IRIAF | News and Discussions

[Arminkh]

You need COMPETENT boots on the ground with any airforce m. Missing one or the other causes severe deficiencies in your chances to win battles.

Furthermore, Houthi’s had nearly pushed the opposition out into the sea and conquered most of Yemen. Since Saudi and US intervention they have lost nearly half of the land under their control at the peak.

Just go ask the Taliban about the US attack helicopters, they were feared. They tore the Taliban apart like Swiss cheese when they attempted attacks.

So yes AirPower is very important, Iran would have lost most of Syria if not the war, if it were not for Russia airpower. But air power will never make up for competent boots on the ground or vice versa. BOTH are needed to win a war.

Anyone that says otherwise has their head in the sand.

That's not just because lack of air power. They cannot replenish their ammo and weapons due to embargo

 

[Stryker1982]

Last time i checked the Saudis and their coalition have absolute air dominance over Yemen's skies. How come their air supremacy not translate to the ground?

Their lack of efficient ground forces to take advantage and coordinate with Air power is why they can't take their air supremacy to fruition. Saudi's have only been able to attack static infrastructure. Not provide recon and CAS for their allies on the ground. Lets not play games here. Aleppo would've never been liberated without Russian airforce. We were losing ground in Syria before they intervened. Russian CAS has killed 1000's of terrorists that have saved the lives of 1000's of Syrian and Iranian-backed groups that may have died fighting on the ground.

The Houthis are also in alot of trouble in Yemen these days and if the houthis didn't have to be worried about airpower, they'd be in alot stronger strategic position right now.

 

[mohsen]

When did I say Israel won? I said you can't compare them because Hezbollah does NOT have a Navy to protect that has to protect vital shipping.. a Helo force to protect, large military bases to protect, vital infrastructure to protect, nor do they have a population of 80 Million ppl to feed, or an Air Space to protect or costal waters to protect, nor was Lebanon larger than U.K., France, Germany & Italy COMBINED.....

To compare Hezbullah's VICTORY as an example for Iran to follow is ABSURD and Ridicules!

And let me be as clear as I can be in 2006 Israeli's ran with their tails between their legs! And their ground forces where in utter shock as to the beating they received! BUT Iran is a country of 80 Million people and unlike Hezbullah we don't have others providing money and weapons to us and unlike Hebullah we have vital infrastructure and financial interest to protect in a country that needs to provide for 80 million people that is larger than U.K., France, Germany & Italy combined!

from military point of view, Israel totally lost 2006 war. their whole airforce couldn't achieve nothing, while their targets were within a 70km area and with no air defense system.
(also I welcome any smart ar$e who wanna claim Israel didn't have a potent ground forces and for this reason their air force achieved nothing, the excuse which people use for Saudi's failure in Yemen.)


Yes, comparing Hezbollah with Iran is bizarre, cause unlike Hezbollah we do have a potent air defense system, unlike them we have deep strike capability which will raze all U.S bases and navy in middle east in minutes, unlike them we have a wide country with enough train to hide all of our assets in there, etc.

 

[TheImmortal]

That's not just because lack of air power. They cannot replenish their ammo and weapons due to embargo

Are you kidding me? Yemen is one of the most heavily armed countries on the planet.

And arms are easily getting through the embargo. Just no large supply ships.

 

[VEVAK]

from military point of view, Israel totally lost 2006 war. their whole airforce couldn't achieve nothing, while their targets were within a 70km area and with no air defense system.
(also I welcome any smart ar$e who wanna claim Israel didn't have a potent ground forces and for this reason their air force achieved nothing, the excuse which people use for Saudi's failure in Yemen.)


Yes, comparing Hezbollah with Iran is bizarre, cause unlike Hezbollah we do have a potent air defense system, unlike them we have deep strike capability which will raze all U.S bases and navy in middle east in minutes, unlike them we have a wide country with enough train to hide all of our assets in there, etc.

Israeli Air Force couldn't achieve anything of worth because an Air Force by it's self simply can't win a gorilla warfare on the ground.
Hezbullah had tunnels all across southern Lebanon and a few guys would pop out tunnels engage Israeli Armored battalions and hid and they were so proficient at it that the Israelis though they were getting hit by ghosts! And Israeli Air Force couldn't do much about it so they just bombed random houses!
So yea Israeli's lost and ran with their tails between their legs!!!!!!!!!!

