Israel’s First Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities – Part 1

[Surenas]

This analyze describes one of the Israeli attack scenarios:

Inbound: Part 1 of a scenario for the first Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program

The Eitans take off first. They’re the slowest, only 220 knots flat out, and for best endurance, they’ll cruise at 180 knots. It’s 800 miles to their stations, just outside the range of Iranian air defense radar, south of the Saudi coast of the Persian Gulf.

Operated by the 210th Squadron of the Israeli Air Force at Tel Nof airbase, the Eitan (Hebrew for “steadfast&#8221 is a big UAV, with a twenty-six meter wingspan. It has a reduced radar signature, although it’s probably not stealthy. It can carry different payloads: EO/IR imagers, synthetic aperture radar, ELINT or COMINT gear.

The two aircraft taking off now, at H-minus six hours, will relieve two already on station over Saudi airspace. Those birds carried ELINT and COMINT gear, monitoring Iranian radar and communications. At this point, there should be no surprises, but they’ll keep watch all the same.

The four-and-a-half hour flight there barely dents the Eitan’s twenty-four hour endurance. On-board satellite communications allow controllers to monitor the relief and make sure both new aircraft are good to go.

The tankers have to take off early as well. The refuel point, “Delek Station,” is located just short of the IP, over Saudi territory, but close to the coast.

The Shavit Special Electronic Missions Aircraft (SEMA), based on a Gulfstream business jet, would likely be an integral part of any attack.
The Saudis, like all the Persian Gulf nations, do not want the Iranians to have nuclear weapons, but they lack the ability to physically stop development. If the Iranians get close to actually assembling a bomb, the Saudis might agree to an Israeli campaign to destroy their nuclear program, especially if the Israelis offer a significant political concession as part of the deal.

That agreement allows the Israelis to operate freely over their “associate’s” territory without the risk of being intercepted, or even reported. A reasonable, if inconvenient Saudi proviso is that Israeli aircraft cannot operate from Saudi bases.

The first Israeli raid is a big one, four squadrons, and will need eight of Israel’s nine Boeing 707 tankers to refuel it. The ninth one was only purchased in 2010, a Boeing 707 airframe converted by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). They will be wheels-up from Nevatim airbase at H-minus four hours.

Next to take off, at H-minus three hours, is a single Shavit aircraft, also flying from Nevatim. The 120th Nachson (‘Pioneer&#8221 squadron operates the Shavit (“Comet&#8221 Special Electronics Mission aircraft. That uninformative title describes a Gulfstream G550 business jet converted by IAI to carry SIGINT and ELINT gear, a communications suite, and space for a command staff. It can monitor and control the Eitan UAVs launched earlier, as well as all the aircraft involved in the raid.

At 480 knots, the Shavit will be on station in two hours, but the raid commander is already working – tracking the strikers’ preparations and probably holding the hands of some nervous government officials.

It will also make the first offensive move in the Israeli attack on Iran. The “special mission” in its name comes from the ability to make Suter attacks. The term “Suter” comes from a United States program called Senior Suter, which is in turn part of another program called Big Safari, which is all about attacking an enemy’s information systems.

By feeding Iranian radar and communications antennas false data, the electronic attackers create fake contacts, delete real ones, insert false instructions, and possibly even crash the entire air defense network. At a minimum, a successful Suter attack allows the Israelis to see the status of the Iranian air defenses.

It’s a Jedi mind trick, cyber-style: “These aren’t the planes you’re looking for.” If the Israelis do their jobs really well, the Iranians won’t even know they’re being hacked until it’s too late.

Since the Shavit can monitor Iranian radar and communications directly, the two Eitan UAVs carry a different payload: electronics designed to support the intrusion effort by either locat*ing emitters or transmitting signals at close range, without risking the Shavit directly.

