This analysis was originally released by SouthFront in October 2019
The current military and diplomatic situation in the Middle East demonstrates that the capability and quality of air defense forces is especially important for states operating in a tense geopolitical environment. Saudi Arabia with Patriot surface-to-air missiles appeared to be unable to defend itself from missile and drone attacks by the Houthis. Thus, the Kingdom lost its remaining chances to achieve a military victory in the Yemeni war and resumed negotiations with the Houthis. Devastated by the war on terrorism, Syria and Iraq are suffering from regular Israeli strikes carried out under a pretext of combating the so-called Iranian threat. The Trump administration strongly supports these actions and together with its Israeli counterparts fuel the anti-Iranian hysteria to justify its own policies in the region. In a recent interview to Jerusalem Post, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Israel has a “fundamental right” to bomb what it wants to “ensure” its own “security”. In the event of a new round of tensions in the Persian Gulf, Iran’s ability to defend its territory from a possible aerial attack will be one of the factors shaping the course of the possible escalation.
The Islamic Republic already demonstrated its air defense capability on June 20, 2019, when forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down a U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk BAMS-D surveillance drone that violated Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says that the Global Hawk was downed with its developed surface-to-air missile (SAM) system Khordad-3.
As a part of its multi-layered air defense, Iran employs a variety of short-, medium- and long-range systems. Earlier, the core of Iran’s air defense was foreign-made systems, including Russian, Chinese, and even US models. Today, Iranian air defense actively employs domestically produced systems. Most of foreign systems were locally modernized. The most capable foreign air defense system acquired by Iran is the Russian-made S-300, the delivery of which was completed in 2016. The most-widely known Iranian indigenous SAMs are the Bavar-373, the Khordad-15 and the Khordad-3.
The Bavar-373 is a multi-channel long-range SAM system created in Iran. According to the Iranian military, the system has a range of up to 200 km and altitude of up to 27 km. It is reportedly capable of hitting stealth air targets, cruise missiles and even warheads of ballistic missiles. Official Teheran says that the Bavar-373 is superior to the Russian S-300 and only slightly inferior to the S-400.
In 2019, Iran unveiled the medium-range SAM system Khordad-15. The system is capable of detecting fighter jets, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles in a range of 150km and track them within a range of 120 km. The Sayyad-3 missile, employed by the system, has a range of 200 km. The Khordad-15 reportedly can detect stealth targets in a distance of 85 km and can intercept and destroy them within a range of 45km.
There are more SAM systems of Iranian design: Talash and Raad. Each unit of the Talash system includes three vehicles, a truck carrying Patriot-style missile launchers and two command and control vehicles. The Talash-1 is employed for low and medium altitudes, the Talash-2 – for medium to high altitudes, and the Talash-3 – for high and very high altitudes. The Talash-2 can engage targets at a range of up to 120 km, and an altitude of up to 27km. Some sources say that the Talash concept originates from the Patriot.
The Raad SAM family externally resembles the Russian Buk and Buk M2 systems. According to Iranian sources, it is designed to confront hostile aircraft, cruise missiles, smart bombs, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The system’s Taer-2 missiles can trace and hit targets in ranges up to 50 km and in altitudes of up to 25-27 km. Another missile employed by the SAM is the Sayyad-2. It has a range of 75km and a top altitude of 30. The most modern version of this SAM system is the Khorad-3 employed against the US Global Hawk in June.
The development of these systems is the visible demonstration of successes of the Iranian military industrial complex. Pro-Iranian sources say that Iran successfully joined the United States, China and Russia in the club of the countries capable of producing effective long-range SAM systems. However, the tactical and technical data of the latest Iranian SAMs that are presented in the open press is very limited, and there are almost no data on the probability of interception of various types of targets. The degree of protection of Iranian SAMs from electronic warfare also remains a question. Accordingly, their real combat capabilities in the event of an armed conflict with a high-tech enemy cannot be estimated using the existing data. Another question is how successful can Iran’s multi-layered air defense be against combined drone, ballistic and cruise missiles strikes that Saudi Arabia experienced during the past years.
Representatives of the Trump administration, including the US president himself, repeatedly threatened Iran with a military action. However, no threats were ever turned into reality, even in a form of a symbolic move like the US missile strike on Syria’s Sharyat airfield. The US stance of empty threats and symbolic gestures is likely not a result the powerful Iranian air-defenses nor Washington’s attempts to avoid an open military escalation in the region. During the years of sanction pressure and military threats, Iran developed a complex asymmetric warfare doctrine. This doctrine provided the Iranian leadership with a number of means and measures that it can employ to deliver a painful blow to its adversaries, which consist primarily of the Israeli-US-Saudi alliance. Therefore, the cost of a military aggression against the Islamic Republic in the current conditions appears to be too high for sides that could be involved.
