Iranian Air Defense Systems

[PeeD]

I did a calculation which basically showed that for the Najm-802B and Najm-804 of the 15th Khordad to reach the same performance as the twice larger Najm-802A its elements must have 8-9 times larger power output.
Najm-802A first appeared 2012 (prototype) and Najm-802B 2016 (prototype).

The mobility of the half sized Najm-802B and -804 is of course at shoot and scoot level compared to the Najm-802A.

Furthermore at its anti-stealth engagement range of 45km the radar performance will be sufficient to detect -45dB stealth performance aircraft. -45dB is a U.S. MIC-PR-machine textbook minimal RCS for things like F-22/-35 that translates to 0,00003m²... Which means: At the stated 45km, the 15th Khordad and its IRGC pendant will be able to kill "any" known stealth asset.

 

[mohsen]

Global Hawk on live Iranian TV. new details:
پهپاد ام کیو قرصی‬‎ - ثریا - 05 تیر 1398

 

[Arminkh]

Global Hawk on live Iranian TV. new details:
پهپاد ام کیو قرصی‬‎ - ثریا - 05 تیر 1398

I was just reading the transcript of the same:

https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/970253/جزئیات-جدید-از-شکار-پهپاد-آمریکایی-توسط-سپاه

 

[TheImmortal]

I did a calculation which basically showed that for the Najm-802B and Najm-804 of the 15th Khordad to reach the same performance as the twice larger Najm-802A its elements must have 8-9 times larger power output.
Najm-802A first appeared 2012 (prototype) and Najm-802B 2016 (prototype).

The mobility of the half sized Najm-802B and -804 is of course at shoot and scoot level compared to the Najm-802A.

Furthermore at its anti-stealth engagement range of 45km the radar performance will be sufficient to detect -45dB stealth performance aircraft. -45dB is a U.S. MIC-PR-machine textbook minimal RCS for things like F-22/-35 that translates to 0,00003m²... Which means: At the stated 45km, the 15th Khordad and its IRGC pendant will be able to kill "any" known stealth asset.

45KM is not a whole lot of distance if the primary purpose is to defend an objective/target.

Thus it means the 3rd Khordad needs to be way Outside of established Air defense rings like Natanz or Parchin or Tehran because if it’s actually in the air defense ring then it serves no purpose against the F-22/F-35 because they begin launching their payloads from more than 45KM away.

 

[PeeD]

45KM is not a whole lot of distance if the primary purpose is to defend an objective/target.

Thus it means the 3rd Khordad needs to be way Outside of established Air defense rings like Natanz or Parchin or Tehran because if it’s actually in the air defense ring then it serves no purpose against the F-22/F-35 because they begin launching their payloads from more than 45KM away.

In reality what I said is absolute worst case scenario numbers: At 45km not even a stealth asset with idealistic -45dB performance will be able to evade a 15th Khordad/IRGC-SD-2.
45km range will create a umbrella of 90km diameter, sufficient for any mega city.

So lets move to a realistic scenario: A stealth asset with ~-30dB X-band performance from relevant attack aspects and effective -20dB against Najm. Detection at around 130km.
15th Khordad would then link to an available Talash-2 FCS and attack with comparatively expensive Sayyad-3 at extended 120km.
Even if Talash-2 FCS is not available to a 15th Khordad, it will likely use a long-range ARH SD-3 variant (expensive). But the bread and butter of it are 45km range engagements, where it is most cost-effective AND most robust.

I already tried to do some myth busting on stand-off weapon ranges and their survivability here. Russian Buk-M2 (Chinese HQ-16 too) is a 45km range system, one would wonder why so much capable Russians would accept a 45km range SAM if they would believe that it can be easily taken out by a SDB saturation attack.
U.S airpowers destructive potential is to 90% countered in their employment by such a 45km range SAM asset.

 

[Hack-Hook]

In reality what I said is absolute worst case scenario numbers: At 45km not even a stealth asset with idealistic -45dB performance will be able to evade a 15th Khordad/IRGC-SD-2.
45km range will create a umbrella of 90km diameter, sufficient for any mega city.

So lets move to a realistic scenario: A stealth asset with ~-30dB X-band performance from relevant attack aspects and effective -20dB against Najm. Detection at around 130km.
15th Khordad would then link to an available Talash-2 FCS and attack with comparatively expensive Sayyad-3 at extended 120km.
Even if Talash-2 FCS is not available to a 15th Khordad, it will likely use a long-range ARH SD-3 variant (expensive). But the bread and butter of it are 45km range engagements, where it is most cost-effective AND most robust.