The strikers, four squadrons of F-16I Sufas, take off half an hour after the Shavit. Slowed by ordnance and drop tanks, they cruise at 520 knots. It takes them an hour and a half to reach Delek Station, then half an hour to refuel. Because the target is just over 1,100 nautical miles (nm) away, the Sufas cannot carry a full load of ordnance – just two SPICE 2000 PGMs, as well as three drop tanks, targeting and navigation pods on the inlet stations, and two AIM-120 AMRAAMs on the wingtips.

Unlike most countries, Israeli squadrons have 24 planes instead of 12, so this first raid in the Israeli campaign will be sending 96 aircraft into Iranian airspace.

They aren’t all strikers. As insurance, in case the Suter attack is not completely effective, eight F-16s are armed with HARM missiles, decoys, and cluster munitions. They will suppress the enemy defenses in the general area, knocking out radars, command centers, and SAM batteries that could threaten the incoming raid. If the Suter attack is effective, they will either accompany the raid all the way to the target or perhaps prepare the way for the second attack tomorrow.

Another eight Sufas are dedicated fighter escorts. Instead of PGMs, they each carry four AMRAAMs and two Python 5 AAMs. With a range of 44 nautical miles, the AIM-120C-5 missiles they carry outrange everything in the Iranian inventory. They’re not as good as the “D” model AMRAAM (60 nm) used by the U.S., but the best the Iranians can put up is the Russian-made R-27R [AA-10 Alamo] with a range of 29 nm. With luck, the escort fighters won’t even have to use afterburner, which would be a good thing so far from home.

Finally, eight F-16s will be assigned to suppress the local defenses at the target. They also carry HARM missiles and a Sky Shield Jamming pod. Thanks to electronic reconnaissance, the Israelis know which SAMs are operating near the target and what their operating patterns are.

Of the 96 fighters, 72 will carry ordnance, while another twenty-four support and protect the rest. Altogether, the raid will be able to bring 144 precision-guided munitions to the target.

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/first-strike-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-part-1/

 

[Shahin Vatani]

Surenas jan, allow these threads bro. They are just going to turn into opportunities for our enemies to come here and chat sh*t!

 

[Surenas]

Surenas jan, allow these threads bro. They are just going to turn into opportunities for our enemies to come here and chat sh*t!

Well, it's just a insight in the strategy Israel will likely adopt if they decide to go all the way. Pure military interesting. If people come here trolling the mods should do their job.

Israel’s First Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities – Part 2

The Strike: Part 2 of a scenario for the first Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program

In the first part of this series, we described the strike package of fighters and supporting aircraft making the first attack in Israel’s air campaign against the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Where are they going? Isfahan. Why not Natanz? After all, that’s the famous, underground, heavily defended uranium enrichment facility that’s always in the news.

The Iranians are pursuing two paths to a nuclear weapon: The uranium route and the plutonium route. Natanz, Fordow, and possibly other enrichment facilities are on the uranium path, increasing the concentration of U235 to weapons grade levels. The Arak nuclear reactor (still not operational) will serve as a source for the plutonium option.

But there are several steps on either path. Yellowcake uranium must be converted to uranium hexaflouride gas (UF6) that the centrifuges can use, and the enriched gas must then be processed to uranium metal to be fabricated into bomb components. The Arak reactor uses fuel made from uranium dioxide (UO2). After it has been used in the reactor, the spent fuel must be chemically treated to extract the Pu238. All of these processes are performed at one place: Isfahan.

Google Map of the facilities at Isfahan and the surrounding area, illustrating the need for precision munitions.

The complex at Isfahan is made up of three facilities vital to nuclear weapons development: The Uranium Conversion Facility, where yellowcake is processed to UF6 and UO2, the Fuel Manufacturing Plant, where UO2 is converted to reactor fuel, and the Zirconium Processing Plant. This not only provides zirconium used by the Fuel Manufacturing Plant, it specializes in refining, smelting, and machining exotic metals. It would extract the uranium or plutonium and make it into bomb components.

These three industrial-level installations are located next to each other, are completely exposed (nothing buried, no concrete roofs), and have only half or a third of the defenses present at Natanz. Hitting Natanz first is a “sucker play.”

