Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Friday, July 14, 2006

Taking out Iran's Defenses

A May 2006 StrategyPage article republished in the Persian Journal:
...[T]he Iranian air-defense system needs to be destroyed first. Iran did a lot of shopping in the 1990s, during the post Cold War "yard sale at the end of history", and reportedly came away with a variety of modern air-defense systems, including the Russian SA-10, SA-11, and SA-15 anti-aircraft missile systems. Iran also has at least two dozen SA-6 launchers and over 100 American HAWK launchers on inventory, giving it a weapon that is capable against the F-16s used by the United States Air Force and the UAE.

Backing up the anti-aircraft missiles is an air force that has at least 25 MiG-29s (unconfirmed reports put the Iranian total as high as 62), 24 Mirage F-1s (courtesy of Saddam's regime in 1991), 25 F-14s, and 65 F-4s. All of these can carry radar-guided missiles, primarily older versions of the AIM-7 Sparrow or the Super 530.
Now, I have no way of knowing if any of this is accurate but it may be of some interest...you know for idle speculation around the water cooler and that sort of thing.



It should be noted that Russia has committed to supply Iran with 29 Tor M1 air defense systems, described as:
The Tor-M1 is a fifth-generation integrated mobile air defense system designed for operation at medium, low and very low altitudes against fixed/rotary wing aircraft, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle), guided missiles and other high-precision weapons.
And that Iran says its Defenses Can Withstand Any Invasion. Also, Syria and Iran seem to have some sort of joint defense agreement.

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