Iran should be disbursing its assets and AD systems all over the region. Some manpads in Afghanistan will do wonders and shades of what the CIA arseholes did to the Soviets. The Afghans hate the Americunts the most and are good fighters.
Lmao the real accuracy is more like 5%
Either they have been lying about it the whole time or SAA/russian AD is just that good, I’m thinking it’s both lol
It was the improved EW that accounted for the most missile failures in the first attack. The majority never even made landfall. Those that did mostly went awry and/or were downed by AA. They might have fared better in the second attack if the French could actually tell time and co-ordinate properly. Just kidding, it wouldn’t have any difference, just more clay pidgens.
Don’t know about accuracy figures but lethality was 10-15 % when US launched (78 ?) on Syrian targets after false flag/fake chem attack in Douma – homing electronics easily jammed
Well they were ending up all over the place and not being very effective except as fire works. We saw shock and awe but it did little military damage. The serbs and now Russia has developed jamming tech which makes more of them go off the rocker.. Remember, the aim is not to hit with just one which means less profits but needing 10 of them to hit one target properly.. increasing profits..
southfront did a video a while back, explained where the 80-95% number came from and analysed the facts, when all missiles added up it was more like 5 – 12% for patriot defense systems
How can Iran defend against ICBM with MIRVs ?? If US(or Israel) takes serious losses be in no doubt that that US will be the first to go nuclear.
I think it will be Israel first if Islamist Iran directly attacks Israel or any of Iran’s lap puppies get too frisky.
Jake, your mouth stinks. Wash it, please!
Shit never loses it’s stink, sorry.
The filth in Israel will be incinerated, this time permanently…
If that scenario were to transpire, Russia and China would need do destroy the USA ,as both nations realise that the US gunslingers would target them next.
That is what a layered defense is for. ICBMs are not the hardest to hit. Nuke capable aircraft are problematic, but not invincible. Russia would likely also be dragged into such a morass. This is why Iran invested in 100s of 1,000s of missiles…AA and offensive. Yes, Iran is conceivably likely to take nuclear hits, but it is not guaranteed. By then there will be no more gulf US navy, no Israel or Saudi oil fields…not to mention other minor annoyances like UAE and friends. What does the term ‘win’ mean in such a context?
It’s hard to shoot down cruise missiles, but much easier to hit large ICBMs. But you are describing a nuclear scenario right? The patriots have been proven to be ineffective. They could not defend the Saudi refinery. The Iranians are capable of hitting an RQ4 drone, and tankers, so they certainly have massive offensive capability. If they are going to be attacked by the US, they might as well take down US/Saudi/Emirate targets which are very close. There must be 40,000 US troops in range of Iranian assets.
But this entails a barbaric response from the US. Iran is an ancient country, it has a longer history than the Yank children can even imagine. Any historical or cultural sites hit would be a war crime. Except there is no international law, the US is NEVER held to account for its deliberate butchery , so the UN agencies have ZERO credibility. International law is over, the US killed it by violating it over and over.
I think, that Russia or China, should move “tripwire” assets into Iran, e.g. s400. But they have to be prepared to call the US bluff, and that I fear, they will not do (for Iran’s sake)? If it worked, then it would be a deterrent to US attacks, although they would still try to hit targets without hitting Russian assets.
The Russians have many tricks. When NATO bombed civilians for 90 days in Yugoslavia, the Serbs used inflatable tanks. The US airforce claimed to have hit thousands of tanks, and they STILL think that. How easy would it be, the Russians already have inflatable s400 dummies. They can place them at all military installations in Iran, and have the advantage of Terrance, without the risk of death (for Russian troops)?
Is a low intensity war is Iran’s best option? They can pepper the highways between US bases with IEDs. They can snipe, at night, it has a psychological effect even if there are no kills. They can arm the Ansar Allah movement, or perhaps aquire better armaments from Russia/China?
Does the US doctrine allows for tactical nukes in a conventional war?
You think the Murdering Mullahs feel lucky? If you missed what happened in the past few days, you’re fighting last week’s war. Obviously, the US and Israel have now put EVERYTHING on the table. Read that again, EVERYTHING. Cut to the chase. Islamist Iran will soon not have a nuke program and will be lucky to be a functioning country if they step too far out of line in their response.
hey joke123 why don’t you feck off, eat your fecal breakfast and commit seppuko right away!
Nahhhhhh…too much fun seeing you goons sh*t your pants.
You’re the one bricking it over iranian nukes? You’re the one on a website you hate, like a sadist. It would be like me going over to the comments section of Breitbart – why would I go there to hang with MAGA chuds, or go on some radical centrist site like the Guardian?
