Iranian Air Defense Systems

[yavar]

Surely they are combining S-300 PMU-2 technology and putting some of it into B-373

Yes

امیر سپهری‌راد در گفت‌وگوی تفصیلی با تسنیم: تحقیقات اس۳۰۰ روی آغاز شده
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http://tn.ai/1502663

Iran has already finished R&D of the B-373 and is now in the testing phase.

Iran Bavar-373 long range Air Defense System سامانه پدافند هوایی موشکی باور۳۷۳

https://imgur.com/a/Pevhs

https://imgur.com/zozf24q

 

[Draco.IMF]

Yes

امیر سپهری‌راد در گفت‌وگوی تفصیلی با تسنیم: تحقیقات اس۳۰۰ روی آغاز شده
​

​

is it clever openly to admit that Iran is already researching on the missiles?
As far as i know Putin requested Iran not to reverse engineer the system and Iranian agreed.
I am happy that Iran is making good progress to it, but I think russia gave Iran a heavily downgraded system, so even if Iran make a sucessfull copy it will "only" be 50-60% as effective as the russian version, but its better having something than nothing, right?

 

[yavar]

Iran Khatam al-Anbia air defense airborne UAV unitsآشیانه پهپادهای پدافند هوایی خاتم الانبیاء

 

[Hindustani78]

Agence France Presse | Published — Saturday 2 September 2017

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1154756/middle-east


TEHRAN: Iran’s new defense minister said Saturday the priority was to boost the country’s missile program and export weapons to shore up neighboring allies.

“In combat fields, especially in missiles, we have a specific plan to boost Iran’s missile power,” said General Amir Hatami, who was appointed defense minister earlier this month, in a speech carried by the ISNA news agency.
“God willing, the combat capabilities of Iran’s ballistic and cruise missiles will increase in this term,” he added.
Hatami also said Iran would look to export weapons “to prevent war and conflict.”

“Wherever a country becomes weak, others become encouraged to raid it... Wherever necessary, we will export weapons to increase the security of the region and countries, to prevent wars,” he said.

Hatami is the first defense minister to be selected from the regular army, rather than the elite Revolutionary Guards, in more than two decades.

Analysts say this reflects an increasing convergence between the two military arms as Iran increases its involvement in regional conflicts such as Syria and Iraq, which have been the Guard’s exclusive purview since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

 

[yavar]

Iran IRIB1 "Negah Yek" interview with Gen Esmaeili Khatam Al-anbia ADنگ یك امیر اسماعیلی پدافند

Iran Khatam Al-anbia AD detection, radio exchange warning, intruder U-2 spy plane اخطار پدافند یو-۲

 

[yavar]

Iran Khatam Al-anbia AD, detection, radio exchange warning to intruder U.S RQ-4 spy UAV اخطار پدافند

 

[Draco.IMF]

Iran Khatam Al-anbia AD, detection, radio exchange warning to intruder U.S RQ-4 spy UAV اخطار پدافند

they should have downed it, like RQ-170, Iran would had access to good technology...
but it wasnt in Iran airspace right?

 

[AmirPatriot]

they should have downed it, like RQ-170, Iran would had access to good technology...
but it wasnt in Iran airspace right?

Its not exactly a routine operation.

 

[yavar]

Iran Khatam Al-anbia AD Gen Esmaeili: Bavar-373 successful missile test, operational 2018 باور-۳۷۳

Khatam Al-anbia air defense base Gen Esmaeili: Bavar-373 long range air defense system contacted it,s successful missile test and system operational by March 2018

but it wasnt in Iran airspace right?

yes
it never entered in the lock on it and give warning before it reaches Iran airspace

 

[yavar]

Iran IRIB1 documentary Khatam Al-anbia AD: S300,Bavar-373,futureقرارگاه پدافند هوایی اس-۳۰۰ باور-۳۷

 

[Draco.IMF]

Iran IRIB1 documentary Khatam Al-anbia AD: S300,Bavar-373,futureقرارگاه پدافند هوایی اس-۳۰۰ باور-۳۷

what is he talking about B-373? just short, you dont have to translate everything, the most important ones
this missile behind air defence minister, which is red encircled, is this launch of an B-373 missile?

 

[AmirPatriot]

what is he talking about B-373? just short, you dont have to translate everything, the most important ones
this missile behind air defence minister, which is red encircled, is this launch of an B-373 missile?

Nothing specific, though he did say it should be operational by March 2018.

 

[Draco.IMF]

iran should finally show its Pantsir-S1 Air Defence Systems they got through Syria, its not a secret anymore..

