Iran’s Underground Missile Cities and Military Strategy

Everybody knew that Iran had spent years excavating bunkers for its strike forces, and indeed their TV had shown footage of many of those facilities.

Western analysts say that around 35 of these missile cities were central to their war plans.

The main point of them was to shelter the ballistic missiles that would be used to hit Israel and America's Gulf Arab allies.

When attacks started in February, the Americans and Israelis did have many successes knocking out missile launchers.

The rate at which Iran fired them fell steeply by as much as 80%.

But since airstrikes could not harm the missiles that were deep underground, they had to focus on blocking the entrances to these complexes by caving in the access tunnels.

The Iranians hunkered down, launching their surviving missiles more slowly and digging out the tunnel entrances whenever they got the chance.

And commanders rued the difficulties of attacking bunkers so deep that none of America's munitions could touch them. They've hardened something else too, the way they command their forces. A system known as Mosaic Command meant that when the senior leadership was killed on the first night, those in positions of responsibility

elsewhere had already got authority to start the counter strikes.

And there's another thing about all those underground storage points.

They also got used for the speed boats, drones, and missiles that would be used to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Quite simply, they had built big weapons stockpiles, and America hadn't.