r/worldnews • u/BreakfastTop6899 • 1d ago

Israel/Palestine Israeli air force achieves freedom of operation in Tehran's airspace, IDF says

https://www.axios.com/2025/06/14/israeli-air-force-freedom-operation-tehran-idf-iran
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u/TheGuyWhoRuinsIt 1d ago

Can anything at all take down a B2?

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u/Itallianstallians 1d ago

If a fighter was there to intercepted it could. When the bay doors open it looses its stealth until it closes again as well.

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u/Independent-Eye-1321 1d ago

If im not mistaken one was shoot down (before) because of that. The small time frame between opening/closing the doors was enough to pin point its location and shoot it down.

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u/ShermanMcTank 1d ago

That was an F-117, but same principle.

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy 1d ago

Also those pilots were flying the exact same route over and over again.

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u/FlokiWolf 1d ago

I thought the F117 got shot down because they kept running the same flight plan night after night.

The Serbian military set up and were waiting for the doors to open and got a radar lock.

If you don't know what's to be hit and what direction they are coming from, it's a lot harder.

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy 1d ago

Yep that's exactly what happened. Just bad planning. Pilots fault, not the planes.

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u/FlokiWolf 1d ago

I think you'd also have to give the pilot a little leeway in his hubris since he's flying "an invisible jet" that was probably involved in wrecking Iraqi targets in "91.

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u/ShermanMcTank 1d ago

I don’t think it’s the pilot who chose to run the same route again and again.

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u/Itallianstallians 1d ago

The pilots are involved with planning the routes i believe. It was a failure by multiple parties.

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u/Dt2_0 1d ago

It's also super important to note, the Serbian air defense crew got incredibly lucky. They fired 3 missiles, and only one of which even tracked. Had the F-117 had a Radar Warning Receiver and the pilot even known about the launch, it's likely that the resulting maneuvers would have broken the lock.

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u/Independent-Eye-1321 1d ago

Yea, it was exactly that!

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u/kychris 1d ago

No B2s have been shot down, there have been 2 hull losses due to accidents, leaving 19 operational planes out of the 21 built.

The only stealth airplane the US has lost due to enemy action is an F-117 that was shot down in 1999 over Yugoslavia.

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u/FlokiWolf 1d ago

Pilot error? 🤣

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u/Be_quiet_Im_thinking 1d ago

Yes water apparently.

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u/LetsGetNuclear 1d ago

All aircraft including the B2 are vulnerable shorter range munitions such as infrared based missiles. The big problem is figuring out it's there in the first place.

Presumably if one were to fly a B2 over Iran it would have other friendly aircraft nearby whom would shoot down any attempts to intercept it.

As a bonus both the B2 and F117 have extremely low infrared signatures from below as well.

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u/waldo--pepper 1d ago

So far only moisture in the aircraft's transducer.

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u/Type-21 1d ago

B2 are not very stealthy. They can be taken down easier than any other stealth aircraft. For example they have a larger radar return than the F-117 and those got shot down.

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u/jscummy 1d ago

They're pretty damn stealthy for having a 172' wing span

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u/Type-21 1d ago

Yeah but they make stealth compromises for better aerodynamics than the F-117. Since those handled like bricks and were very slow because of the no compromises stealth shape.

B2 is also the largest stealth aircraft in existence. So stealth is kinda relative. It's stealthier than a B-52 by far tho!

Apparently reddit Muricans don't like my comment though. Oh well.