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I just want to highlight this here – 1 bomb per 3 square miles of a country larger than Alaska is a lot of bombs (and again recall that this is just JDAM kits!)
Now – what does "destroy Iran" mean? If it means "turn the country into literal molten lava" then no, the USAF does not have the firepower to do this.
If it means "knock out their power grid, obliterate their armed forces, wreck their transportation infrastructure, decapitate their leadership and generally render them incapable of performing the functions expected of a state" then yes, the US has the firepower to do this – the density of "Iranian military/government/dual use facilities/equipment" is not going to be denser than 1 every 3 square miles.
Perhaps the user you are replying to literally means "kill all Iranians" when he says "Let them all die to defend their ambitions." But if, in context of "Kill all their scientists, all their engineers" he's advocating for eliminating the Iranian leadership and personnel responsible for developing nuclear weapons, the US doesn't lack the firepower to do this. Since we've proven capable of building upwards of 100 JDAM kits per day, we might be able to kill upwards of 30,000 Iranian scientists, engineers, and assorted staff per year assuming each guided bomb only kills one (a silly assumption) without even denting our stockpile.
The main problem for the US would be getting the intelligence on where the personnel are (and clearing the Iranian defenses). But those are primarily problems of intelligence procurement, not problems from not having enough firepower.
It is a lot of bombs! But Iran is also a very large country!
I would highlight the second paragraph that I wrote- in terms of raw explosive yield, Russia has dropped much more than that on a country much smaller than Iran. Ukraine is (IMO) losing the war, but still very functional as a military power. I realize there's a big difference between old Soviet artillery shells and modern JDAMs, but there's also a big difference between Ukrainian infantry huddling in hastily-built trenches on the front lines of the plains, vs Iranian military engineers holed-up in fortified bunkers built under mountains over the past 20 years.
Your math is assuming that: (a) the USAF uses every single one of its bombs (b) all of thoses bombs are delivered instantly. The USAF only has about 20 B-2 stealth bombers, and they all require massive maintenance. Other strategic bombers would be vulnerable to air defence and are also limited in number (c) the US just doesn't care about collateral damage. Most of us care a lot. (d) all lf those bombs hit their intended targets. you said it's "primarily problems of intelligence procurement" but ultimately there's just no way to know all of that for sure. Realistically they would have to do a bit of "spray and pray." Multiple bombs per target, regardless of what Lockheed-Martin's sales reps like to claim. (e) Iran is not able to rebuilt its assets. They can and they will. They will also likely get help from Russia and China if this goes on for long.
In the end, I'm no military expert. But Ted Cruz isn't either. All I know is that Iran is a formidable opponent, and I'm very concerned that we're sleepwalking into a war on the scale of WW2 with none of our leaders seeming to even know the scale of what's going on. Instead they're going off of... bible verses and Israeli propaganda? This is very concerning.
edit: this just came up in my youtube feed: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PEbq0chC6yI "bottom line: the US could almost certainly destroy Fordham [the main Iranian enrichment facility] but it would require significant effort and expense." the video did not consider any other targets.
Yes – JDAMs will have much more payload (a small 500 pound bomb will have nearly 200 pounds of explosive filler, while a M107 155mm shell will have around 15 pounds) and be considerably more accurate (a CEP of 10 meters versus, according to Google's AI overview, perhaps up to 250 meters at max range for an unguided 155mm shell). Not only do the bombs deliver more payload, they deliver it much more precisely. There's a reason that the Russians fielded glide bomb kids in Ukraine very quickly.
Yeah, the US would likely use tactical aircraft to fly most sorties with smaller weapons such as JDAMs – the Air Force has more than 400 F-35s (if stealthier aircraft are needed and if they present an advantage – which they may not, particularly if Iran is relying on IR guidance systems) and more than 200 F-15E Strike Eagles. (The Israelis have accomplished what they've done so far with less than 70 F-15s, and about 45 F-35s, plus nearly 200 F-16s. Of course in any real war the US Navy with their 400+ Super Hornets would also contribute).
As for the rest of it, I was responding to your claim that the USAF wasn't capable of "mass destruction." I agree with your point that applying that destruction profitably would be an issue. But a single F-15E can a larger bomb load than B-17 or Lancaster strategic bombers in World War Two (more than 20,000 pounds). If we use the Anglo-American bombing of Dresden as our benchmark for "mass destruction," we will note that it was accomplished over four days in 1945, used about 1200 Lancasters and B-17s over the course of four raids (so 300 aircraft/raid on average), delivering around 4,000 tons of bombs. Even if each JDAM in the US inventory was a 500 pounder (unlikely, the largest JDAM is a 2000-pound bomb) the US could plausibly accomplish Dresden 2.0 again over the course of a week with its F-15E fleet alone and still have leftover JDAMs.
Not that it would need to, because guided munitions are much more effective than mass carpet bombing (Wikipedia reports that PGMs were 35 times [edit – originally put percent here by mistake, which is much less impressive and also wrong] more likely to destroy their targets than unguided bombs and made 3/4ths of all successful strikes on targets despite being less than 10% of all munitions dropped in the Persian Gulf War).
I'm not saying we should bomb Iran! On balance I am against it! I'm saying the US Air Force has a lot of bombs. I think this is considerably under-appreciated, people are (rightfully) concerned about American procurement but "haha tail bomb kits go brrr" is actually a thing.
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