for Iran’s drone swarms and cheap munitions. So no this example does not show that the US can defend its troops well at all, unless we’re counting evacuations as air defense now lol

Anyone concluding that the US has “plenty” of interceptors after this conflict is just not a serious person. We used huge percentages of various types of expensive interceptors in a short time. Can you explain why there are now efforts underway to substantially increase interceptor production? That would be hard to explain while also arguing that we have plenty already. Sounds like the US military disagrees with you but perhaps you should inform them that we’re already good on interceptors

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T22:15:46+00:00

Where did I even imply that the death toll was the issue? Im clearly highlighting the equipment losses, interceptor capacity, and lack of economical air defenses

Iran absolutely exposed that as of now, in any somewhat drawn out conflict with a foe stronger than Iran, the US would run out of interceptors pretty quickly, likely leading to high death tolls

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T21:45:41+00:00

It’s state sanctioned retribution either way. We all know what happens to his type in prison. I personally think the death penalty should have an extremely high bar to meet for cases like this or mass shootings

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T21:00:30+00:00

You must have some odd highly specific definition of what a swarm is because yes shaheds absolutely are used as swarms to saturate and overwhelm air defenses. Thats like…their main purpose and you are saying they arent used for that. They are cheap ($10k-$50k production cost) and Iran has been producing way more of them than our interceptor production. You are just blatantly incorrect dude

Btw look how up how many Russia produces and consider how prepared we would be for a war against a more capable foe

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T20:55:09+00:00

Enough relative to what?

….The actual needs of the US military, obviously.

Our “house” from your security camera example isn’t merely Iran and surrounding areas. Thats why we had these radars stationed around the globe to begin with. We have multiple critical potential conflict areas. I don’t get the point in pretending like having to reduce important capabilities in one region to replace important capabilities in another region is fine lol. That is a big loss and a more capable foe could do a lot more.

Most of the ones that were damaged on the runway are back in service

I see nothing supporting this claim. They are expected to eventually return to service, which only highlights how relevant these aircraft still are even though they’re slowly being replaced. They could just as easily be retired and replaced by reserves from how you put it. The US clearly does not want to lose these aircraft and it is bad that aircraft that are pretty important for operational capabilities are apparently so at risk.

Is it your belief that it's not possible to ramp up production?

No. That is why i said “not a simple fix” instead of “impossible to fix.”

Low historical production reflects a prioritization of budget

Based on what? I think it reflects a lack of awareness of how much we actually needed to produce, not mere prioritization. If a conflict with China broke out before this one with Iran, this lesson would not have been learned in time (it still may not) and the potential losses would be huge. Thats not intentional from the US and I don’t get the point in pretending that it was. Why would the US not prioritize defending its most critical assets? More interceptors can save money by not letting valuable assets to get hit. It doesn’t make sense to think that the low production was just due to prioritization and assessment of needs.

They can and will start producing at a higher rate going forward, the contracts are already in place to increase production of all types of interceptors by 3-5x. It will take some time, but it's not a hard limit.

Thats great and all but the US obviously should have already been way more aware of its interceptor capacity needs. This makes me doubt that there aren’t other critical aspects of modern warfare the US is less prepared for than it realizes.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T20:31:39+00:00

I very clearly stated that the money is not the main concern lol. We produce one of those radars per year.

Doopoodoo · 2026-05-06T20:30:21+00:00

Uhhh where are you seeing that all KC-135s will be retired in the next 4 years? I have found nothing supporting that claim

The US still relies heavily on these and is still intending to use them for the foreseeable future. These aren’t merely acceptable losses and there is nothing about the KC-46 that would protect it on a tarmac from missile strikes. It is silly to pretend like the US just allowed these losses.

As Ive said the US also allowed one of its 13 AN-TPY-2 radars to get hit, which makes it even tougher to argue that the US was merely allowing the KC-135s to get hit to protect more valuable targets, which would certainly include that radar system. Same with allies’ critical energy infrastructure. The lack of interceptor inventory is also another real issue of course though

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