The Isfahan defenses include an elderly S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) site nearby, two I-Hawk batteries about a dozen kilometers to the west and north, a Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) battery, and a mix of 35mm and 23mm guns.

There are thirty-one structures at the three facilities that are worth bombing. Most need to be serviced with two or three bombs to be completely destroyed, and the raid has one hundred and forty-four weapons. That sounds like overkill, but even PGMs don’t work every time. Against targets of this size, they have an 80 percent chance of hitting, so four per target is not out of line.

During the transit, the F-16s are electronically silent. When they reach Delek Station, they refuel silently as well. It’s not easy, but possible with proper training.

By the time the raiders finish refueling, the commander on the Shavit will have executed his Suter attack. If it goes well, he can shut down some or all of the SAM and radar sites along the raid’s path. Or he can order the raid to abort, if the defenses have somehow been alerted.

After they leave the refueling point, the raiders cross the Saudi coast. The defense suppressors, hitting targets up to fifty miles away from the raid’s path, break off from the main raid now. They’ll execute their part of the mission, then return home on their own. The fighter escorts fan out as well, radars still off but in position so that they can get their shots before any interceptors are in range of the strikers.

The raiders now descend to stay below the horizon of the Iranian radars. Whether or not the Suter attack has been successful, if Iranian radar doesn‘t see them, the Iranians won’t react.

There’s a temptation to go to full military power, to minimize the time they spend in Iranian airspace, but full military triples their fuel consumption, for a speed increase of 130 knots, or just 25 percent. The Sufas can’t go supersonic with their ordnance and drop tanks, and low altitude does enough damage to their fuel consumption. Besides, since the Shavit is listening in, the Israelis will know about any detections as soon as the Iranians do.

Flying at a few hundred feet above ground level, their radars are still off. Their fighter escort is a little higher, flanking them on each side. The route is mostly scrubby desert, rising from sea level near the coast to about two thousand meters inland. A series of ridgelines lays perpendicular to their path, a low part of the Zagros mountain chain. It’s sparsely settled, and there are few lights at night marking the landscape.

It’s three hundred nautical miles from the Delek Station to Isfahan, or about thirty-five minutes’ flight time. During this time, the Iranians will begin to suffer cyber attacks and diversionary raids. For instance, powered decoys are launched in the direction of Tehran. The goal is to confuse and distract.

At seventy miles and ten minutes from the target, and cued by the Shavit, the close-in defense suppressors climb until they’re above the Iranian radar horizon. They may or may not be visible to Iranian radar, but it doesn’t matter. They loft HARM antiradar missiles pretuned to the Iranian radars’ frequencies. Any radiating surveillance or fire control radar will collect one or two missiles. Planes that have fired all their HARMs join the fighter escort. Those that still have HARMs orbit on electronic overwatch.

The HARMs hit two minutes later, and if the defenders weren’t awake before, they are now. It takes a few minutes for the gun crews to fully man their weapons, but they put up a storm of fire. Few of the 35mm guns are (or were) radar-guided, and none of the 23mm are. All they can do is shoot into their assigned zone and hope somebody flies through it.

The strikers never get close to the guns. They’re already climbing. This is the only time since takeoff they’ve used full military power, to gain speed and altitude as they zoom to medium altitude. Guided by their nav systems and cued by their HUDs, wave after wave of Israeli pilots release their weapons, lofting them toward the target, then pull back on the stick in a precise Immelman turn, rolling level onto an outbound course. The lob-toss delivery is the optimal method for delivering GPS-guided ordnance. Without coming closer than twelve miles to the target, the entire strike is outbound before their bombs even reach the target.

There are four Tor-M1 vehicles protecting Isfahan, each with its own search and fire control radars and eight Gauntlet missiles. When the guns start firing, the crews light off their radars, and they’re on line in seconds. Electronically netted though a battery command vehicle, they can cooperate to make sure they don’t engage the same targets.

The Israelis detect the signals, but by the time they launch their HARMs, all four SAM vehicles are firing.

