Iranian Air Defense Systems

[Battle of Waterloo]

Russian hack article belittling the Bavar 373s over at the Kremlin site Southfront.

Iran’s Air Defense: In Pursuit Of S-300

https://southfront.org/irans-air-defense-in-pursuit-of-s-300/

"Iranian military notes that the Ra’ad-2 SAMs are capable of hitting targets at distances of up to 200 kilometres" Lol?

"The latest Iranian SAMs, I think, are at least a generation behind ours, that is, they can match the models that were created in our country in the late 80s-early 90s.

Both of these complexes, according to media reports, have a semi-active missile guidance system, which means that shooting is possible only within the radio [radar] horizon, that is, on targets that are directly observable. The maximum range will be limited not only by the energy of missiles and radar, but also by the altitude of the targets, as well as the terrain. The Iranian military is talking about 200 and 120 kilometres, respectively. It is obvious that with this value, the “Bavar-373” is not better than our S-300PMU2, but surpasses the S-300PMU1 with its 150 kilometres. However, this range can be fully realised only on targets going at high or medium altitudes.

We observe that the Iranian SAMs “Bavar-373” and “Khordad-15”, of course, are serious military-technological breakthroughs, bringing Iran to the forefront in the development of these weapons systems. However, it is premature to say that it managed to achieve the performance of our S-300PMU2. Nevertheless, there is reason to predict that in a decade and a half, Iran will create a SAM that meets the best world standards, catching up with at least China in this regard."

So somewhere between pmu1 and pmu2. Seems reasonable and the criticisms were valid, I don't think this is a "hack" article at all; obviously they have a pro-Russian bias as it was written by a Russian military politician, but it certainly doesn't belittle the Bavar-373 unfairly in my opinion.

 

[PeeD]

That thing is gonna be literally a blimp on the Radar of any major adversary. Any major attack and a BVR missile will destroy that thing in a heartbeat.

Don’t see how it’s useful in wartime as even air defense systems will struggle to defend it from A2A.

This goes both ways, all you said can be allied to airbases or carriers on which conventional airpower is based (just replace BVR AAMs by CMs, BMs and AGMs).

Hence in all robust scenarios there are some very high value objects that needs to be protected or protect themselves.

Iranian F-14 would be tasked to kill tankers and AWACS/E-2 to create mission-kills on U.S airpower. In contrast to U.S airpower the still have longer ranged BVR weapons and likely at kinematic advantage.
So the task of U.S airpower is to create such a dense defense layer around tankers and AWACS that no Iranian F-14 manages to land a lucky shot in a /run) hit and run scenario.

That all would apply to a static OTH radar or an aerostat system.
Airborne systems are mobile, sure but are vulnerable to mission-kill scenarios are they rely on airfields/carriers.
If you manage to protect a land target against;
- terrain-masking assets
- atmospheric and high altitude assets
- ballistic/exo atmospheric assets
- hypersonics/trans-atmospheric assets
then you can reasonably protect a very high value object.

At the capability level Iran has reached following question arises: What's worth an airborne asset, if it relies on a static land object, an airfield for operation? Why not instead trying to protect the static land object against the whole threat spectrum, which one fruit could then be robust, survivable airpower?
Achieving that is a near impossible task due to hypersonic and ballistic missiles with point-strike capability but fortunately enough, for now, very few countries on the planet posses such a capability (now to become more after INF treaty was killed).

The U.S relies on airpower and AWACS/tankers because their warfare is almost completely offensive orientated. That’s good to make war around the globe against 3rd class militaries. Against peer-level militaries, they rely on being a nuclear power.
Irans task is not war around the globe against 3rd class militaries, but against one of the 3 superpowers on the planet.

 

[gambit]

The U.S relies on airpower and AWACS/tankers because their warfare is almost completely offensive orientated. That’s good to make war around the globe against 3rd class militaries. Against peer-level militaries, they rely on being a nuclear power.
Irans task is not war around the globe against 3rd class militaries, but against one of the 3 superpowers on the planet.

