this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I don't know the specific situation there, but traditionally if you have a military conflict going on, battle damage assessment is part of a military's job.

Battle damage assessment (BDA), sometimes referred to as bomb damage assessment, is the process of evaluating the physical and functional damage inflicted on a target as a result of military operations. It is a core component of combat assessment and is used to inform judgments about mission effectiveness and potential follow-on actions, including reattack recommendations.[1]

Information on battle damage is highly valuable to the enemy and military intelligence and censors will endeavor to conceal, exaggerate or underplay the extent of damage depending on the circumstances.

With long-range weapons


which is what Iran is using against UAE targets


it can be hard to know whether-or-not you're actually hitting something. You need some sort of reconnaissance platform or a physical person to go out and take a look. So in general, a defending military would rather not permit an attacking military to know what has actually been hit. If the attack missed, then they don't want the attacking military to know, so that they can fire another at the target, for example. And if there are accuracy issues or jamming or other things going on, they don't want the attacking military to know about that. If the attacking military is defeating jamming efforts or has resolved accuracy issues or similar, they also don't want the attacking military to know about that. They're going to want their attacker to be as blind as they can keep them, to deny them a useful battle damage assessment.

In one extreme case of this, the UK, in World War II, had Nazi Germany fire V-2 rockets, early ballistic missiles, at them. Guidance systems at the time were primitive, limiting accuracy, and the British conducted an extensive disinformation effort, mis-reporting where rockets were hitting and seeking to prevent Germany from obtaining access to accurate information. This led to Germany consistently shooting V-2s at the wrong place, because they were trusting that bad information for their battle damage assessment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket#Direct_attack_and_disinformation

The only effective defences against the V-2 campaign were to destroy the launch infrastructure—expensive in terms of bomber resources and casualties—or to cause the Germans to aim at the wrong place by disinformation. The British were able to convince the Germans to direct V-1s and V-2s aimed at London to less populated areas east of the city. This was done by sending deceptive reports on the sites hit and damage caused via the German espionage network in Britain, which was secretly controlled by the British (the Double-Cross System).[79]

EDIT: Another WW2 example that comes to mind: for some time, Japanese warships had been trying to depth-charge American submarines, but using an incorrect depth. A congressman released information to the public about this fact. That information then made its way to Japan, at which point the Japanese military corrected their weapon use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._May

May was responsible for the release of highly classified military information during World War II known as the May Incident.[6] U.S. submarines had been conducting a successful undersea war against Japanese shipping during World War II, frequently escaping their anti-submarine depth charge attacks.[6][7] May revealed the deficiencies of Japanese depth-charge tactics in a press conference held in June 1943 on his return from a war zone junket.[6][7] At this press conference, he revealed the highly sensitive fact that American submarines had a high survival rate because Japanese depth charges were exploding at too shallow a depth.[6][7] Various press associations sent this leaked news story over their wires and many newspapers published it, including one in Honolulu, Hawaii.[6][7]

After the news became public, Japanese naval antisubmarine forces began adjusting their depth charges to explode at a greater depth.[6][7] Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. submarine fleet in the Pacific, estimated that May's security breach cost the United States Navy as many as 10 submarines and 800 crewmen killed in action.[6][7] He said, "I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now."[6][7]