The Tor missile only has a range of six nautical miles, but they aren’t after the retreating Israeli aircraft, or even the defense suppression planes, orbiting safely out of range. The Tor’s radar is good enough to spot and engage the incoming PGMs. Each vehicle can shoot at two targets at once, and they devote one guidance channel to the incoming HARMs and the other to the PGMs. Two manage to shoot down the HARMs coming at them, and one of the remaining two HARMs misses. One vehicle is lost, but the first thirty-second exchange of fire has allowed the Tor battery to destroy three of the PGMs.

Like they should have done in the first salvo, the Israelis now fire two HARMs at each remaining launcher, killing all three vehicles, but several more PGMs are also gone.

Outbound and clear of the defenses, the raid begins the hour and a half flight back to base. They’re up at high altitude now, for best fuel efficiency. They’re almost in the clear, but the Iranians have prepared a going-away party.

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/israels-first-strike-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-part-2

 

[Serpentine]

This analyze sucked.It shows Israel some unbreakable and unbeatable while Iran's forces are sitting ducks.It sucks because from the first sentence,it assumes that Iran is building nuclear weapons,which is a lie.It doesn't require very good IQ to understand what kind of person has wrote this junk.

I don't think Saudi Arabia would let Israel use its airspace,but if it ever did,it should say goodbye to good old days of selling oil and say hello to hell coming down to their oil facilities.Saudis are not stupid to do such thing.

 

[Surenas]

I don't think Saudi Arabia would let Israel use its airspace,but if it ever did,it should say goodbye to good old days of selling oil and say hello to hell coming down to their oil facilities.Saudis are not stupid to do such thing.

You must think like a Saudi. They fear a Iranian nuclear bomb more than a possible Iranian retaliation on their oil fields. I will not be surprised if the Saudi's will open their airspace for Israeli aircrafts. They probably also rely on the US for protecting their interests.

 

[Serpentine]

You must think like a Saudi. They fear a Iranian nuclear bomb more than a possible Iranian retaliation on their oil fields. I will not be surprised if the Saudi's will open their airspace for Israeli aircrafts. They probably also rely on the US for protecting their interests.

Still I don't think Saudis would let Israel use their air space.I don't understand why SA fears an Iranian bomb.SA is not Iran's center of attention.first of all Iran is not building nuclear weapons and Israelis know that better than anyone.Secondly,all their barking and threatening is a tool to prepare world's minds for a war on Iran if Iran ever decided to make a bomb.Israel is a tiny country without geographical depth,it's military doctrine is based on blitzkrieg-like attacks,it is determined to defeat and paralyze its enemies in days if not hours.Israel can't endure a long-lasting war.If you look at it's history,you will know what I mean.

 

[Pakistanisage]

Nothing is going to happen till after the US election on November 5 2012. Expect an attack around December 20/21, 2012.

 

[Pakistanisage]

I don't know why they fight , i think being Shiya country iran should have good realtions with Israel , most of the sunni muslim are aginst US+ISRAEL.

Mr. Trollman with 1 post, it is not about shia / Sunni divide. Both Shias and Sunnis are Muslims and when it comes to Islam, we are noe and the same.

 

[Surenas]

This analyze sucked.It shows Israel some unbreakable and unbeatable while Iran's forces are sitting ducks.

What could Iran do is the question? They rely mainly on their SAM's and AA.

It sucks because from the first sentence,it assumes that Iran is building nuclear weapons,which is a lie.

That really doesn't matter. The writer assumes that the Israeli is convinced that Iran is building a bomb. Besides that, don't be so naive. Iran is laying a nuclear infrastructure which makes it easier and quicker to build a bomb.

 

[Serpentine]

I don't know why they fight , i think being Shiya country iran should have good realtions with Israel , most of the sunni muslim are aginst US+ISRAEL.

From what I see today,most of them are in bed with U.S/Israel.
Saudi Arabia,Qatar,UAE,Kuwait,Bahrain,Jordan and Egypt (former)Is that enough for you?Not all of their people may like U.S or Israel,but their regimes definitely do.

