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American Fighter Pilots Describe Taking Down Iranian Drones in Total Darkness
(CNN) Natasha Bertrand - On April 13, as Iran fired over 300 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel, the U.S. military instructed F-15 fighter pilot Maj. Benjamin Coffey to use every weapon at his disposal to help defeat the attack. His crew mate, weapons systems officer Capt. Lacie Hester, and Coffey described to CNN how they flew as close as they could to an Iranian drone and used a gun in total darkness, against a barely visible target. They missed. Ultimately, U.S. forces in the air and at sea, including Hester and Coffey, intercepted 70 drones and three ballistic missiles that night. The fighters spent hours in the air in the U.S. Air Force's first real test against a prolonged and large-scale drone attack. The attack drove home how the military will have to grapple with a new generation of warfare that pits multimillion-dollar fighter jets against cheap, slow-moving attack drones that can easily evade highly sophisticated radar systems. The fighter jets' most effective weapons against the drones were depleted quickly. The F-15E Strike Eagle can carry only eight air-to-air missiles at a time. F-15 pilot Lt.-Col. Curtis Culver said, "We ran out of missiles pretty quickly...20 minutes maybe." The next task was to land at a U.S. military base, as Iranian missiles and drones intercepted by the base's Patriot air defense systems exploded overhead and rained debris down on the runways. Some of the fighter jets had to land with a "hung missile" - where a missile malfunctions and doesn't launch. Troops on the ground remained focused on getting the jets back into the air to continue the fight. "There was an airman at one point standing next to a fuel truck with tons and tons of fuel in it, just pumping gas into the jet, with stuff exploding over the base," Culver said. "The courage of that airman, that American, to stand up and do that for an ally, is incredible."