But their failure isn't proof that Air Power is useless today! Rather its just prof that you can't win a gorilla warfare on the ground with fighter jets alone!

Air Forces by the most part Defends Air Space by backing up it's SAM's or attack airspaces to achieve Air Superiority to conduct heavy strikes on Air Defense, infrastructure, financial assets, Military Bases, main weapons depots, weapons factories, Fortified bunkers, military command, long range communications, Naval capabilities, fuel depots, armored Battalions....

Most of which Hezbollah didn't have and most of which Saudi's destroyed in Yemen!!!!!!!

And the nonsense you keep on repeating means we don't need an Air Force because we should be OK with our country going into famine if attacked like Yemen simply because an Air Force by it's self simply can't win a gorilla warfare on the ground!!!!!!

Air Defense Systems without an Air Force to back them up can be overwhelmed, jammed or hit by a small teams of covert special forces on the ground.

And for Iranian missile forces to be able to achieve the number of payloads an Air Force capable of flying and arming 20 fighters (Equal too or better than an F-15E) a day over the span of a year would require a missile force Armed with 20,000 to 60,000 +250km missiles!

So NO Iran can't simply make up for a lack of Air Power with it's Missiles alone!!!!!!!! And Iran DOES NOT need a large Air Force just a smart one!!!!!
We need a single high powered Iranian built platform that can be configured for intercept and strike!!! Where the parts are Iranian and we can Arm and keep a good portion in the Air every day because the parts and weapons are produced in Iran!
And using the same engine we can build a handful of 4 engine supersonic bombers and backed by a handful of support aircraft (AWACS, UAV command and control, Air Refueling,...) to be built over a span of 10 years

Which means Iran CAN NOT go around buying aircraft because it would be 1980 again and we would have a bunch of nice Aircraft that we couldn't arm or maintain and didn't matter how nice our Air Force was because we simply couldn't get our moneys worth from them!

Which means we need Military commanders WHO DON'T go to Air Force and aerospace events and talk about how useless Air Force has become based on absurd comparisons like the 2006 war who takes the life out of a room of people who came there to get projects approved! That is boarding on treason buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Arminkh]

Are you kidding me? Yemen is one of the most heavily armed countries on the planet.

And arms are easily getting through the embargo. Just no large supply ships.

Look at the map and tell me how can they get their supplies? They no longer have any land route to Oman which was one of the alleged routes for arms supply. The only way is through sea which is patrolled and monitored by KSA and US forces.
Yes, some arms may get in but it will sure not be enough for a war like this. Green are the Yemeni fighters, red and brown KSA supported groups:

https://cdn.mashreghnews.ir/d/2018/10/11/0/2361964.jpg

 

[TheImmortal]

Look at the map and tell me how can they get their supplies? They no longer have any land route to Oman which was one of the alleged routes for arms supply. The only way is through sea which is patrolled and monitored by KSA and US forces.
Yes, some arms may get in but it will sure not be enough for a war like this. Green are the Yemeni fighters, red and brown KSA supported groups:

https://cdn.mashreghnews.ir/d/2018/10/11/0/2361964.jpg

Yemen was already heavily armed based on decades of war. Houthi’s took over nearly all of the Yemen army’s military supply storages and bases. East Yemen is rural and lawless mostly controlled by Al-Queda.

The Houthi’s have plenty of munitions, they don’t even take American tanks and IFVs that they recover from ambushes because they don’t need it or want it.

So this notion that Houthi’s lost that land because of lack of ammo is proposterous and shows you haven’t been following the conflict since the early days.

The PGG countries established a beachhead at Aden and pumped mercnaries, weapons, and many of their own troops along with SF.

That in conjunction with AirPower aided by US intelligence caused the houthi’s to not be able to hold so much ground as they had no counter to air support.

So yes boots on the ground + air power is what wins wars.

If iran doesn’t learn that, they will suffer casualties in the 100,000+ in a major ground war.