There is no peer to the US military. Nuclear weapons are essentially measures of last resort. Any country that is willing to use nuclear weapons is also committed to suffer the nuclear reprisal. Conventionally, the US military have no peer.

The US can standalone...

- Thru the inadequacies of others
- By our own prowess

There is no way for Liechtenstein to be a US peer and that would be item one. Against the Soviet Union and China, that would be item two, at least for now. JPN in WW II was not a US military peer despite the battlefield successes during the war. Component to what make a military formidable is the ability to replenish by way of national resources and that JPN did not have. At the end of WW II, the only navy that could stand on its own was the UN Navy. Allied navies depended on US for their standing.

So if we by our own efforts managed to stay ahead of most of the world, including resource wealthy like Russia and China, criticizing the US military as only good against 3rd world militaries is pointless.

 

[PeeD]

Conventional U.S military power can overwhelm 3rd class militaries.

Against second class militaries it will be defeated on the homefront. As a liberal society without any robust ideological values, U.S homefront will only stand intact if it is physically threatened.

The dimension for the homefront are as following:
- 100's deaths during the whole campaign against a 3rd class military
- 1000's of deaths within the first month against a 2nd class military
- 10.000's of deaths within the first weeks against a peer-level military
An expedition with few 100 deaths can be sustained and a defensive war against a peer-level military can be sustained. These are the two extremes.

There is the threshold adversary capability-level at which conventional U.S military power retains superiority. The threshold is crossed if facing nations like Russia, China and recently Iran.
It's true that conventional U.S military power has larger teeth than Russia in the offensive field but Russian military is build to defend against U.S level assets. Their defensive warfare effectiveness is so much higher than the U.S one that I would say the 2019 Russian military would win a conventional war against the 2019 U.S.

 

[Blue In Green]

There is no peer to the US military. Nuclear weapons are essentially measures of last resort. Any country that is willing to use nuclear weapons is also committed to suffer the nuclear reprisal. Conventionally, the US military have no peer.

The US can standalone...

- Thru the inadequacies of others
- By our own prowess

There is no way for Liechtenstein to be a US peer and that would be item one. Against the Soviet Union and China, that would be item two, at least for now. JPN in WW II was not a US military peer despite the battlefield successes during the war. Component to what make a military formidable is the ability to replenish by way of national resources and that JPN did not have. At the end of WW II, the only navy that could stand on its own was the UN Navy. Allied navies depended on US for their standing.

So if we by our own efforts managed to stay ahead of most of the world, including resource wealthy like Russia and China, criticizing the US military as only good against 3rd world militaries is pointless.

Thoroughly explain how Russia and China aren't peer militaries.

 

[Shams313]

Thoroughly explain how Russia and China aren't peer militaries.

There's no explanation, it's a philosophy people used to belief in.
Let em.

 

[VEVAK]

A cost-effective approach for detecting low flying targets is Aerostat mounted radars like American Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) and Israeli EL/M-2083

During actual war time Large Balloon type radars and Surveillance are good for countries equipped with the type of Air Forces that can protect them or else modern Air Forces equipped with modern and future BVR missiles will be able to down them at the max ranges of the missiles capabilities.

During peace time sure they can be used as coms gear to surveillance gear against Terrorist, smugglers,.... and as a type of an early warning system right before an attack however due to their slow speed and rather large size they can easily be spotted even from orbit and their lack of speed and large size will make them easy targets. And I'm 100% positive that countries like the U.S. have Air to Air missiles specifically designed to take out such targets from 200-300km out (And that's not including classified airborne directed energy weapons and Lasers).

