It's clear that an attack took place. Official sources in the DoD are claiming 30 sub-launched Tomahawks and 6 MOPs were used via B-2s. I see no reason to take that claim at face value, absent some amount of proof.⬇️

As a first order of business, the attack passed entirely under the radar of the usual nightly exchange of fire between Iran and Israel until Trump made his announcement. There was some reporting of air defense activity and isolated blasts but nothing suggestive of a large attack, and video has emerged of what sounds like a few cruise missiles hitting a target in the desert, without secondary explosions or fires. Videos that made the rounds earlier showing large fires and explosions at these sites appear to have been disinformation or clickbait.

The attack, as the DoD insider has claimed occurred (and as the DoD will probably officially claim tomorrow) bizarrely combined the lowest and highest-risk attack methods - submarine-launched cruise missiles and multiple B-2s penetrating into central Iran to drop gravity bombs on a heavily defended site, with a need to egress hundreds of miles of alerted airspace afterwards. Perhaps the Air Force actually had the stones and capability to do this, although given they refused to risk B-2s in Yemen earlier and the IAF has conducted their campaign thus far almost entirely with standoff munitions and drones (because the Iranian air defense network is by no means down), I doubt it.

Now allow me to draw your attention to a... numerological coincidence, let's say. 30 TLAMs and 6 MOPs, 36 rounds total. I will note that US attack submarines carry 12 TLAMs in a vertical launch array, and the inside source in the Pentagon made a critical slip - they specified submarines, plural, participated in the attack. Ergo three attack submarines could have launched 36 rounds between them, and ergo it wasn't one of the Ohio SSGN conversions. Getting three attack submarines on station would have been trivial in these circumstances.

My theory for the evening? I think this was a low-risk, low-impact attack entirely conducted using submarine-launched cruise missiles, and the DoD is simply lying about heavy bomber involvement for propaganda purposes. TLAMs are accurate enough to damage bunker entrances and cause the same kind of disruptive damage that a MOP strike could realistically achieve on a site as incredibly hardened as Fordow. Damage to subterranean facilities at other sites, beyond bunker entrances, is unlikely - TLAMs are not "bunker buster" munitions. There may be a number of aboveground buildings damaged or destroyed, although given a lack of fires observed that also seems somewhat unlikely at this point.

What's Trump's play here? I think he's trying to rescue Netanyahu from the consequences of his own idiotic decision to start a war with Iran he manifestly wasn't capable of finishing, and to do so in a manner the Iranians are not necessarily going to be forced to respond to. As an American taxpayer and former DoD employee I very much hope this wasn't the most impressive attack the US military could put together on a week's notice and that this reflects deliberate restraint rather than a lack of capability or willingness to assume risk. Certainly the Iranian reaction to the attack thus far has been more eye-roll than fire and fury, with denials of significant damage or even casualties.

Let us hope it remains that way, this could go south in a real hurry.

(I realize that if you look closely at the attached picture of the USS Santa Fe sitting dockside with its VLS tubes open there is a tube numbered "14" - as you can also see, it only has 12 VLS tubes. I'm not sure how they decided to number the tubes for administrative purposes, but I thought it worth commenting on this rather odd facet of the illustration I chose.)