 

[OrionHunter]

Firstly: Israel will not strike first and will leave the dirty job to the US 5th fleet to destroy Iranian nuke sites after neutralizing their air, air defence assets and missiles sites/launchers with cruise missiles from the Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) now prowling in the Gulf.

Secondly: Is Israel so stupid as to launch a hundred aircraft towards Iran's nuclear sites including the logistics nightmare of refueling them high above Saudi Arabia? NO!

What they could do: Launch their precision guided POPEYE TURBO SLCMs from their Dolphin subs lurking in the Persian Gulf to take out Iranian nuke sites, airfields and air defence assets. They would also target Iranian long range missile sites to prevent a riposte. But the Popeyes will not be able to inflict much damage on the nuclear facilities, because:

Since Iran's nuke facilities are buried too deep for effective destruction by available Israeli weapons, the US will mount an attack with its Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) - dubbed the Big Blu dropped from B-2 Stealth Bombers. This 15 ton nightmare blows apart 200ft of concrete! And this is the most likely scenario, as much of these reactors are buried deep underground and Israel's F-16 will not be able to do the job with their available ordnance.

In other words, Israel simply does not have the capability to destroy Iran's nuke reactors with their available resources. Period!

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

This analyze sucked.It shows Israel some unbreakable and unbeatable while Iran's forces are sitting ducks.It sucks because from the first sentence,it assumes that Iran is building nuclear weapons,which is a lie.It doesn't require very good IQ to understand what kind of person has wrote this junk.

I don't think Saudi Arabia would let Israel use its airspace,but if it ever did,it should say goodbye to good old days of selling oil and say hello to hell coming down to their oil facilities.Saudis are not stupid to do such thing.

And you know assume KSA would sit back and watch you inflating their infrastructure?! What do you think her 400 sate of the art jets are for? I am sure Iran can launch some missiles in the first round, but it will be only for once. Anyway, Patriot pac-3 are there.
KSA will not allow Israel are force to pass her air-space.

 

[Shahin Vatani]

And you know assume KSA would sit back and watch you inflating their infrastructure?! What do you think her 400 sate of the art jets are for? I am sure Iran can launch some missiles in the first round, but it will be only for once. Anyway, Patriot pac-3 are there.
KSA will not allow Israel are force to pass her air-space.

Hey Robin... Did Batman (Mosa) send you to troll here?

In response it doesn't matter what Saudi wants to watch or not... When we close the Straight of Hormuz, thats it... Game Over

 

[Serpentine]

And you know assume KSA would sit back and watch you inflating their infrastructure?! What do you think her 400 sate of the art jets are for? I am sure Iran can launch some missiles in the first round, but it will be only for once. Anyway, Patriot pac-3 are there.
KSA will not allow Israel are force to pass her air-space.

I didn't say KSA would do nothing in response.But with allowing Israel to use its air space,they have declared war on Iran and the only one here who wins is Israel.As I said, Saudis may hate Iran,but they are not idiots.I hope...

 

[Surenas]

Israel’s First Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities – Part 3

Outbound and aftermath: Part 3 of a scenario for the first Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program

In the first and second parts of this series, we described the strike package of fighters and supporting aircraft making the first attack in Israel’s air campaign against the Iranian nuclear weapons program. With their weapons delivered, the Israelis must now get safely out of Iranian territory.

Word of the Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities only reached the fighter squadrons as the bombs were falling. Four air bases are in position to intercept the outbound strike: Tactical Airbase (TAB) 4 at Vahdati, TAB 5 at Omidiyeh, TAB 6 at Bushehr, and TAB 7 at Shiraz.

The alert birds at Vahdati are a pair of F-5Es detailed from one the three squadrons based there. Omidiyeh has three F-7 squadrons (Chinese MiG-21 clones), but they are Iranian Republican Guard Corps (IRGC), with no air-to-air training. They launch the alert planes anyway. They’re still fighter pilots, after all. Shiraz is no help. It only has one abbreviated squadron of F-5s, and none of them are on alert.

