PeeD
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I write this post to clear up some misunderstandings about Iran's capabilities.
A nuclear war at superpower-scale has to key points:
- Is your own arsenal or military capability survivable against a nuclear attack to hit back?
- Can you neutralize or degrade enemy nuclear weapons to a degree that total annihilation is avoided? If yes, is it by a preemptiv strike or could a significant degradation be achieved by a retaliatory strike.
So what is Irans position in this game, a country with literally 1000-times smaller defense budget than the biggest superpower. Is it even sane to think Iran could enter this game and have a notable position? A non-nuclear regional power?...
Call it revolutionary motivation, today on the occasion of 22. Bahman, or madness, but yes, Iran is working towards this.
For the start we will not look at the U.S but limit our scope to Irans regional adversary Israel. Once that's complete, everything can be up-scaled to U.S-level, given the sufficient timescale.
So what are Israeli capabilities:
- IRBM able to hit all of Iran
- Strategic warheads (more than a megaton yield)
- Either sufficient capability for a CEP of below 100m or this capability down to 20m and less will be achieved at some point in future.
- Either silo launched or road mobile systems
- AIP submarines with VLO cruise missiles that can hit Iran from the Mediterranean or will be able to hit all of Iran at some point in future
- Strategic warheads (more than a megaton yield)
- Point-strike precision and variable attack vector
- AIP offers low detection probability
- Airborne VLO platform F-35
- VLO offers low detection probability if Irans IADS assets are degraded
Well, back to the topics title: Conventional counter-force.
A counter-force strike uses nuclear warheads to attack enemy nuclear weapon delivery systems. With sufficient precision and sufficient-yield nuclear weapons, taking out enemy nuclear assets such as ICBM silos becomes a option.
Conventional counter-force is the conventional form of this:
Conventional destructive power, range, speed and precision must be very high to make this a option to consider.
Up to now, this was never done since it was more secure, technologically easier to simply use nuclear warheads to achieve higher PK.
With what has been achieved by Iran in the recent years, it is moving towards a conventional counter-force capability.
The only country that has the technological level and may has been working towards it is China.
China is believed to have a smaller number of nuclear warheads to be used in the counter-value role. This means it retaliates with nuclear weapons in cases, where its opponent uses nuclear weapons to cause mass civilian casualties (Hiroshima scenario).
China may follow a strategy of conventional counter-force, enabled by key technological breakthroughs.
Russia is leading in hypersonic technology but seems to stick to its available nuclear counter-force doctrine.
Iran and weapons like the Khorramshahr-2 have passed key technological barriers. With adequate real-time reconnaissance capabilities, robust communication capability and a CEP of 5-10m, the overall weapon system created, could enable conventional counter-force capability.
Limited to Israel and its ~1000-1500km distance to Iran and the small size of Israel (or lack of strategic depth), conventional counter-force with this class of weapons becomes an option. Hypersonic glide vehicles make this capability even more robust and difficult to defend against, once achieved. Real time-tracking capability either by a expandable cube-sat constellation or stand-off sensor air assets such as a S-171 variant are also necessary.
This all is half of the story: The other half is the fact that Israel is a nuclear power and will use these once degradation of its capabilities drop below a certain threshold.
At that point nuclear counter-force attacks would be carried out.
If Iran would still continue towards total neutralization of their capabilities, counter-value strikes would follow.
For this part of the game, Iran needs following capabilities:
- The conventional counter-force arsenal must be survivable to a level, beyond cold-war (and current) U.S or Soviet ICBM silos. This is primary due to the Israeli IRBM option listed above.
- A conventional counter-value strike via mass BM attacks such as older Shahab-3 is needed, to a level that would cause heavy destruction to 50-90% of larger Israeli cities.
Or a latent nuclear capability in form of either a clandestine nuclear arsenal or a sufficiently hardened civilian nuclear fuel program (Fordow), that could provide necessary fissile material in the timescale of days/weeks to weaponize and create a small nuclear arsenal to carry out counter-value strikes (while a one-sided nuclear war is going on).
So where is Iran here?
Irans "missile cities" strategy is not some kind of obsolete method.
In fact it is the most hardened and survivable option known to mankind. ICBM Silos can't compete with them in that role.
The U.S thought about this option in the 70's but the costs involved made them to opt for their Peacekeeper program (which was not realized either).
Iran has the needed terrain and the IRGC the necessary workforce to give Iran this capability.
Hence today Iran has the most survivable nuclear arsenal basing option possible for its conventional BM arsenal.
Irans concept is a combination, the hard tunnel basing, partially with launch portals. Plus the so called "south-side basing" (Soviet main nuclear strike would come from the north). In Irans concept its the basing within deep valleys that equates to "south-side basing", degrading capability to achieve a direct hit (non-variable, or too steep attack-vector required) and deflection of shock-waves.
The entrance to the tunnels is not of much importance: If disabled, digout egress machines will create other, new exits for the TELs at any point. Plus securely taking out launch portals in granite would require a hit by megaton yield warheads, almost directly.