 

[Arminkh]

Yemen was already heavily armed based on decades of war. Houthi’s took over nearly all of the Yemen army’s military supply storages and bases. East Yemen is rural and lawless mostly controlled by Al-Queda.

The Houthi’s have plenty of munitions, they don’t even take American tanks and IFVs that they recover from ambushes because they don’t need it or want it.

So this notion that Houthi’s lost that land because of lack of ammo is proposterous and shows you haven’t been following the conflict since the early days.

The PGG countries established a beachhead at Aden and pumped mercnaries, weapons, and many of their own troops along with SF.

That in conjunction with AirPower aided by US intelligence caused the houthi’s to not be able to hold so much ground as they had no counter to air support.

So yes boots on the ground + air power is what wins wars.

If iran doesn’t learn that, they will suffer casualties in the 100,000+ in a major ground war.

You just mentioned they didn't have anything to counter air raids. I call that a group of fighters that are not properly armed. Would the war turn this way if they could have been supplied with advanced air and point defense systems? I highly doubt it.

Yes, having a competent airforce on your side is better than none. But using Yemen as an example to show what will happen to Iran in case of the war is not correct. Iran has other things that can make up for lack of air force.

Advocates of spending money on airforce in Iran like yourself are neglecting two points:

Point number one, anything that is not produced internally is useless in a war. The war we are all picturing is between Iran and US. In that case US will not allow any arms be delivered to Iran from outside. You say Yemenis are well armed. I bet they are not as well armed as Iran was when war with Iraq started. Iran depleted most of its advanced weapons within the first 2 years of war and struggled to replace them until end of the war and even today.

Point number 2: the trend is, ever since the use of airforce in war in WWI, airforce is losing ground to air defense systems. First they had to fly higher than anticipated air guns range. Then when SAMs were introduced they had to avoid entering their effective range and try to shoot at them with stand off weapons. Us lost 2197 air craft over Vietnam to Russian SAM and other weapons. Then the anti air missiles became even more accurate with higher range. Aircraft can no longer flay over them but have to stay outside their range and shoot at them. Fist at 100 km range, then 200 km, then 300 and they keep retreating while becoming more sophisticated and ridiculously expensive like F35 to be able to overcome the limitations imposed by ever increasing effectiveness of air defense systems. Extend this trend and I can see a day that aircrafts need to fire their standoff weapons from above 800km range and cost a significant portion of the carrier they took off from. Ok, why not jus use missiles instead?

Iran should invest in effective means of countering standoff weapons. If it does that, no airforce can do a damn thing to it.

 

[VEVAK]

I amnot a military guru like some of you guys and neither hate or support the current Iranian government indescreminetly; so please don’t attack me!!
Some of you go on and on about how we need a top rated air forces and attack Baggeri is if he said otherwise; which I believe is not correct. First of all at least until sanctions are removed to country will sell Iran top rated planes. So Iran either has to wait until sanctions are removed or make its own planes. Who here can claim that they know all the behind the scene efforts that is being taken for both above options? I for one believe that our military has smartly acted so far prioritizing misels radars and tanks which are less challenging and more rewarding that making high quality fighters and what Bagheri meant was to justify the above prioritization this far. His most immportant point was the importance of being able to keep those new planes flying indefinitely with local support which would mean ToT; which again until sanctions are removed no country even Russia or China will offer Iran.
So sit tight,be patient and don’t expect the government to reveal all secret efforts to arm Iran with suitable new fighters,domestic or foreign until the right time.

Unfortunately, Bagherri went to an Airforce Aerospace event in which the government was spose to pick the top ten aerospace projects from the projects represented there which means they were a group of the top minds of the country in aerospace and he started going on about how Air Force is practically useless today and his prof of how fighter jets are useless today were absurd and ridicules with no factual bases.

Also the event had NOTHING to do with buying fighter jet. If his comments were restricted to how Iran shouldn't buy fighter jets and we should develop our own and if he had used Iran's own experience in 80's as prof that even if we buy the top 10 Air Forces in the world just like in the early 80's it would mean little in terms of capability without being able to produce the spare parts and weapons..... then I would be praising him today but that's NOT what he did.

What he actually did was show up among a group of people that could have potentially been responsible for developing Iran's next generation fighter and started commenting about how useless fighter jets are today just because fighter jets by themselves can't fight a gorilla warfare on the ground!! And he used that fact as prof of how useless they are altogether which is basically the same as telling them NOT to bother developing the next gen Iranian fighter jet because we won't fund it and people like him would much rather fund absurd nonsense like paying people to go out and enforce Hejab by force. So if anything his comments go against fighting sanctions using domestic development.

Aircrafts like the Mirage III & Mirage IV were built by the French in the mid to late 50's and they went from design to 1st flight within 3-4 years and back then the French had no computers or lasers or advanced cutting equipment or computer assisted wind tunnels, or advanced composites to work with or had access to general public knowledge about modern designs, materials, nanotechnology, 3D printing,..... all of which Iran has access too today and the engines of those fighters where originally designed in the late 40's so very clearly Iran's main problem IS NOT sanctions but rather the will and lack of proper motivation that originates from high ranking military officials like Bagherii! Or else designing and producing fighter jets and engines far superior to what the French were producing in the 70's is well within Iran's capabilities!

 

[PeeD]

Unfortunately, Bagherri went to an Airforce Aerospace event in which the government was spose to pick the top ten aerospace projects from the projects represented there which means they were a group of the top minds of the country in aerospace and he started going on about how Air Force is practically useless today and his prof of how fighter jets are useless today were absurd and ridicules with no factual bases.

Also the event had NOTHING to do with buying fighter jet. If his comments were restricted to how Iran shouldn't buy fighter jets and we should develop our own and if he had used Iran's own experience in 80's as prof that even if we buy the top 10 Air Forces in the world just like in the early 80's it would mean little in terms of capability without being able to produce the spare parts and weapons..... then I would be praising him today but that's NOT what he did.

What he actually did was show up among a group of people that could have potentially been responsible for developing Iran's next generation fighter and started commenting about how useless fighter jets are today just because fighter jets by themselves can't fight a gorilla warfare on the ground!! And he used that fact as prof of how useless they are altogether which is basically the same as telling them NOT to bother developing the next gen Iranian fighter jet because we won't fund it and people like him would much rather fund absurd nonsense like paying people to go out and enforce Hejab by force. So if anything his comments go against fighting sanctions using domestic development.

Aircrafts like the Mirage III & Mirage IV were built by the French in the mid to late 50's and they went from design to 1st flight within 3-4 years and back then the French had no computers or lasers or advanced cutting equipment or computer assisted wind tunnels, or advanced composites to work with or had access to general public knowledge about modern designs, materials, nanotechnology, 3D printing,..... all of which Iran has access too today and the engines of those fighters where originally designed in the late 40's so very clearly Iran's main problem IS NOT sanctions but rather the will and lack of proper motivation that originates from high ranking military officials like Bagherii! Or else designing and producing fighter jets and engines far superior to what the French were producing in the 70's is well within Iran's capabilities!

Don't be too dramatic as at the same event he said that the development of a Iranian engine has reached 98%.

This will be the foundation of any future fighter.

Iran went for very obsolete (better said old) designs with the Scud missile but for engines it won't anymore as it seems (J90).

 

[VEVAK]

You just mentioned they didn't have anything to counter air raids. I call that a group of fighters that are not properly armed. Would the war turn this way if they could have been supplied with advanced air and point defense systems? I highly doubt it.

Yes, having a competent airforce on your side is better than none. But using Yemen as an example to show what will happen to Iran in case of the war is not correct. Iran has other things that can make up for lack of air force.

Advocates of spending money on airforce in Iran like yourself are neglecting two points:

Point number one, anything that is not produced internally is useless in a war. The war we are all picturing is between Iran and US. In that case US will not allow any arms be delivered to Iran from outside. You say Yemenis are well armed. I bet they are not as well armed as Iran was when war with Iraq started. Iran depleted most of its advanced weapons within the first 2 years of war and struggled to replace them until end of the war and even today.