Bushehr, on Iran’s southern coast, has the best chance, launching two pairs of alert F-4s and an F-14 “Persian Cat.” The F-14 is carrying Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles for self-defense, but the back-seater’s main role is as a fighter intercept controller.


An Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force Grumman F-14A Tomcat. Delivered at the time the Shah was still in power, Iran still has a number of the 79 original Tomcats in operation, more as mini-AWACS than as air to air fighters. The Tomcat’s aging AWG-9 radar remains Iran’s most powerful air to air sensor. Photo by Shahram Sharifi

The Iranians still have only the vaguest idea where the strike is heading, probably to the south-southwest, and the F-14’s job is to find it using its AWG-9 radar. Thirty-six years after being delivered to the Shah’s Iran, the F-14’s radar is still the most powerful sensor in the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force.

The silenced Iranian radars now work against Israel as well as Iran. The Israeli eavesdroppers know where interceptors have taken off from, and they can listen to voice reports from the Iranian pilots, but they don’t know the exact positions of the hostile fighters. In a dark sky, flying at 500 – 600 knots, both sides are blindly groping for the other.

The Israeli raid commander can see the signal from the F-14’s AWG-9, and immediately vectors a pair of the fighter escorts to shoot it down, but it’s too late. The Tomcat has spotted the outbound Israeli raid and broadcast its location, course, and speed to the interceptors, who immediately adjust their course. The F-14 driver then immediately shuts down his radar and repositions southwest at full military. He’ll set up for another look in a few minutes.

The jig is up, as far as the Israeli commander’s concerned. There’s no point in concealment, and he orders all fighter escorts and defense suppression aircraft to energize their radars. Sixteen fighters ranged on either side of the outbound strikers immediately sweep the airspace. The F-5s and F-7s, both only armed with IR-homing missiles, are spotted and killed well out of range.

The Bushehr F-4s use a “high-low” tactic, and while the upper pair is quickly found and killed, again outside of range, the lower pair, on burner, gets close enough to each launch a pair of Sparrow missiles at the strikers. The four elderly Sparrow missiles are met with a wall of chaff and jamming, and the second pair of F-4s, committed to guide the Sparrows in, are destroyed, rendering their missiles useless.

The rest of the trip back to base is uneventful, and all aircraft land safely.

This hypothetical account is based on the research, design, and gameplay involved in developing Persian Incursion, a wargame published by Clash of Arms in 2010 and written by Chris Carlson, Jeff Dougherty, and myself. It details both Israeli and Iranian military capabilities in an extended air campaign intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program. During the design and gameplay, we did our best to reproduce the tactics and techniques each side would use. There are several important points that we came away with, and that appear in this account:

* There can be no Israeli campaign without an arrangement with one of three countries that lie between Israel and Iran. The government of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Iraq must explicitly, if secretly, give the Israelis permission to use their airspace for a period as long as a week. This involves not just the airstrikes, but pre-and post-strike reconnaissance missions, tanker flights, and potentially damaged aircraft and rescue missions.

* The Israeli Air Force outclasses the Iranian Air Force and Air Defense Forces (a separate service). They have better equipment and better training. They’re not just a little better, they’re a lot better.

* In the end, the military outcome doesn’t matter. In the narrative above, I didn’t bother resolving the attack, because those PGMs are really aimed at the minds of the Iranian leadership. To win this campaign, not against a physical enemy but Iranian intentions, the Israelis must demonstrate the ability to not just destroy one installation, but all of them. Easily. With little or no loss.

Those hundred-plus PGMs will almost certainly blow to oblivion the three nuclear facilities at Isfahan, but what will the Iranian Supreme Leader think when he looks at the destruction? Will he conclude that there’s no future in an Iranian nuclear bomb program, or will he just start rebuilding?

And what will he think tomorrow, when a second raid destroys the reactor and heavy water plant at Arak?

And the day after that?

Israel’s First Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities