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.

So why are you trying to do it here?
other countries are allowing the USA to use their airbases
other countries are supporting defensive action
many of those are closer/ bigger / easier to access and more powerful then the uk

why do you think they would bypass them and send a missile here?

Oh do bore off. My responses have been to your off topic nonsense and derailment:

"Why do British people think they’ll be the target of any country even when it’s clearly not a situation Britain are strongly involved in or physically near? We spent the whole of 2022 listening by to people say the same about Russia
do all countries do this or are Brits just particularly partial to centring themselves in any world event?!"

Cheerio.

🤣 yeah ok, sure Jan. Off you go and have a nightmare about an Iranian missile landing on your house.

No I’m not stressed. I think Iran will centre on localities closer to home and easier to target.

The UK has some capability against cruise missile attacks.

As the Commons library report hints at the only ballistic missile defence it has right now is that available by way of Sea Viper on the Type 45 destroyers, that capability might be improved in the future as Sea Viper is upgraded.

By way of context as far as the last 24 hours events go rumour has it in places that the Iranians modified some of the longer range ballistic to attempt to reach Diego Garcia.

There's still concrete evidence yet, AFAIK they have something that could reach as far as western europe, let alone do it on a regular basis.

I think given the range from Iran it's highly unlikely a missile will reach us, we're right at the outer limit. But it is concerning and even worse thinking one could hit somewhere in Europe. Makes the whole conflict much more in our own backyards. They have a chaotic approach to sending missiles so who knows where they'll target next, although I use the word 'target' loosely as I think they usually miss whatever they're aiming for, although that doesn't make their hits any less worse.

There was no need for that.

Iran is unpredicable, no-one knows what it will do next, for that reason I am concerned, Ihtingk the other worry is they use adopt terrorist style attacks wchih are even more unpredictable. I do not think the Uk should have offered any support of use of bases to Donald Trump, the war is illegal and his reasons for attack are incoherent, The worse we can do is half support hm as he isn;t happy and we lay ourselves open to more attach from Iran

Iran is a millenarian theocracy. It cleared minefields during the Iran-Iraq War by chaining Iranian children together and making them walk across. It has a suicide vest mentality. The mutually-assured destruction argument doesn't work when it comes to Iran. This is why Iran must never be allowed to develop missiles that could hit Europe.

I would also add that missiles are fired into Israel all the time and much of the world seems to expect the Israelis should just sit there and take it.

Various UK governments have allowed the Iranians to stomp all over them so I can't imagine they will bother doing anything about this.

the right wing press want you to be scared and justify any action

the reality is Russia do have the capability and could

If it happens it happens nothing we can do.
Our army is not up to scratch the government are worse and our PM were do i start with him.
We are all sitting duck really every man/ woman to themselfs.
So im not going to worry over it, i will get on with life as i have been doing.
If anything did kick off we wont get help, because they dont help us now so why would they bother if shit hits the fan.

Israel has wind farms and an effective Iron dome. I suspect this has been sourced by a moronic daily mail journalist who thought that it is a literal iron dome so would keep out the wind and stop the wind farms working.

I googled and think it was as the Express as well!
I suspect they thought they could have a two-for-one article -
frighten readers AND
blame renewable energy.

Probably stuck a reference to it being Ed Miliband’s fault for good measure.

Essentially, they already have according to Trump and the US. Yet they are still capable of firing serious missiles as they are demonstrating in recent days. Expecting them to play by the rules is off the table.

Starmer has is letting the US use our airbases. Therefore, we are involved in attacking Iran. We're like conscientious objectors, we fight not be pressing the button to release the bomb, but we are refueling the planes and feeding the pilots. Why wouldn't they strike back - other than lack of capability?

We decided many years ago to stop investing in defending ourselves and use the hope for the best strategy.

More worried about America having a shot 'go wild' and dropping something on us to be honest. The only country under the control of a total maniac appears to be America and their orange buffoon leader who is taking unplanned pot shots at any country he feels is not playing ball with him.

This concerns me too but reading the other posts hopefully the question asked by the op, on that, they won’t. It’s a bit reassuring to read responses.

I hope you're correct.
The panic that would ensue if they do might cause more problems than a failed attack.

No this is unlikely for the many reasons people have explained.

There are loads of things to worry about though , mainly oil hikes and shortages. Not great for countries that rely on imported food and crucially food.

Comment yesterday from John Healey the Defence Minister who refused to answer the question on whether Iran has the ability to use missiles against the UK but states he sees no reason why they would want to do that.

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/john-healey-iran-indian-ocean-donald-trump-yvette-cooper-b1276537.html

The regime remains in place.

Anyone else remember Iraq being able to launch WMD's against the UK in 30 minutes? Yeah, that was bullshit too. Iran have neither the missiles to reach, nor the nuclear payload to make it worthwhile, conventional explosives on an ICBM is a total waste, not to mention despite the bluster they really don't want to drag more modern armed nations into the fight by attacking their home soil. You'd be better spent using your time and energy to worry about the price of petrol and deciding what to have for dinner than this bollocks.

@catspyjamas1 Should the UK be worried? Can Iran hit the UK with a ballistic missile? Should we be preparing for this?

Do you really not think that the UK has missile defence systems? That the government has never thought of this and it’s not part of a standard defence program?

Read below, we don’t have much no.

@HoppingPavlova

Do you really not think that the UK has missile defence systems? That the government has never thought of this and it’s not part of a standard defence program?

Whether they thought of it or not the UK hasn't currently got a ballistic missile defence system, and up until very recently it hasn't been part of any standard defence program anywhere, outside of maybe the US, Russia and Israel.

The UK may get something in the near future when there's a planned upgrade to systems on the Type 45 destroyers.

Any thought that for example, HMG have somehow got a top secret system in place right now is wishful thinking.