You’re a sad wanker, nobody is buying your horseshit, and yet you keep posting month after month (years actually) what do you get out of it? Do you imagine you are a heroic yankee hero, fighting “evil” Iranians/terrorists/Russians on this site? Are you just a self-appointed loner shit-poster, you’re not even paid by the NED/USAID or some other stink-tank, state propaganda outfit? Damn, at least get paid bitch. Are you just being a dick for free (pro boner lol)?
What motivates you, what are you achieving? Are you fighting the “mad mullahs” as you call them? Are you getting results, are people upvoting you at all? It looks like you just get ratioed the shit out of, is that fun?
Anyway, you are beyond help, stay so people can continue to shit on your head.
JEW FUCK!
the illegal apartheid settler state will soon cease to exist as jesus shows up again.. hooorah..
Actually if you wanna talk about prophecies, it says in the Bible that when the Jewish Messiah comes, Muslims will feel the hand of God upon them and the Third Temple will be built in Jerusalem instead of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Truth or not? time will tell.
Jewish messiah? Trumps already here. See where your pedo child fucking saviour takes you. Right where you need to be…back in the sewer from where you and your butt buddies came from.
why so mad zman? is that because you are a pedophil yourself and you didn’t take your meds today? stop chasing kids with your dick out, it scares them.
Projecting your desires on other again? Same old lame BS. You’re still looking for that ‘thick head’ you clamor about, huh? Hell, I ain’t mad over Trump, he’s going to be the death of you dumb fucks and you can say you helped. It’ll be the only positive thing he will have accomplished.
Somehow I doubt it :)
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41e5e696610e182404df93d372038de7f4d5ca2101fe04ebe838870af6453c56.jpg
You got that right. He promise huge Infrastructure projects. Did not say they were in Israel. Quote “Remember I am the only non-politician opposed to senseless wars. About a week before the election, I read where 911 insider Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was helping Trump with his campaign tactics. I did not vote at all. Should have voted for Hillary, would have gotten a better tax break.
Do you think the God of truth and justice will side with thieves and murderers?
Uuuuhh…they don’t care, they worship Satan.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43f07abbd0904beccb997c2b4b015d2b2949b190703e2ca0b912a53dabe45916.jpg
IT also says that God forbade the Israelites to return, on pain of destruction. You missed that bit conveniently, and everything else. Time has nothing to do with it, you are a fundamentalist christian Zionist. The worst scum of the earth, you are BEGGING for Armageddon, so you can fly up to heaven in the rapture.
Except its all BULLSHIT. Your beliefs are fairy tales, written by men, edited by men over and over, and you take it on face value.
what bout iraq then?
AHHHH You are so SCARED of Iran getting nukes. BUT YOU DID EVERYTHING TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE, COW SHIT FOR BRAINS!
The “response” is not one event, you will be hounded and sniped, bombed, assassinated, until you remove your occupation forces, and return them to a gulf dictatorship, run by MURDERING SAVAGE SAUDI ANIMALS. Or BABY KILLER ISRAELI RACIAL SUPREMACISTS.
Cant wait to see all you inbred ziocucks fleeing ‘Israel’ like rats from a sinking ship when Iran levels Tel Aviv. Ya’ll have to swim tho’!
82 million people and 1650000square kilometers and the stupid yanks think they can subdue that country with missiles and jets – how delusional but since they are egged on by the jews they might actually go for it, with the nukes ready when things get hairy. in the balance is the world economy, the hormuz strait controlled by iran and then there is the carrier group presently in the persian gulf, the abraham lincoln, which I haven’t seen anything about having left the area, abraham lincoln from the early 1990s. doubt that trump, election year, would go hard core like his son in law, jared kushner, slimebag in residence, no doubt advocates and pompeo and so on. a second term is probably more precious for trump than having started a war although what happens after november 2020 is something to guess about.
Damn, all you Islamist Iran lovers feel lucky. Hope the Murdering Mullahs aren’t as stupid and suicidal…for the sake of the Iranian people.
Its easy to spot you “jens”, because of your simplistic propaganda talking points. Iranians aren’t stupid Jens, its your dumb fuck animal dick-tator who thinks he can assassinate people at will. Americans are the most ignorant people in the developed world. I’ve seen the difference, I know what I’m talkng about. The average doodle knows nothing about country X, but they are fully convinced that X is a bad guy, who was “about to attack us” (the bush doctrine).
All empires are either destroyed, or they commit suicide. Which do you think will befall the vile Yankee Reich? The US Empire has killed 20 million people since the end of WW2, I suppose you think a few more wont make a difference.
I think it’s one murder too many, and now you are shitting yourself, not knowing when or where retribution will come. All your racist orange dick can do is threaten to bomb mosques. what happened to “we stand with the Iranian people” horseshit? It was a lie before it left Trump’s filthy mouth.