 

[PeeD]

Here some conclusions about one of my favorite IRGC systems, the Raad/3rd Khordad/Tabas.

- The size and footprint of the system is great. It is small enough to be misidentified as ordinary trucks.
- The battery layout also offers a small footprint: One TELAR with one slave TEL. Two truck size vehicles as well as one Toyota for protection and another Toyota for LOS communication --> two trucks and two cars.
- The 3rd Khordad is the upper end PESA/AESA multichannel (4) system, suited to counter multiple attacks and with longer range than the Tabas radar.
- The Tabas is the lower end twisted cassegrain radar equipped single channel system. It should be very cost effective, because it basically uses a enlarged ground variant of the original Mig-29 radar. Upgraded with missile up-link (newer variants), it could have limited multi-target capability but would still have lower range and jamming performance than the 3rd Khordad.

For those reasons I would structure a battery with a single, center, 3rd Khordad system and its slave TEL and 3 Tabas systems around it with their respective slave TELs. The individual sites would be separated up to 10s of km from each other.
The battery level radar would either be a Kavosh/Kasta + Matla ol Fajr-1 (multi-band) or a single Bashir/JY-11 (smaller footprint). Additional to those and for very high altitude engagements, upper tier IADS target data would be available.

Now some might ask whether the Tabas would really be that much cheaper than the 3rd Khordad. If the 3rd Khordad is a AESA, yes a Tabas would be maybe just 1/4 of the cost, if a PESA the gap gets smaller. An AESA 3rd Khordad could make sense if it uses LPI modes and with low sidelobes. Additionally it would act as the independent search sensor when necessary with several times longer on-line time than the Tabas and here the higher reliability of a AESA becomes important.

The Raad family has come a long way. The designers wanted to be very smart initially and avoid a complex jacking system by use of a pneumatic leveler that would set it down very low. This didn't work well enough during testing, the pneumatic leveling system was kept and a complex jacking system similar to the wheeled Tor and Buk-M2 was added. But at the end they had a real smart idea and simplified the jacking system which is a better solution than what the experienced Russians/Belorussians came up with.
Then they started armoring the system against shrapnel, first the radars remained unarmored, now the whole system is armored (except the critical missiles of course).

Where Amour makes more sense and what I'm waiting for is the logical next step: a Raad truck based Tor-M1 copy. It is ideal for that purpose.
However miniaturizing needs to be done for the subsystems to fit it on the smaller chassis.
Compared to the Crotale/Herz-9, the Tor is at least one generation ahead and has a credible anti-PGM capability.
The problem is just that it is more expensive as it has a fire control radar as well as a search radar, as well as a tracked chassis.
The tracked chassis would be solved with the Raad truck but I would replace the search radar with one of those rotating twin thermal cameras (Raad-1) maybe with two additional cameras for high-angle PGM targets. This would not only make the system cheaper, but also passive and safe a large portion of space, for a smaller system that fits the Raad truck. This would be a smart solution.
As a search radar is good to have, I would use one Tor-M1 and 3 Raad-Tor variants for each battery.
Reverse engineering the Tor-M1 PESA tracking radar is within Iran capabilities, somewhat expensive subsystem, but worth it.

It is of course possible that such a Raad-Tor variant is not followed because a 12 missile vs. 8 (+ CIWS), Pantsyr based SHORADS is deemed a better solution. A Raad-Tor would certainly look great.

The whole philosophy of the Raad family, its high power, modular redundant structure, off-road shoot and scoot capability and very important: small footprint, make it a extremely hard nut to crack for airpower. A Bavar-373 is higher performing but easier to detect and much more expensive = available numbers on the ground.

 

[PeeD]

Some might to fully realize what this battery structure means for survivability:

The opponent might be able to destroy the least mobile and active emitting components of the battery with HARMs (Bashir/JY-11) or a suitable PGM that can target UHF-, VHF-band Kavosh/Kasta/Matla ol Fajr-1.

This will not stop the remaining elements to work based upper tier IADS data. Even if communication with IADS is blocked, the 3rd Khordad component of the battery can so long range sector search. Should the 3rd Khordad element be killed too, each 3 Tabas elements can do medium range search and distribute the target information among all other elements.
If one element is active, all other will stay passive.

This redundancy means airpower has to kill at least 4 independent widespread, almost constantly passive, vehicles to render the battery inoperabel (which are in turn not dependent on the 1-2 active vehicles), otherwise it remains a real threat (and I have not included optical means here).

For comparison: The HQ-2/Sayyad-1 would be knocked out by killing the single fire control radar.