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While the US military has had many achievements in the Iran conflict, it’s been far from cost free. Iran conducted extensive retaliatory strikes targeting high-value US bases.
According to international reports and satellite data, the damage to aircraft, radar, and communication systems throughout February and March was more significant than initially reported.
In all, 16 US military sites in eight countries across the Middle East were hit, and some of them sustained enough damage to be unusable.
Did the US learn any lessons as much from the failures as from the successes?
The US clearly made some major blunders, despite far superior air defenses and sophisticated command and control systems. Most spectacularly, the US lost two AWACS aircraft, one totally destroyed and the other possibly unrepairable, and three F-15 fighter jets, downed by “friendly” fire. The US also “missed” an Iranian jet that did substantial damage to Camp Buehring in Kuwait.
The airborne warning and control system is one of the most important US systems for the long range detection of enemy aircraft, missiles and ships. The US fields two versions: the E-3 Sentry and the E-2 Hawkeye.
The E-3 is a land-based four engine jet that is built on the old Boeing 707 narrow-body airframe. The last Boeing 707 was retired from commercial service in the United States in 1983.
The E-3 is a true battle management system. It features a large 30 foot radome mounted on the rear section of the aircraft body. By contrast, the E-2, which can be both land and sea based, is a twin engine turboprop and a tactical early warning aircraft. It has a crew of 5, compared with the E-3 which has a crew of between 17 and 33 (13 to 29 specialists), depending on the mission.
The E-2 is operated by the US Navy and mostly provides early warning and control for the US fleet.
The E-3 is operated by the US Air Force. The first production of the E-3 was in 1975 and production ended in 1992. The aircraft that was totally destroyed in Saudi Arabia, unit 81-0005, was manufactured in 1981.
The size of the US E-3 fleet has been rapidly declining as many of the jets are no longer repairable. By the time of the start of the recent conflict with Iran, the US had around 10 AWACS planes that were deployable, although keeping them functioning is a major challenge. On February 28, the US moved six AWACS to Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia and two to al Dhafra air base in the UAE. Another four were stationed in Europe, at Mildenhall in the UK and Ramstein in Germany.
The decision to move the better part of the functioning E-3 AWACS fleet to Saudi Arabia and the UAE was a major blunder, one that the Pentagon should have understood but chose to ignore.
The US operating through NATO played a major role in destroying a significant part of Russia’s AWACS fleet in the Ukraine war.
Russia operates an AWACS platform directly copied from the US E-3, called the Beriev A-50 (NATO name, Mainstay). In 2024 two were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses and in 2025 two more were either damaged or destroyed by drone attacks on Russian air bases. Like the US AWACS, the Russian A-50 fleet has been contracting as airframes wear out, leaving between 8 and 15 operational. The losses in the Ukraine war (over Ukrainian territory, the Sea of Azov, and at bases in Russia) significantly impact Russian warfighting operations.
The Russians’ exposure of their A-50s, especially at forward bases on Russian territory, was a military error that was avoidable.
The US role was in tracking the Russian AWACS platforms and in assisting Ukraine in locating them.
The Iranians needed little encouragement to go after the US-deployed AWACS, and they got targeting information from Russian and Chinese satellites, including a Chinese “commercial” satellite. These assets provided hard information on the precise location of the US AWACS aircraft.
The TEE-01B Chinese satellite is made and operated by the Chinese company Earth Eye. This model satellite features a resolution of half a meter (1.6 feet). Log files show that the IRGC used this satellite to target the Prince Sultan Air Base on March 13, 14, and 15, exactly when the first wave of strikes began.
At least two of the AWACS aircraft were parked on the tarmac at Prince Sultan. There were no hardened shelters for the E-3s, as the aircraft’s radome is too high to fit into any existing shelters.
The reason given for the forward deployment is that it allowed the E-3s to operate for longer periods on station than if they were deployed further back.
The alternative would have been to use air to air refueling for the AWACS. Whether refueling tankers were available is uncertain, as tankers were heavily used to support fighter aircraft, bombers and other command and control assets.
Prince Sultan has sophisticated air defenses including Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 MSE and THAAD (including the An-TPY-2 radar, similar to the one Iran destroyed in Jordan) plus CRAM. Even so, the base was hit by swarm attacks and the E-3s were not repositioned or cleared from the facility. How much early warning the US force had, if any, isn’t known.
The destroyed E-3 suffered a precision strike that targeted the radome on the aircraft. Some say it was hit by a missile, possibly the solid-fueled Khaibar-Shekan, a third generation IRGC missile that is maneuverable in its terminal phase. This medium range ballistic missile features a 550 kg (2,205 lbs.) warhead. It is also possible the AWACS was hit by a modified Shahed drone, since the blast size (as shown in photos) appears smaller than the damage likely caused by a 2,000 pound warhead.
In the background of the Iranian strike there is a strong sense that the attack was a Russian revenge operation as much as it was important to Iran’s war objectives.
