Within an hour or two, seems what I planned to suggest was confirmed anyhow viz. loss of three F-15s in a short period over Bahrain most likely a case of friendly fire.
Reasons being (a) in previous Gulf conflicts the F-15 has proven the most capable aircraft on the block, and as I recall was never lost to a dog-fight.
And in any event (b) this would imply that there were hostile aircraft to engage overhead one of several US bases thereabouts, which would barely be credible.
Then there's (c), the fact that in every case there appear to have been one or both engines with an unconfined fire, or at least smoking.
And (d) they were in a flat spin with no airspeed, possibly orchestrated preparatory to ejection.
All of which suggests that the aircraft will have been intercepted from ground level by something not overly catastrophic: of the sort for instance that might dispatch a drone or missile, or indeed an F-15 by the more excitable.
The takeaway from which is probably a realisation that what was considered to be impregnable ~ albeit of a previous generation ~ can still be eliminated by relatively inexpensive means.
Which itself points to the inherent value of sheer numerical advantage: those many hundreds of drones being launched at all points west having in a number of cases overwhelmed defences to the extent they were able to strike target.
To the best of my knowledge you cannot buy an F-15 because they are no longer... hello, are still produced in a form much uprated since debut in '72. They're around $100 million dollars apiece, however, and you get Shahed-loads of drones for that.
1972 was also the year before the first oil crisis, and thus... what goes around?