Keep trolling, keep changing your name and then using the same cut and paste talking points, like we are dumb. That’s how smart the state dept, or whatever propaganda organisation pays you to waste time shit posting on a site you can’t control. SF does not conform to the imperial narrative, and you just cant accept that. Your petty revenge is to come here and get ratioed/dog-piled for being an utter cunt.
You ziofucks are suicidal though, doing your best to get Tel Viv turned into a smoking crater.
trust they are and in the process wipes out the filth occupying palestine today and since about a 100 years back – soon to push up daisies or being dried out wet stains in the palestinian sand, something to behold as precious for the world.
They don’t have enough forces deployed to invade Iran anyway, Douglas Macgregor thinks they wouldn’t sit by as Saddam did when NATO forces were deploying to Saudi Arabia in preparation for Operation Desert Storm.
but israel’s subs are lurking around the gulf of oman nuke-loaded in the hope they can get to use them if the Iranian does some serious mistake which can be án excuse, a casus belli, for the war the israelis are dreaming of and which will rid them of the one party preventing them from the greater israel dream.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons too and Iran might just get nukes of their own.
hope so
It would be better if neither Israel, nor any the other countries in question don’t have nukes.
yep agree – but srael is well equipped with nukes, how that could be allowed goes beyond anythingrelevant in the world today and if one party is allowed to have nukes, then other partiesmust also be so allowed, say syria, say iran, say iraq say turkey, say hezbolla and so on.
Iran is now dealing under table : “LIft sanction or Iran will devastate Saudi Arabia included US EmBassy and bases there”…which lead an strong enonomic crisis for western countries …and Trump will be remove!…
qassam helped iraqi government (while assisting the USA) to push ISIS out of iraq, then pushed isis out of syria, and stopped american backed saudi from taking the yemen capital and then forcing saudi back forced the fight to attacking saudi arabia itself
he was a hero of the iraqi / iran war when USA backed saddam hussein, usa backed isis dont forget
when Iran says everybody should avenge him, you have half the ME wanting to do just that right now. qassam saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians from the barbarism and butchery of ISIS
just because Trump got spooked and didnt want another benghazi, he assassinated a man that was extremely popular with a lot of people holding guns and a lot of grateful civilians
Russian & Chinese technicals are already beefed up in Iran to test their latest toys against US aggression. Remember 2012 incident; RQ-170 Sentinel drone captured over Iranian soil “intact” by Chinese technicals. Now they will probably try their new toys to sink an aircraft carrier.
Latest news is that even Netanyahu has back-pedalled and is distancing himself from Trump, apparently aware that Iran has sufficient means to end Israel without resorting to nukes.
I have to suspect that Iranians understand they may only get one ‘clean’ strike; whatever/wherever the US gets it, Israel will at the same time.
They will get far more than “one clean strike”. There is no way anyone can simultaneously strike that distributed, hardened and concealed a network of missile launchers over such a large geographical area. The US/Usrael better understand that they only get 1 clean shot.
In case of a major USZOG military event against Iran, they should make it clear ALL Israeli chemical factories are on the table… and ALL Sodom Arabia major oil…
Too late.Iran is already a nuclear power.
They have in their posession a weapon much deadlier than the conventional nuclear or even hydrogen bomb:
– By using its centrifuges to mix radioactive Cobalt powder into the explosive medium it can arm warheads that will scatter cobalt over a large area. – Unlike a nuclear explosion, cobalt contamination remains for thousands of years, making the ground uninhabitable. – Yet it is a low tech weapon not requiring the advanced control electronics for a nuclear explosive. – Iran has long range missiles capable of carrying cobalt diffusion bombs to Europe and Israel.
Since the Iranians mastered the fuel cycle years ago, cobalt dirty nukes are already within their means.
Prediction: Should the US force them to reveal their hand, Iran will announce their nuclear deterrent at the 11th hour.
I certainly hope so so that the jews in israel finally can get the message and make a run for it in order to survive.
Sounds so simple every ZOG-Military would be claiming it as a deterrent/weapon. Any sources to share?
Only definitional:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
And the inference that the primary 3 components required are already within Iranian capabilities:
a) Mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle. Check. b) High Explosive Conventional Warheads. Check. c) long range precision guided missile systems. Check.
Thanks, Arch. On the money. Now I’m worried Israhell will utilize the same.
82 million people and 1650000 square kilometers and that will last so long that the israelis are 6 feet under pushing up daisies before the iranians cease their attack against the jews. in fact the jews stand not a chance even if the more than dumb disunited states of america joins up – not even with their nukes will they be able to stop the iranians from killing every last one of the israeli jews. dried wet stains in the sand of palestina or pushing up daisies. a day to behold and save for eternity.