I already tried to do some myth busting on stand-off weapon ranges and their survivability here. Russian Buk-M2 (Chinese HQ-16 too) is a 45km range system, one would wonder why so much capable Russians would accept a 45km range SAM if they would believe that it can be easily taken out by a SDB saturation attack.
U.S airpowers destructive potential is to 90% countered in their employment by such a 45km range SAM asset.

I dont think they use BUK-M2 against SDBs , they protect the SAM with TOR and Pantsyr

 

[PeeD]

I dont think they use BUK-M2 against SDBs , they protect the SAM with TOR and Pantsyr

What I tried to say is this: TOR, Pantsir, Mesbah are systems to defend against the 10% of employed weapons that can put the system at real danger, such as HARM and Tomahawk. It is hence immune to 90% of the other weapons or = those other weapons can't be used where these SAM systems are --> "Denial of weapons" --> No surgical strikes where a 15th Khordad is protecting.
This is the baseline. Then come SEAD/DEAD operations, specialized to take out these sites. At this phase, SDB, Paveway, JDAM and JSOW which represent the mass of U.S. airpower strike weapons are not effective against a IADS like Irans. 10% of the rest of specialized, expensive weapons are then relevant.
Conclusion is: 45km range of HQ-16, Buk-M2, 15th Khordad is sufficient to avoid the use of 80% of U.S PGMs. 10% are special cases where weapons like JSOW and SDB can strike at these extended ranges and the remaining 10% are expensive long range weapons TOR, Pantsir and Mesbah are designed to deal with.

Beyond Pentagon and MIC PR, there is the layer of truth. There effective combat ranges are much lower.
Advertised -40dB class stealth assets become effectively < -30dB in combat and -50dB is just psychological warfare.
Advertised ~120km range of SDB/JSOW becomes 70km in 20% of realistic combat situations and 40km in the remaining 80%.
etc.

Here suddenly an asset like 15th Khordad becomes more effective than thought.

 

[WinterNights]

I hope Iran has started working on Photonic radars. I feel they will play a very important part in the future.

 

[yavar]

 

[WinterNights]

I said this in another thread,

Next time, I want one of our UAVs to shoot down an American UAV/plane.
It would be the first time a UAV kills another/plane in combat

Please IRCG, make this come true

 

[PeeD]

tartar fire control systems along with rim-66 standard. in last 10-15 years we maded sayyad AD and that was start of our indigenous designs.
sayyad ADS:
View attachment 567132 tartar FCS:

AN/SPG-51 radar

AN/SPG-60 radar

our air defences at early stages were copy of US naval ADs, then we made najm AESA radars and after that talash systems and 15th khordad and one day hopefully bavar-373.
also Iran-china military cooperation are not really good.

The mobile AN/SPG-60-like tracking radar of the older Talash-2 is fortunately now replaced by the Najm-804 to form the Talash-3 (best known from the 15th Khordad).
In many ways with the Najm-804 of Talash-3 that system becomes a land based Aegis combat system:
pseudo-Standard (Talash-1) --> pseudo-Tartar (Talash-2) -->pseudo-Aegis (Talash-3).
The big question is if this pseudo-Aegis Talash-3 can also support 240km S-200 beside 120km SD-3 and 75km SD-2. I'm confident that this is the case at least out to 150km maybe not to the theoretical full range of 240km. However at impact probably 80% of the engagements would occur around 150km anyway.

 

[PeeD]

Another issue:
The lack of a monopulse feed assembly on the known 3rd Khordad radar photos leads me to the conclusion that it can't be a known PESA design. It looks like a AESA.

If it is an AESA it needs to be a GaA based system to be cost effective.
If it is GaA based then we know what the limits of TRM power output are.

The whole point is this: Compared to dedicated anti-stealth systems like the IRGC-SD-2 and 15th Khordad, the X-band operating 3rd Khordad has a handicap of at least -10dB in favor of the stealth asset.
So it is not the best system to hunt LO, VLO and 5th gen fighters.

The RQ-4/MQ-4 are at least LO assets with at least 0,1m² to 0,01m² (-10dB to -20dB) in X-band.

Considering the highest power output TRMs possible for GaAs, a RQ-4/MQ-4 intercepted at 22km and 17km altitude would then need to have a RCS of >0,05m² or >-13dB.

If we assume medium performance GaA TRMs, then RCS would be >0,1m² or -10dB.

As no SD-2C was used we can probably exclude an engagement without lock via ARH seeker SAM.

So my conclusion of this all is: The 3rd Khordad was operating at the edge of its capability.
I doubt the makers would be economically unwise to use anything better than GaA TRMs.
If that is true, then the stealth performance of the RQ-4/MQ-4 is at least worse than 0,1m² or -10dB.