China has been also following this basing strategy and North Korea too, albeit Irans scale is larger than North Koreas.
Here another point become important: There is no method, no yield-level nuclear weapon known that could destroy the missile arsenal within a Iranian missile city. Access may be disabled but the arsenal and the resources spend on them, remain where they are.
Except for the warheads, the rest of the missile is not explosive up until fueling: Fuel and oxidizer are stored separately.
Even a catastrophic event in the check-out/warhead mating area, won't destroy the seperatly stored non-explosive, empty boosters via a cascade effect.
The arsenal and the investment in it will stay there with suitable corrosion protection and minimal maintenance of some components. The arsenal will be available to deliver any payload in future if the base gets the order.
Even after dozens of megaton level counter-force strikes, there is always the risk that the missile city digs out, comes back into operation and re-starts retaliating until its arsenal is depleted (maybe months after the start of the war).
ABM systems such as S-300 or future Bavar-373 would of course further degrade the percentage Israeli nuclear IRBMs would hit those bases.
On the other hand Israeli ABM would encounter cost-effectiveness and hence numerical problems with a 400.000$ Khorramshahr delivering 3 separate (even dumb) warheads. They can't defend sufficiently in that scenario and on the other end their Jericho IRBM design is much more expensive.
However their main problem is that they lack a as survivable BM basing option as Iran. Once their silos have been identified, single conventional or multiple strikes of heavy penetrating BM warheads would disable their silos (depending on what accuracy Iran can achieve in future).
In other fields we see similar actions taken by Iran:
Against AIP-submarine CM threat:
- RPK-6/7 copy that would become a main, time critical weapon against Israeli subs
- Submarine program and nuclear propulsion program
- All anti-CM assets Iran has fielded over the years, up to the future OTH radar program
Against VLO F-35:
- Mobile high power multi-band systems
- Mobile SAM systems such as Bavar-373 and 3rd Khordad
- Future OTH radar
- Passive measure: long distance necessary to fly
- The delivery system for now would be still subsonic or Popeye-like low supersonic and hence about CM equivalent threat.
This all is the conventional counter-force strategy Iran is moving towards and there is more which would go beyond the scope of this post.
40 years ago, it would have been insane to think that Iran could once have this strategic-level capabilities.
The budget made available during the Ahmadinejad era gave Iran this capability, which as explained was deemed as too expensive for the second most important strategic weapon system of the U.S (after the Trident).
In another 40 years this capability might have been sufficiently upscaled to address the U.S nuclear option. Admittedly this sounds like a crazy statement today but the work has to start somewhere.
A nuclear war at superpower-scale has to key points:
- Is your own arsenal or military capability survivable against a nuclear attack to hit back?
- Can you neutralize or degrade enemy nuclear weapons to a degree that total annihilation is avoided? If yes, is it by a preemptiv strike or could a significant degradation be achieved by a retaliatory strike.
So what is Irans position in this game, a country with literally 1000-times smaller defense budget than the biggest superpower. Is it even sane to think Iran could enter this game and have a notable position? A non-nuclear regional power?...
Call it revolutionary motivation, today on the occasion of 22. Bahman, or madness, but yes, Iran is working towards this.
For the start we will not look at the U.S but limit our scope to Irans regional adversary Israel. Once that's complete, everything can be up-scaled to U.S-level, given the sufficient timescale.
So what are Israeli capabilities:
- IRBM able to hit all of Iran
- Strategic warheads (more than a megaton yield)
- Either sufficient capability for a CEP of below 100m or this capability down to 20m and less will be achieved at some point in future.
- Either silo launched or road mobile systems
- AIP submarines with VLO cruise missiles that can hit Iran from the Mediterranean or will be able to hit all of Iran at some point in future
- Strategic warheads (more than a megaton yield)
- Point-strike precision and variable attack vector
- AIP offers low detection probability
- Airborne VLO platform F-35
- VLO offers low detection probability if Irans IADS assets are degraded
Well, back to the topics title: Conventional counter-force.
A counter-force strike uses nuclear warheads to attack enemy nuclear weapon delivery systems. With sufficient precision and sufficient-yield nuclear weapons, taking out enemy nuclear assets such as ICBM silos becomes a option.
Conventional counter-force is the conventional form of this:
Conventional destructive power, range, speed and precision must be very high to make this a option to consider.
Up to now, this was never done since it was more secure, technologically easier to simply use nuclear warheads to achieve higher PK.
With what has been achieved by Iran in the recent years, it is moving towards a conventional counter-force capability.
The only country that has the technological level and may has been working towards it is China.
China is believed to have a smaller number of nuclear warheads to be used in the counter-value role. This means it retaliates with nuclear weapons in cases, where its opponent uses nuclear weapons to cause mass civilian casualties (Hiroshima scenario).
China may follow a strategy of conventional counter-force, enabled by key technological breakthroughs.
Russia is leading in hypersonic technology but seems to stick to its available nuclear counter-force doctrine.
