I said its valuable if its ground launched or launched from drones. I am against investing in our airforce because:
1. We cant afford airplanes, we need at least 500 more last gen interceptors and 500 attack aircraft and 500 choppers.
2. Maintaining the aircrafts are expensive and most likely we will be sanctioned again and have to look at our new billion dollar investments rust because of lack of parts.
3. Nobody is going to invade us, and if they did they will smoke our airforce anyway.
Dont get me wrong. I would love us to have a powerful airforce but its just not going to happen.
We should invest in ATGMS SAMS, SSM, Manpads, Humvees, Tanks, drones, etc.
Same nonsense delusions Iran's leadership was deluded enough into believing right after the Revolution! NO one is ever going to invade us! We don't need fighters bla bla bla
And what happened? Those very same fighters and helicopters that we supposedly didn't need ended up being our main line of defense and were the ONLY reason we were able to stop Saddam's invasion of Iran.
Iran's Air Force sunk 80% of Saddam's Navy which allowed Iran's Oil to flow and IRIAF destroyed Saddam's Air Force 2 times over and forced Saddam to move most of it's Air Force to the furthest point in Iraq and those very same Helo's prevented an Armored Division over 5 times the size of Iran's from invading Iran because if those armored divisions had air cover Saddam could have easily invaded large areas of Iran!
Iran is a country filled with various types of resources Oil, Gas, Gold, Copper,.... so anyone who is deluded enough to think NO ONE is EVER going to invade us is DELUSIONAL!!!! Especially since Iran's Population is getting Older and Older every year and invading Iran may be difficult today but in the next 20 years most of Iran's population will be over 50 years old and unless we start preparing for that day today we will be doomed!
Iranian Ah-1, F-4, F-5 & F-14's have served Iran for over 40 years & an 8 year long war so clearly they were a GREAT investment that clearly paid off and It's time to upgrade the fleet!
And building domestic fighters isn't just about the fighter! The development of a domestic Fighter brings with it the development of various other industries whos usefulness go well beyond the military industry!
And due to Iran's size and Terrain building Helicopters for military and civilian use are NOT a luxury but a necessity!
And for now aside from purchasing ~15 Air Superiority fighters every year over the next 10 years or until Iran produces it's own (no more than $2Billion USD a year) the rest of Iran's needs in terms of Air Power can be meet with domestic technology which means whatever you spend gets recycled into your own economy and advancements you make go far beyond military use.
Today 10 Fighters armed with newer versions of the SDB can takeout over 80 standard bunkers/targets from 110km away and fire on Iranian targets from outside the range of Iranian SAM's so Iran can build and buy all the SAM's it wants because without Air Superiority fighters and interceptors to intercept those fighters SAM by themselves are NOT sufficient to defend anything.
What are you going to hit with a MANPAD if they fire on you from 100km away? What use is 1million SAM's if they can't individually target and take out those SAM's from outside their range? And without air cover Tanks are nothing but easy targets for UAV's, Helo's, Fighters....
And yes ATGM's are valuable BUT Iran is already producing various versions so what is the added value of wasting money and producing yet another version? That money would be better spent producing something that gives you a capability you previously didn't have!
