The Israeli Air Force claims to have destroyed more than 300 Iranian transporter erector launchers (TELs) since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran. The so-called "TEL hunting" mission - locating and destroying mobile missile launchers before they can fire - has historically been one of the most difficult tasks in modern warfare, with efforts during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom producing "limited results," according to missile technology researcher Fabian Hoffmann.

Israel's air campaign against Iran last year "arguably marked the first instance of an air interdiction campaign successfully targeting enemy TELs at scale," missile technology researcher Fabian Hoffmann writes in his Missile Matters analysis, as reported by "Hvylya". That success now appears to be repeating itself on an even larger scale.

Dozens of videos published by official U.S. and Israeli channels show the destruction of Iranian mobile launchers. Hoffmann attributes the success to "pre-war intelligence on TEL storage bases and dispersal routes" combined with what he describes as a "presumed large number of medium- and high-altitude UAVs operating above Iran with near impunity, providing continuous surveillance."

The central military dynamic in the conflict, according to Hoffmann, is a "race to the bottom" - Iran is trying to deplete allied missile defense arsenals while inflicting damage, while the U.S. and Israel are working to destroy Iranian launchers before they can fire. On 28 February, Operation Epic Fury commenced with large-scale strikes against Iranian military, command, missile, and infrastructure targets.

The effectiveness of the TEL hunt appears to have had a direct impact on Iran's ability to sustain missile operations. Iranian ballistic missile launches have appeared "more unevenly spaced, significantly smaller in scale, and less coordinated" compared to the 12-Day War, Hoffmann notes. He attributes this to degraded TEL availability and disrupted command and control, forcing Iran to rely on "increasingly small units operating under forward-delegated authority."

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