What happens when billions of dollars of Western radars are shattered and decimated? Once fire direction can’t translate & collate Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) inputs to operable cueing and precise targeting for munitions, efficacy of fires falls off a cliff. You can have mountains of missiles and munitions but the tyranny of angles and location in a dynamic conflict demand precision targeting.

These billion+ dollar radar architectures are complex with long lead times to completion. The cost means the templating geographic coverage does not have very much redundancy.

These are connected to data processing facilities and SATCOM/communications infrastructure in a complex choreography that demands high levels of tightly synchronized coordination. That radar is the reception locus for cueing from a number of sources (including the radar coverage itself) and contributes to airspace deconfliction by naming the priority of threats after determining through Positive Identification (PID) and Combat Identification (CID). The vast inputs are binned into threats, friendly, neutral and unidentified objects and prioritized by apparent threat level prioritized to proximity.

I’m boring you with that to emphasize how important these technological marvels are in peer conflict in the missile age.

Gallium is crucial to build radars. Guess what? China controls 98% of gallium production.

The Iranians are making claims to radar destruction.

Apparently destroyed by Shahed drones.

I cannot verify the apparent AI-created image below.

The conclusion is this: if the Iranians are destroying radars, they are destroying vital links in the kill chain. If this is fiction, it is a lesson learned on how important it is for peer military powers to protect their radar sites.