Whats the exact story can't be deduced by this available data. But I have a feeling that LO assets with 0,1m² RCS are the maximum of what the 3rd Khordad can handle at reasonable range. It's prey are 4th and 4,5 gen fighters.

But here is the good news: Dedicated anti-stealth system such as the IRGC-ASF-Najm-SD-2 or 15th Khordad would have the same performance at 22km but against a ideal "pea-sized" VLO target of 0,00001m² or -45dB. Fanboys at F-16.net dream about the F-35 having such a pea-sized RCS but even if this dream would be true, those SD-2 systems would be able to counter it.
So if there are high performance VLO stealth assets, not the 3rd Khordad but the IRGC-ASF-Najm-SD-2 or 15th Khordad are ideal counters.
Also bear in mind that I apply the U.S side of the story with everything in their favor. If we look at he Russian side of the story, F-22 and F-35 won't perform better than 0,3m² on average against ground based SAMs. So in that case 3rd Khordad would be sufficiently effective at relevant ranges.
For me the 3rd Khordad remains my favorite Iranian air defense system anyway.

 

[SubWater]

2.5 year old article about 3rd khordad and it's younger brother Tabas.
https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/687143/شاهکار-مهم-دوقلوهای-ناشناخته-در-رزمایش-پدافندی-سپاه-دست-سوم

And most important part of this article I think is below sentences from Sardar Hajizadeh which make clear importance of 3rd khordad for Iran.

Hejizadeh called third khordad as biggest research project which end to successful result.

 

[mohsen]

Today Mostanad channel
19:30 = War of waves (Ep2 probably)
21:30 = 360' (New footage of hunting MQ-4C)

 

[TheImmortal]

Another issue:
The lack of a monopulse feed assembly on the known 3rd Khordad radar photos leads me to the conclusion that it can't be a known PESA design. It looks like a AESA.

If it is an AESA it needs to be a GaA based system to be cost effective.
If it is GaA based then we know what the limits of TRM power output are.

The whole point is this: Compared to dedicated anti-stealth systems like the IRGC-SD-2 and 15th Khordad, the X-band operating 3rd Khordad has a handicap of at least -10dB in favor of the stealth asset.
So it is not the best system to hunt LO, VLO and 5th gen fighters.

The RQ-4/MQ-4 are at least LO assets with at least 0,1m² to 0,01m² (-10dB to -20dB) in X-band.

Considering the highest power output TRMs possible for GaAs, a RQ-4/MQ-4 intercepted at 22km and 17km altitude would then need to have a RCS of >0,05m² or >-13dB.

If we assume medium performance GaA TRMs, then RCS would be >0,1m² or -10dB.

As no SD-2C was used we can probably exclude an engagement without lock via ARH seeker SAM.

So my conclusion of this all is: The 3rd Khordad was operating at the edge of its capability.
I doubt the makers would be economically unwise to use anything better than GaA TRMs.
If that is true, then the stealth performance of the RQ-4/MQ-4 is at least worse than 0,1m² or -10dB.

Whats the exact story can't be deduced by this available data. But I have a feeling that LO assets with 0,1m² RCS are the maximum of what the 3rd Khordad can handle at reasonable range. It's prey are 4th and 4,5 gen fighters.

But here is the good news: Dedicated anti-stealth system such as the IRGC-ASF-Najm-SD-2 or 15th Khordad would have the same performance at 22km but against a ideal "pea-sized" VLO target of 0,00001m² or -45dB. Fanboys at F-16.net dream about the F-35 having such a pea-sized RCS but even if this dream would be true, those SD-2 systems would be able to counter it.
So if there are high performance VLO stealth assets, not the 3rd Khordad but the IRGC-ASF-Najm-SD-2 or 15th Khordad are ideal counters.
Also bear in mind that I apply the U.S side of the story with everything in their favor. If we look at he Russian side of the story, F-22 and F-35 won't perform better than 0,3m² on average against ground based SAMs. So in that case 3rd Khordad would be sufficiently effective at relevant ranges.
For me the 3rd Khordad remains my favorite Iranian air defense system anyway.

You keep mentioning “cost effectiveness” but you do not provide the cost difference between your theory (GaA TRMs) and the alternative(s).

To me just going off of cost effectiveness does not always make sense when speak about a military and an asset that is ment to counter your enemies greatest air asset (5th gen fighters).

Nazi Germany was famous for disregarding cost effectiveness in certain projects for sheer maximum capability. (Now wether that was right or wrong is beside the point).

So I would be curious to see what these cost differences you cite are so that readers can draw their own conclusions.