While I love the A10 and the F-15E’s both are on the ways out. the A10 the Air Force has tried to retire for years and F-15E’s are being phased out for the F-15EX Eagle II.

The F-15E we lost at its youngest would have been a plane we got in 1997 so at its youngest it would have been a 29 year old fighter jet. At the time those cost ~$30 mil each and I want to say with inflation it would not be something like $67 million but with them being phased out I’m not sure how to compare the loss value.

Now the C-130’s are reported to be C-130J’s (which does track) those have been in production since 1996 and cost depending on the FY and block number $67 to $110 million a piece.

There is evidence that they blew up at least one MH-6M Little Birds if not 2 and those cost $2 million a piece.

I am going to use the max numbers for replacements (it won’t be exactly this because of the F-15E being replaced and an A-10 I got no idea cause Congress won’t let them die) but max costs I got in replacements would be $291 million. That’s the ~$67 mil for the F-15, $220 mil for the two C-130J’s, and $4 million for the possible 2 MH-6M Little Birds.

With having no one die or worse being captured I think that this is easily the best case scenario. I mean we were able to establish a forward operating base in Iran to get this done. I would have loved if they had both been immediately picked up and evac’d but this was something I was getting worried wasn’t going to happen.

The Battle of Mogadishu showed us the worst that could happen and so this I think is the flip side and shows us the best.

Like I mentioned it is a huge embarrassment to Iran to fail in capturing the WSO given the amount of time he was on the ground. Then when it comes out that the U.S. was able to establish a FOB in the area that’s borderline insanity. I never would have imagined that being the case but it happened.