Point number 2: the trend is, ever since the use of airforce in war in WWI, airforce is losing ground to air defense systems. First they had to fly higher than anticipated air guns range. Then when SAMs were introduced they had to avoid entering their effective range and try to shoot at them with stand off weapons. Us lost 2197 air craft over Vietnam to Russian SAM and other weapons. Then the anti air missiles became even more accurate with higher range. Aircraft can no longer flay over them but have to stay outside their range and shoot at them. Fist at 100 km range, then 200 km, then 300 and they keep retreating while becoming more sophisticated and ridiculously expensive like F35 to be able to overcome the limitations imposed by ever increasing effectiveness of air defense systems. Extend this trend and I can see a day that aircrafts need to fire their standoff weapons from above 800km range and cost a significant portion of the carrier they took off from. Ok, why not jus use missiles instead?

Iran should invest in effective means of countering standoff weapons. If it does that, no airforce can do a damn thing to it.

Yes an Air Force that's not domestically produces is useless and it doesn't matter how big of an Air Force you buy for by 1979 Iran had purchased it's self one of the top 4 most capable Air forces in the world in Air to Air capability and easily the top 5th or 6th well equipped Air Forces in the world that on paper had some 600 supersonic fighters and trainers but two years later when the war started and U.S. gone Iran couldn't even use 200 of them in a Retaliatory response and after a year of war fielding 1/10 of them even for a mid sized monthly strikes was practically impossible.
So buying the top 5 Air Forces in the world only gave us the power to do the bidding of the people who sold us that Air Force and nothing more!

BUT all that said and done it DOES NOT mean an Air Force is useless and SAM's by themselves CAN NOT make up for a lack of Air Power when it comes to Air Defense nor can missiles alone deliver as many ordinances as a domestically produced Air Force can over time!
An F-1 Mirage that's a 60's era design can deliver 14X 500lb bombs to targets 425km away so an Air Force capable of flying only 20 F-1's per day for strikes would be able to drop 280 per day and over the course of a year that would be over 100,000 500lb bombs and an F-4 can even do better!

So although having a nice Missile Force is a necessity for an initial retaliatory response and specific missions BUT missiles can not make up for a lack of Airpower and Airpower is only useful when domestically produced and only if the fighter is worth producing and fighters like the F-5 simply lack the payload capacity to be worth the cost!

Don't be too dramatic as at the same event he said that the development of a Iranian engine has reached 98%.

This will be the foundation of any future fighter.

Iran went for very obsolete (better said old) designs with the Scud missile but for engines it won't anymore as it seems (J90).

He was just referring to the OWJ or J-85! What they call the J-90 is the engine they wanna use on the Kosar 88 subsonic trainer. Clearly not an engine powerful enough for a next gen Iranian fighter!

Bejaii ke bereh begheh 50-60 sol peesh Faransavii ha chee doshtan keh shoma kam dareen…… he say some nonsense to the wrong audience clearly not meant to motivate anyone there!!

IRGC constantly improved on the designs while the Air Force wants a pat in the back for being stuck of J-85..... and they know exactly what a modern design engine should look like and still no attempt to immolate....

 

[Arminkh]

BUT all that said and done it DOES NOT mean an Air Force is useless and SAM's by themselves CAN NOT make up for a lack of Air Power when it comes to Air Defense nor can missiles alone deliver as many ordinances as a domestically produced Air Force can over time!
An F-1 Mirage that's a 60's era design can deliver 14X 500lb bombs to targets 425km away so an Air Force capable of flying only 20 F-1's per day for strikes would be able to drop 280 per day and over the course of a year that would be over 100,000 500lb bombs and an F-4 can even do better!

Vevak jan, Facing an unarmed foe like Yemenis or ISIS, by all means. Airforce is much more efficient than missiles hands down. My point is they no longer can get above their target (facing a competent AD) to deliver that many bombs.

Weapons will start to become obsolete or secondary when they can no longer serve their purpose. Battleships were the sign of glory and power of any advanced nation up to WWII. Their main purpose was to get close enough to their target to use their heavy guns on the target. However, introduction of airplanes and carriers changed that. Now the enemy could engage a battleship long before the battleship could even see its target.

