Aircrafts with long ranges and high speeds can be stationed deep inside Iranian territory allowing you time to scramble them before cruise missiles or invading aircrafts reach those locations
That's why you have early warning sensors!
U.S. is not the only threat facing Iran and yes against the U.S. I would NOT send a fleet of Su-30's up to intercept F-22's over the Persian Gulf that would be absurd!
But by the most part the decision to send Su-30 to intercept F-22's would depend on the location of the F-22's how deep they are inside Iranian territory, what aircraft they are escorting or if I have Air Defense systems over that area or not! So it depends! F-22's are not indestructible and if they are deep inside Iranian territory and I have a verity of SAM providing cover then yes I would send Su-30's up to back up my Air Defense even against F-22's
Let the air defense so its own job. If the load is too great, send some F-313 into the area and wait for a opportunity to set a trap for the attacker with LR-BVRAAM. In that way you take the load off the shoulders of the ground based IADS, just what Iran needs fighters for.
How exactly are F-313's going to launch BVR missiles?
And do you know how big a missile is going to have to be to achieve BVR when fired from a low altitude subsonic aircraft? Such a missile would have to be as big as the Sayyad-2 missile with a very advanced radar seeker & data link.... and even then unless Iran has developed scram jet technology your looking at a range of 40-50knot (70-100km) for a missile the size of the Sayyad-2
Good enough, 100km range is good enough and just two of those 5m long LR-BVRAAM, too. Design goal is a 5mx1m central weapon bay. I know you want more AAM and higher speed and higher altitude and large radar aperture. However this is not a game about prestige. I can't offer you all those capabilities without a monster like the Su-57/F-22.
But I can offer a less heroic assassin doctrine --> persistence/endurance and low probability of detection. This is the skill set that our economy can handle and meaningful in numbers.
And launching them from the internal weapons bay of an F-313 from low altitude is just not realistic the missile would need to achieve a good distance from your aircraft before it turns on it's engines or else the hot gas from the engine would easily burn the skin off the F-313
Do a small or larger pop-up for the shot until the launch is technically feasible.
Putting BVR missiles on an F-313 is nothing but a delusion! The F-313 is nothing more than Iran's low cost version of the F-117 and they were built to deliver 2 1000lb bombs and come home NOTHING MORE! which in my opinion is absurd because your using a single J-85 engine for each 1000lb bomb on a light airframe with low survivability and maneuverability
The F-117 was a striker. Main mission for a fighter for Iran would be air defense.
As a sole striker of high value targets, I agree with you, payload is of great importance for economic use.
Irans would only use the F-313 as striker of the enemy air defense is sufficiently degraded, despite being "stealth".
Bombardment like Russians do in Syria is better done via something that makes economical sense for Iran. Such as two enlarged, twin engine RQ-170 unmanned bombers as wingmans for a highly automated F-313 pilot to tell what to strike. Such a capability sounds like fiction, but is technologically of lower risk/easier for Iran to achieve than large fighters with high performance engines.
Talking about F-117 like subsonic, low payload aircraft: The USN was close to buy the A-12 stealth aircraft in the early 90's. Instead they now have the F/A-18.
Same argument can be made for your BVR variant if your building a platform that so reliant on ground data you might as well just build a UAV at a much lower cost powered by a single J-85 or a multi stage SAM missile that's powered by a far cheaper turbojet engine by merging the karrar and Shahin SAM into one missile.....
A twin stage SAM with turbojet reusable stage is actually a unconventional and economic idea I like.
A BVRAAM equipped UCAV is also one such idea but this is really too far away as advances in AI are necessary. We need to work into that direction but for now a manned fighter with the skill set I described for the F-313 is good enough.
Having a human which can make decisions at any frontline that needs support is what a manned fighter is there for today. The weak point of a small nose, small aperture size and reliance on a intact IADS is a weakpoint as of today. However in future the situation can become better with advanced IRST and a new radar generation. A UAV AEW aircraft like that enlarged RQ-170 with plenty of aperture space could be a alternative solution for the future.
And how big of an F-313 fleet do you plan on having????? And where exactly did you wanna station them?
The variant I outline previously in this thead: 500-1000. Basing in existing/expanded bases and moved to mobile highway operation in wartime.
As for Ballistic Missiles against airbases how many Ballistic missiles do think Iran would need to fire at bases such as these to have a real effect? (each located +1200km from Iran)
I can promise you that if Iran fired 200 Ballistic missiles with a CEP of 100 meters at each of these bases we still wouldn't be able to take out even close to half the fighters stationed at these bases
Just disrupt operations from those bases. If you are successful, you can send a swarm of cheap TP-drones or even S-129 to take out specific targets. Or a RQ-170 bomber, or CM's in future. Or your desired force of a few dozen Su-30... yes if there is no serious threat anymore because runway damage, FOD-risk, risk of unexploded submunitions, damaged systems etc. due to submunition warhead equipped BMs... yes then anything can be used as bomb trucks to take out those fancy bunkers.
What I would prefer? Soften the airbase with periodic submunition BM strikes and use cheap Ya Ali like CM's to kill important soft structures. Then use Emad or better more advanced terminal guided next-gen BM's to take out hardened structures. After base is taken out that way, keep 10 S-129 continuously on the base to take out what remains alive.
Those Israeli and Saudi superbases look impressive and are in fact, but how many of them do they have? Israel 5? Saudis 10? Their complete backbone is based on them, so yes, hard nut to crack but even the use of 500 MRBM would be justified against those strongholds. Once they are out, their conventional warfighting capability is basically taken out.
Ballistic Missiles alone are not sufficient nor does Iran produce enough of them nor can Iran launch enough of them simultaneously at targets beyond 1200km for them to be a sufficient retaliatory weapon!
I see things differently. We have produced a huge arsenal at prices no one in the west would believe.
Focusing on building a large fleet of low cost F-313's is both a waist of time and money!
Iran should purchase a fleet of ~100 of the most advanced Air Superiority fighter it can get it's hands on until we can build our own
As for a domestic project Iran should instead focus on building a smaller fleet of 40-60 heavy long range fighters capable of delivering a large payload to complement it's Ballistic Missiles, Cruise Missiles and UAV's
Anything large will require a large, high-power engine. This is a fundamental problem. The best solution is a high lift RQ-170 like design, enlarged, flying at 50-60k feet. In that way you can get payload.
However, even with LO capabilities of the original RQ-170: It won't be survivable if the sent into an fully intact enemy IADS... and even that is a huge task because again the (small, subsonic) engines are still hard to master.
The missile approach, especially next generation multi-warhead, terminal guidance MRBM and CMs will allow Iran to break 80% of the enemy warfighting capability. We are getting there and upgrading existing arsenal to future pin-point strike capability. This has never been demonstrated in the world, but Iran is doing it. Strike wise we will get there sooner or later, what I want primary is a fighter to flexibly strengthen airdefense frontlines under pressure.