Cordesman/Wilner, Iran & The Gulf Military Balance Rev 3
AHC 2/29/12
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rhetoric. This is sin common to all military powers, but there are signs that Iran sins more than most. The Struggle to Modernize Iran’s Surface to Air Missile Defenses Once again, Russia is Iran’s only current potential source of the modern long-range surface-to-air weapons Iran needs, and it would take major deliveries of a new integrated air defense system based around the S-300 or S-400 surface-to-air missiles to change this situation. Iran has augmented its largely obsolescent holdings of modern short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems through the acquisition of some 29-32 operational Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) and Pantsyr S-1E (SA-22 Greyhound). Russia rejected the idea of deliveries of modern S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle) long range SAMs in 2010, although a future shift in Russian policy represents a potential risk. Iran has claimed it is building its own S-300 equivalents, but such claims seem to be sharply exaggerated:11
"Manufacturing Bavar (Belief) 373 Missile System is in progress and all production needs have been supplied domestically. This project will soon enter its final stage (of production) and it will be much more advanced than the S300 missile system. The flaws and defects of the (Russian) S-300 system have been removed in the indigenous version of the system and its conceptual designing has finished.” – Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli, Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base, September 22, 2011.
"It is now several years that our defense industries researchers and experts have been designing a system whose capabilities are way beyond the S-300 missile system. The system has been designed based on our own operational needs." – Colonel Mohammad Hossein Shamkhali, Deputy Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base for Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad, September 22, 2011.
"If they do not deliver S-300 defensive system to us, we have replacements and we can supply our operational requirements through innovative techniques and different designs." – General Hassan Mansourian, Deputy Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base for Coordination, July 6, 2010.12
The US, the Southern Gulf Problem and Iran’s Capability for Land-based Air Defense Once again, no one can predict the way in which Iran’s surface-to-air missile defenses would affect air combat that might emerge between Iran, the US, and its Arab numbers, but some factors seem likely – given the limits to the unclassified data now available:
Much of Iran’s surface-to-air missile defense system is dependent on fire units and sensors that cannot be moved without disrupting the integration of the system, and which become vulnerable in near real time the moment it emits.
Physically attacking the entire system would be difficult, but attacking given links and areas to create a corridor to penetrate deep into Iran would not be a major challenge.
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“Kremlin Bans Sale of S-300 Missiles to Iran.” BBC. September 22, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldeurope-11388680 12
Quotes taken from a number of Iranian news sources such as Fars News, PressTV, the Tehran Times, and others. Also included are quotes from Western news outlets such as CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
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