Apologies for my tardiness in replying. Also to Messerchmitt.
I will reply more concisely ASAP.
P
Competition is healthy. If there was only one long range system then innovation wouldn’t happen as quickly.
Also Arman and 3rd Khordad are quite different systems. 3rd is significantly cheaper than Armand to build and operate. Armand or next gen Bavar is an all around anti aircraft/anti BM/anti bomber shield. Where as 3rd Khordad is a medium range ring made to cover areas the Armand battalions do not.
The fact it can carry a longer range is likely a redundancy measure, doesn’t mean it will use the full range. Scoring a fighter jet kills above of 100KM is rare and I would ask someone show it has happened in last 30 years. It’s not easy since the pilot has so many measures they can take to defend. And now with 5th Gen aircraft it would be quite difficult to get precise enough location data that far away from a radar source to accurately be able to illuminate the target.
Air defense rings need to be as saturated as possible against a heavy air opponent like USA or Israel or even Saudi Arabia. You can never have too many air defense systems. That much is true.
The real question is how many of these systems actually exist? It seems every year Iran unveils a new system and we have zero insight into how many are produced. That is the key.
@TheImmortal;
@vizier and
@Messerschmitt.
When preparing my responses to the above , I made the cardinal error of starting to write it up in one.
Needless to say, lines soon became blurred, and very taxing to separate into three separate responses.
So I decided to plead mea culpa and rather than posting the below three times I decided not to waste space and address the entire thing while referencing all three posters.
Sorry…
Layered AD can intercept only so many targets. Containerizing existing Taer-2, sealed from the environment and thus also having shrapnel protection, and loosely deployed, will prevent a strike out of the blue from taking out an entire battery. The effort to completely destroy SAM batteries that could prevent attacks would put a strain on resources and also pose a threat to attackers firing from a ‘safe’ range outside of current and future deployed Tae’rs operational range(s). When these attackers then come up to launch (‘jump-ing’), they will be at risk.
The reported destruction of a Russian S-400 system, and also the reported destruction or damaged Ukrainian-deployed Patriot, should not be seen as one-off’s. This raises the Q about such valuable targets in general especially given real or near-real-time intel supplied via Ukraine’s allies.
As noted, killing a fighter above of 100KM is rare. I suppose this would require a medium altitude flight profile from the target for or a (?) period of time. Furthermore, these targets would have to be painted near continuously for Taer to do its work before these ‘duck’ down to L altitude. CEC assist would of course help nicely here.
Nevertheless, painting an SARH’s target for any period of time would expose the transmitting radar to SEAD/DEAD attack.
How many of Iran’s ADS’ actually exist, is in production, and nearing IOC or FOC should be enough to keep Iran’s planners and commanders up at night. War is a come as you are affair. No time for vacillating here. Iran exists in a rough neighborhood.
notes that … To this end Vizier noted that … the main threat against static targets is a low altitude saturation attack possibly combining kamikaze drones, low observable cruise missiles stormshadow-scalp-jassm and other cheaper cruise missiles. Even a layered defense network cannot shoot down everything and some missiles will pass and hit strategic targets such as an airbase or other HVT’s. ✔ Concur . Refer specifically to the recent attacks by small drones against ‘soft’ Iranian targets such as munitions factories etc.
Referencing to an
X post by @Pataramesh with regard to 3rd Khordad evolution, where he noted that … This is an evolutionary process yes, featuring multiple targets at different altitude & ranges…. .
My examples: While the ~200km-range S-300 was for some time used as a standard of measurement against other SAM’s were measured, this has since crept up to 300; and beyond, although I have excluded dedicated ABM or ASAT’s from this discussion. Missiles capable of intercepting both of these targets namely aerodynamic (aerial) targets, and some shorter-range BMs are.
Probably the longest-ranged of these
should be the RIM-161 Standard 3 (SM-3) intended to also target cruise missiles ‘deep inland’. S-400 at 150km set a Russian record for the intercept of a Su-27 over Kiev at the onset of the Ukraine war. Next, S-300V(M) – two Ukrainian fighters at 217km; and the recently tested Sayad-3B at 305km for instance. Depending on target profile, ground radar capabilities and deployment, and a number of other determining factors I assume. These examples only represent a cross-section of existing SAM’s of course.
(This also holds true for A-A interceptions. Refer to the April 1973 F-14-AIM-54 shot to 200km. And in March 2021 an F-15C - the longest recorded air-to-air shot yet, firing an AIM-120 AMRAAM – which could only have been a D-3 - at a BQM-167 target, at an ‘unprecedented’ range. Don’t know of any such claims pertaining to other VLRAAM’s such as R-37M though. Nevertheless these were in all likelihood ‘ideal condition’ shots rather than real-world conditions l assume).
But where does it all stop? A Q that I have asked before. There are just x number of VHVT’s targets that would be flying at medium-high altitude some hundreds of km’s from any hostile border. And how safe are such VLR AD batteries themselves. This applies to mobile, deployed, ADS’s such as S-400 and Patriot also, as claimed destroyed or damaged as counter-claimed by Russia and Ukraine respectively.
Thus:- Static is death – mobile is life.
I can understand why more reasonably priced Taer ++ systems may be used as an all-round medium++ range ‘fly swotter’ while Sayyad++ would be used as a ‘scalpel’, to cut out long-range cancerous targets - each to its own then.
Attack profiles also change of course. In the heyday of early SAM’s, ingress it was presumably hi-hi-hi, followed later by ‘in the weeds’ lo-lo-hi, and currently by lo-hi-lo stand-off weapons launched from ‘safe distances’ as already noted.
Example: Look at how the IAF changed tack after one of its F-16’s were downed over Lebanon by an (old) S-200/ SA-5, when it came up for a ‘look’. Now they are launching stand-off ordinance from out to sea against static targets rather than entering Lebanese air-space.
Another : The very recent strike against the H.Q. of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol was possible because it is a well-known static target and Ukraine had the right tools for the job. Viz low-RCS Storm Shadow and SCALP stand-off munitions.
P
