AIBU to worry about Iran’s ballistic missiles reaching the UK?

[catspyjamas1]

There's a ton of news today about Iran hiding their ballistic missile capability, their range, and media pundits /talking heads ramping up fear. There is also a generation of us that lived through "Iraq has WMDs" and the associated skepticism. I am aware that the fog of war means one has to be careful, but the "news" today is concerning. I can see Iran lying about their capabilities.

Should the UK be worried? Can Iran hit the UK with a ballistic missile? Should we be preparing for this?

AIBU: dont worry about Iran's ballistic missile capability hitting the UK.
YABU: we should be concerned and prepare accordingly.

No, we shouldn’t be concerned. The deterrents are too strong, namely that they would get wiped off the map.

I am confident Iran won't be firing missiles at us.

Countries don’t downplay their missile capability - they talk it up as people don’t like to invade countries who can hurt them back.

Iran is currently doing all it can which inter-country is really very little. What they have which is far more effective is an ability to choke off a huge chunk of the world’s oil supply.

I disagree with the deterrent argument, I think it's beyond that at this stage. But I don't think their missiles will be able to reach us.

How are we beyond that stage? We are nowhere near it!

I’m more worried about the long-term economic consequences.

The fact I’ve only seen it in the Daily Mail leads me to Very Much Not worry about it.

How were you thinking of preparing?

Kindly, there are more important things to worry about than threats that are unlikely, or things you can do nothing about anyway.

Where do you live OP? Are you somewhere highly likely to be targeted by the Iranians if they happen to have a missile able to reach tue UK?

It’s all so vanishingly unlikely

This.
No missiles but we are feeling the effects already ie fuel prices.

This ^^

What are you planning to actually do OP?

Regardless of whether they can reach, look at the stats for the gulf countries. They’ve fired around 1000 ballistic missiles at them - not counting the drones - and there has been remarkably little in the way of civilian casualties for two reasons; one, they nearly all get intercepted and shot down and two, they’re aimed at specific targets such as the air bases and energy facilities. Now, while none of this is great, it also shows it’s not a huge threat for any individual person. They’d have to travel a hell of a long way over a lot of airspace and would get intercepted before reaching us, hopefully. Do we want a missile aimed at us? No. Would it be scary and horrible, yes. But it wouldn’t be anything to worry about in the sense of your personal safety. It’s not like WW2 air raids.

I'm not so worried about nukes but there will probably be a bit of a rise in Schotastic terrorism and general tension.

If I was living in Cyprus I'd be rather more concerned about conventional bombing - especially if Turkiye gets dragged into it somehow.

We're not in WW3 yet and I'm not sure that it will escalate that far at all. In any case, nuclear action is so very much the last case scenario course of action these days. They've got so many other nasty tricks up their sleeves that don't involve the obvious drawbacks of nuclear weopons.

We'll be alright. We have to be.

*Sorry. I may have misunderstood. Ballistic misiles won't reach the UK. Nukes won't ever happen.

No. I mean even if they did have the capability which they almost certainly don’t they would obviously have to cross all of Europe first. There are defensive weapons all over the place

instead, worry about what trump’s actions could have on fuel prices and the world economy. A far more realistic worry.

I am not worried about military hits, but the financial choking. If they go for a land invasion, it will be a long war. And the world's economy will crash.
It has happened before. We got over it.

They’d have to travel a hell of a long way over a lot of airspace and would get intercepted before reaching us, hopefully.

For info unlike Cruise Missiles Ballistic Missiles fly a ballistic arc from launch to target (hence the name)..

At the mid point of a multi thousand mile trajectory one of those things will be at an altitude of multiple hundreds of miles so I really wouldn't expect them one to be intercepted en-route....in the terminal dive, maybe....

That said from a UK POV a conventionally armed ballistic missile isn't really worth worrying too much about.

It was previously thought that the maximum range of Iran's missiles was 2,000 miles, but missiles were launched at at Diego Garcia (Chagos Islands) which is 2,600 miles away. The UK is 3,000 miles away from Iran so worryingly close and in less than 5 years they will have the capability to hit the UK.

But what I find even more disturbing is that the UK has no anti ballistic missile defence system in place.

If Iran did have a missile that could reach the UK (and currently it seems they don't) and did decide to launch it at the UK then yes there are radar systems that could spot it and give a very short warning but there is literally absolutely nothing the UK could do to stop it or shoot it down.

https://share.google/dvCrmTSwYd111Gf61

I'm not worried about baslamic missiles I am worried about drones however and I've heard military experts saying we must get real with new world threats and get somerhng to counter drones.
Unfortunalty wind farms play with equipment that helps.

@1dayatatime we couldn't have an iron dome either because of our wind farms

Also if they did it would trigger NATO

@1dayatatime

the UK has no anti ballistic missile defence system in place.

True..

There might be a bit of a race against time about to start (assuming HMG recognise the developing threat and actually decide to do something about it).

The closest the UK has to a declared, operational anti-Ballistic Missile capability is a planned upgrade to the Sea Viper system on the Type 45 destroyers...and that's a few years down the road.

You do realise we have nukes

It would be a total death wish for Iran to fire missiles at us

People need to calm down and stop watching rolling news nothing is going on here that hasn’t happened before

So why is Germany developing Sky Shield? They use wind farms.

The whole of Europe needs early missile detection, air shields of some sort, laser and anti-drone drones for the pesky little things, biger armies and joined training and strategy development. And our own weapons, including planes and ships and drones.