Sitrep: How RAF Typhoon pilots helped stop Iran's drone and missile attack on Israel

The Royal Air Force was drawn in to defend Israel after Iran's recent attack, with more than 300 drones and missiles being launched towards the country.

This included more than 110 ballistic missiles and at least 150 drones fired from sites in Syria and Yemen, with munitions also being launched from Iran itself for the first time.

In response, the UK, US, France and Jordan joined Israel in attempting to thwart the attack.

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Air Vice-Marshal Sean Bell, a former fighter pilot and former commander of the Harrier Force, has been speaking on the latest episode of the Sitrep podcast – which analyses the top defence stories of the week and is available wherever you get your podcasts – about the complexity of the operation.

He said it was a "really professional job by everybody involved", with the attack posing a "whole load of different problems".

"Detect those drones, then track them, then target them – each of those is a different challenge," he said.

"There's also hundreds of them pouring across. The Typhoon only carries a limited number of missiles, so it was a co-ordinated effort between the Israelis, the Americans and the Brits. 

"Who takes which targets? How do you find them? How do you make sure that when you shoot them down they don't fall over other people's territory, for example?

"Most of these you want to track and target long before they get to Israel, and therefore you're targeting them, probably in Jordanian airspace, Iraqi airspace – that means co-ordinating with those countries. 

"It is at night. It's an unfamiliar environment and these Shahed drones aren't easily picked up on radar.

"They're not fast, they're not metal [and] they're quite difficult to identify."

Professor Michael Clarke, Sitrep's resident defence expert, said: "It was clear that the Israelis couldn't have done this on their own.

"They did it because this alliance came together at short notice, that was land-based, sea-based, operating from the air among a range of countries, and as a result these 330-odd missiles and drones that the Iranians set off, only seven of them got through to the Nevatim air base."

This multi-layered defence may have been considered a success in Israel, but Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky questioned why Ukraine had not received the same level of defence from the West as Israel.

Forces News' Ukraine reporter Simon Newton told the podcast: "It's a very obvious question… and you can see why President Zelensky would ask it."

He outlined the size of Ukraine, the contested airspace over the country and the fact Western navies' ability to operate in the Red Sea, unlike the Black Sea, as the key differences.

"So the question you ask is 'why don't the Israelis give Iron Dome to Ukraine?'," he said.

"Well, [former defence secretary] Ben Wallace actually says he asked that very question… but Tel Aviv said they don't want to do that. They don't want to upset the Russians. 

"So, for all these reasons, they are very different scenarios."

He added: "But Ukraine very firmly believes there are double standards at play and they see this as a lack of will on the part of the West, not really of capability."

You can listen to Sitrep wherever you get your podcasts, including on the Forces News YouTube channel.