US lost at least three Patriot batteries,some long-range radars, five air-air refueling planes on the runway, an AWACs plane, and an F-35 to Iranian missiles. By StrategyPage.
On the first day of the US/Iran war, Iran nullified the American capacity to observe and control the battleground by expending drone swarms and hypersonic missiles to take out the American ground-based strategic early warning radar at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
In mid-March an Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone directly hit the radome and phased array antenna of a long-range early warning radar in the Al-Qaysumah Airfield in Saudi Arabia.
A few days later Iran used drone swarms and low-flying cruise missiles to exhaust the interceptors of the THAAD battery in Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, then followed up with an Iranian Fattah-2 hypersonic missile strike to destroy the THAAD.
Still later in March a Shahed-136 and Fattah-2 joint strike took out another radar in the Rafha Region of Saudi Arabia. The destruction of the long-range early warning radars and THAAD batteries resulted in a gap in US mid/long-range air defense. This exposed terminal-phase defense platforms such as Patriot to Iranian attacks.
A Patriot system can track over 100 targets at the same time but can only guide 18 interceptors simultaneously, opening a window for attack by swarming drones and missiles too numerous to be shot down in one engagement. Other drones/missiles were able to penetrate a Patriot-only defense during reloading, destroying Patriot platforms which cost over $1 billion. At least 3 Patriot batteries were destroyed in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Losses of Patriots led to gaps in terminal defense for key assets and air bases, resulting in Iranian destruction of one E-3 Sentry AWACS and at least 5 KC-135 Stratotanker refueling planes on the airfield runways in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn, led to a lower sortie rate of combat jets.
On March 19, Iran used its indigenous 358 missile, also known as the SA-67 to down a F-35A stealth fighter over central Iran.
David Archibald:
While the US and Israel played a flawless air attack, they made assumptions about their radars that cost them dearly.
Shaheed drone are easy to shoot down. A one square metre cross section and travelling at 200 kmph.
There had been no preparations to defend the big expensive radars.
No wonder Hegseth recently changed his mind about the E-7 Wedgetail.
I don’t recall the media mentioning any of those American losses. I recall lots of blather about Trump’s character deficiencies, but no explicit recognition that the US action was forced by the rapid growth in the stockpile of Iranian missiles due to Chinese help. Nor the Chinese resupply of anti-ship missiles to Iran during the ceasefire.