What is the main use of fighter/bombers? Delivering dumb weapons with accuracy to targets at long distances. They no longer can get above their target because of modern ADs so they no longer can serve this purpose. Now they have turned into a fancy TELAR for the long range smart weapons they carry. The standoff weapons they are carrying are becoming more a more expensive because now they no longer rely on the pilot to deliver them, they need to be accurate and be able to travel a long distance. Add the up cost of these new weapons compared to those 500lb bombs, add the crazy up cost of a F-35 or F-22 compared to F-1 and add the maintenance cost of the airplane,...… at some point and when you add up all the above and risk of losing a $100M fighter/bomber due to technical problem, birds or enemy fire, then missiles start to make more and more sense. At least I feel it is going that way.

 

[skyshadow]

 

[TheImmortal]

Don't be too dramatic as at the same event he said that the development of a Iranian engine has reached 98%.

This will be the foundation of any future fighter.

Iran went for very obsolete (better said old) designs with the Scud missile but for engines it won't anymore as it seems (J90).

There is no such thing as a “J90” so it’s either Iran’s denomination for a variant of J-85 or possible it’s a reverse engineer F-4 engine (J-79).

Neither of these engines are suitable for a Heavy next gen Iranian fighter. Unless Iran is going to build a 5th gen fighter and then put a 3rd gen engine into it, which makes no sense.

Maybe RD-33 or F-14 engine could work. But the best available realistic option would be AL-31 engines.

Unfortunately the worst case scenario is Iran is trying keep the F-5 and F-4 in service past 2025 and these engines are means of building refurbished airframes (ex Kowsar project) to do that.

 

[VEVAK]

Vevak jan, Facing an unarmed foe like Yemenis or ISIS, by all means. Airforce is much more efficient than missiles hands down. My point is they no longer can get above their target (facing a competent AD) to deliver that many bombs.

Weapons will start to become obsolete or secondary when they can no longer serve their purpose. Battleships were the sign of glory and power of any advanced nation up to WWII. Their main purpose was to get close enough to their target to use their heavy guns on the target. However, introduction of airplanes and carriers changed that. Now the enemy could engage a battleship long before the battleship could even see its target.

What is the main use of fighter/bombers? Delivering dumb weapons with accuracy to targets at long distances. They no longer can get above their target because of modern ADs so they no longer can serve this purpose. Now they have turned into a fancy TELAR for the long range smart weapons they carry. The standoff weapons they are carrying are becoming more a more expensive because now they no longer rely on the pilot to deliver them, they need to be accurate and be able to travel a long distance. Add the up cost of these new weapons compared to those 500lb bombs, add the crazy up cost of a F-35 or F-22 compared to F-1 and add the maintenance cost of the airplane,...… at some point and when you add up all the above and risk of losing a $100M fighter/bomber due to technical problem, birds or enemy fire, then missiles start to make more and more sense. At least I feel it is going that way.

But it isn't going that way!!

If we are so confident that our missile will get through then we could easily use missile to take out any Beyond visible range AIDS in that area and then fighters can deal with the rest by using lighter Air to ground glide bombs or light air to ground missiles so it's not picking one over the other and both are a necessity and used for different uses!!!!!!

And the future we are actually heading towards is a future where a swarm of missiles go in to take out high end systems like the S-400 and then fighters or UCAV's deliver swarms of Air launched air to ground munitions each powered by small electric engines against Air Defense systems with no more than a pound of explosives and once cleared fighters come in to do the rest! The future we are actually going towards is fleets of almost invisible unmanned ground vehicles deployed covertly within 5-10km of SAM systems that can deploy weapons against those sites upon command from 1000's of km away!!!!!!

By the most part we need a Missiles force and a UCAV force for an initial retaliatory strike and for specific missions and an domestically produced Air Force to back up our Air Defense and keep up bombardment over time.

There is no such thing as a “J90” so it’s either Iran’s denomination for a variant of J-85 or possible it’s a reverse engineer F-4 engine (J-79).

Neither of these engines are suitable for a Heavy next gen Iranian fighter. Unless Iran is going to build a 5th gen fighter and then put a 3rd gen engine into it, which makes no sense.

Maybe RD-33 or F-14 engine could work. But the best available realistic option would be AL-31 engines.

Unfortunately the worst case scenario is Iran is trying keep the F-5 and F-4 in service past 2025 and these engines are means of building refurbished airframes (ex Kowsar project) to do that.

J-90 is the engine of the Kowsar Jet trainer