Launcher Attrition Dominates Command Architecture: Agent-Based Analysis of IRGC Missile C2 Degradation in the 2026 Iran War

The 2026 US-Israeli military campaign against Iran produced a 92% decline in Iranian ballistic missile launch rates within nine days. This paper asks whether that decline reflects physical destruction of transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) assets, degradation of command authority, or both. An agent-based simulation of IRGC Aerospace Force launch cells is calibrated against open-source conflict data, modeling three competing C2 hypotheses: active distributed command (H1), pre-programmed autonomous execution (H2), and mixed degradation (H3). Monte Carlo analysis across 1, 350 runs shows that launch rate differences between hypotheses are statistically non-significant (Mann-Whitney p > 0. 05; rank-biserial r < 0. 08). The only reliable discriminator is the emergent target ratio (r = 0. 67, p < 0. 001), currently inaccessible from open sources and constituting a collection requirement rather than an operational tool. Version 4. 0 (April 13, 2026) adds Section V-D reporting a full magazine-discipline re-simulation. Post-conflict US intelligence reporting placed launcher survival at 40-50% at the April 8 ceasefire, double the ~25% the original model assumed by day 7, invalidating the attrition-masking mechanism as originally specified. Re-simulation under three post-conflict attrition profiles combined with three magazine-discipline firing rules (1, 800 runs) reproduces the null result on launch-rate discrimination in 107 of 108 tests, confirming the conjecture advanced in v2/v3. Two findings beyond the conjecture: the null also holds under rationing-off mode (the masking phenomenon is structural, not rationing-specific), and the emergent target ratio discriminator gains power under the residual-force regime, from r = 0. 356 (v1) to r = 0. 706 (v3ᵣealistic). Two new figures: Fig. 4 (attrition profile comparison) and Fig. 5 (v3 launch rate with ±1σ bands). The operational recommendation (prioritize left-of-launch TEL attrition over C2 node targeting) is downgraded to a conditional ranking with an explicit contested-ISR regime boundary. Simulation code, figures, and supplementary analysis dashboards are available at 10. 5281/zenodo. 19558036