Iran and weapons like the Khorramshahr-2 have passed key technological barriers. With adequate real-time reconnaissance capabilities, robust communication capability and a CEP of 5-10m, the overall weapon system created, could enable conventional counter-force capability.
Limited to Israel and its ~1000-1500km distance to Iran and the small size of Israel (or lack of strategic depth), conventional counter-force with this class of weapons becomes an option. Hypersonic glide vehicles make this capability even more robust and difficult to defend against, once achieved. Real time-tracking capability either by a expandable cube-sat constellation or stand-off sensor air assets such as a S-171 variant are also necessary.
This all is half of the story: The other half is the fact that Israel is a nuclear power and will use these once degradation of its capabilities drop below a certain threshold.
At that point nuclear counter-force attacks would be carried out.
If Iran would still continue towards total neutralization of their capabilities, counter-value strikes would follow.
For this part of the game, Iran needs following capabilities:
- The conventional counter-force arsenal must be survivable to a level, beyond cold-war (and current) U.S or Soviet ICBM silos. This is primary due to the Israeli IRBM option listed above.
- A conventional counter-value strike via mass BM attacks such as older Shahab-3 is needed, to a level that would cause heavy destruction to 50-90% of larger Israeli cities.
Or a latent nuclear capability in form of either a clandestine nuclear arsenal or a sufficiently hardened civilian nuclear fuel program (Fordow), that could provide necessary fissile material in the timescale of days/weeks to weaponize and create a small nuclear arsenal to carry out counter-value strikes (while a one-sided nuclear war is going on).
So where is Iran here?
Irans "missile cities" strategy is not some kind of obsolete method.
In fact it is the most hardened and survivable option known to mankind. ICBM Silos can't compete with them in that role.
The U.S thought about this option in the 70's but the costs involved made them to opt for their Peacekeeper program (which was not realized either).
Iran has the needed terrain and the IRGC the necessary workforce to give Iran this capability.
Hence today Iran has the most survivable nuclear arsenal basing option possible for its conventional BM arsenal.
Irans concept is a combination, the hard tunnel basing, partially with launch portals. Plus the so called "south-side basing" (Soviet main nuclear strike would come from the north). In Irans concept its the basing within deep valleys that equates to "south-side basing", degrading capability to achieve a direct hit (non-variable, or too steep attack-vector required) and deflection of shock-waves.
The entrance to the tunnels is not of much importance: If disabled, digout egress machines will create other, new exits for the TELs at any point. Plus securely taking out launch portals in granite would require a hit by megaton yield warheads, almost directly.
China has been also following this basing strategy and North Korea too, albeit Irans scale is larger than North Koreas.
Here another point become important: There is no method, no yield-level nuclear weapon known that could destroy the missile arsenal within a Iranian missile city. Access may be disabled but the arsenal and the resources spend on them, remain where they are.
Except for the warheads, the rest of the missile is not explosive up until fueling: Fuel and oxidizer are stored separately.
Even a catastrophic event in the check-out/warhead mating area, won't destroy the seperatly stored non-explosive, empty boosters via a cascade effect.
The arsenal and the investment in it will stay there with suitable corrosion protection and minimal maintenance of some components. The arsenal will be available to deliver any payload in future if the base gets the order.
Even after dozens of megaton level counter-force strikes, there is always the risk that the missile city digs out, comes back into operation and re-starts retaliating until its arsenal is depleted (maybe months after the start of the war).
ABM systems such as S-300 or future Bavar-373 would of course further degrade the percentage Israeli nuclear IRBMs would hit those bases.
On the other hand Israeli ABM would encounter cost-effectiveness and hence numerical problems with a 400.000$ Khorramshahr delivering 3 separate (even dumb) warheads. They can't defend sufficiently in that scenario and on the other end their Jericho IRBM design is much more expensive.
However their main problem is that they lack a as survivable BM basing option as Iran. Once their silos have been identified, single conventional or multiple strikes of heavy penetrating BM warheads would disable their silos (depending on what accuracy Iran can achieve in future).
In other fields we see similar actions taken by Iran:
Against AIP-submarine CM threat:
- RPK-6/7 copy that would become a main, time critical weapon against Israeli subs
- Submarine program and nuclear propulsion program
- All anti-CM assets Iran has fielded over the years, up to the future OTH radar program
Against VLO F-35:
- Mobile high power multi-band systems
- Mobile SAM systems such as Bavar-373 and 3rd Khordad
- Future OTH radar
- Passive measure: long distance necessary to fly
- The delivery system for now would be still subsonic or Popeye-like low supersonic and hence about CM equivalent threat.
This all is the conventional counter-force strategy Iran is moving towards and there is more which would go beyond the scope of this post.
40 years ago, it would have been insane to think that Iran could once have this strategic-level capabilities.
The budget made available during the Ahmadinejad era gave Iran this capability, which as explained was deemed as too expensive for the second most important strategic weapon system of the U.S (after the Trident).
In another 40 years this capability might have been sufficiently upscaled to address the U.S nuclear option. Admittedly this sounds like a crazy statement today but the work has to start somewhere.