For Iran's purposes at least in my opinion for a SHORAD systems would be to have a specific number of MALE UAV's monitoring a specific area with various types of sensors with multiple UAV's in the air at any given time conducting 24/7 search with a large number of cheaper sensors on the ground conducting surveillance across an area and a handful of towers with more expensive sensors all networked together on a closed high speed network to conduct SHORAD surveillance operations for a specific area with the threat level posed to the area determining the concentration and type of your ground sensors and the number and type of your UAV's that's also fed in info from other Iranian EWS, Radars, SAM Systems,.....
And for the defensive weapons there should be
1.Cheap Algorithm based missiles (assisted with low cost optical sensors & and a few upgraded with higher end night sensors.)
2.Large number of command based missiles (Vertically launched out of a 20ft long container that's towed or on the back of a truck(25fter) and I would also place at least 8 short ranged (~30km ranged) land attack cruise missiles like a modified Akhgar missile to be vertically launched out of the same container to protect against any special forces operation....)
3.A Specific number (based on threat level) remotely operated AAA

And each area would have to be properly mapped and engineered to each area's specific needs.

 

[DoubleYouSee]

"Iranian military notes that the Ra’ad-2 SAMs are capable of hitting targets at distances of up to 200 kilometres" Lol?

"The latest Iranian SAMs, I think, are at least a generation behind ours, that is, they can match the models that were created in our country in the late 80s-early 90s.

Both of these complexes, according to media reports, have a semi-active missile guidance system, which means that shooting is possible only within the radio [radar] horizon, that is, on targets that are directly observable. The maximum range will be limited not only by the energy of missiles and radar, but also by the altitude of the targets, as well as the terrain. The Iranian military is talking about 200 and 120 kilometres, respectively. It is obvious that with this value, the “Bavar-373” is not better than our S-300PMU2, but surpasses the S-300PMU1 with its 150 kilometres. However, this range can be fully realised only on targets going at high or medium altitudes.

We observe that the Iranian SAMs “Bavar-373” and “Khordad-15”, of course, are serious military-technological breakthroughs, bringing Iran to the forefront in the development of these weapons systems. However, it is premature to say that it managed to achieve the performance of our S-300PMU2. Nevertheless, there is reason to predict that in a decade and a half, Iran will create a SAM that meets the best world standards, catching up with at least China in this regard."

So somewhere between pmu1 and pmu2. Seems reasonable and the criticisms were valid, I don't think this is a "hack" article at all; obviously they have a pro-Russian bias as it was written by a Russian military politician, but it certainly doesn't belittle the Bavar-373 unfairly in my opinion.

Suppose that this guy make an essay on iranian UAV technology.......he will not even put Iran among top 10 countries

 

[GWXP]

Thoroughly explain how Russia and China aren't peer militaries.

Russia has 850 old fighter jets with poorly trained pilots. China has 650 4th generation fighter aircraft. USA has 2700 fighter aircraft---that is more than China and Russia combined. Add to this the fact that US military deploys 5th generation fighters and you see the superiority. US NAVY is superior to the the next 10 Navies combined

The only peer to US military and in minds of some its superior was USSR that had standing army of 5 mln troops and 65000 tanks

 

[DoubleYouSee]

Russia has 850 old fighter jets with poorly trained pilots. China has 650 4th generation fighter aircraft. USA has 2700 fighter aircraft---that is more than China and Russia combined. Add to this the fact that US military deploys 5th generation fighters and you see the superiority. US NAVY is superior to the the next 10 Navies combined

The only peer to US military and in minds of some its superior was USSR that had standing army of 5 mln troops and 65000 tanks

But there is something that you don't consider it....not you even most of the guys here.....thats initiative......in the begining of saudi war against yemenis,saudie had superiority but they couldn't conquer......and in these days whole of the world is being surprised by ability of hoothis........a part of war is luxurios tanks and fighters you have but these stufes took money and destroy your economy(what we have seen in US after war in afghanistan and iraq).....the point that hoothies got and extend their war......these days saudies are bombing targets that have been demolished years before but yemenis attack aramco....

 

[gambit]

Thoroughly explain how Russia and China aren't peer militaries.

The problem with the phrase 'peer military' or variants thereof is that they are used too casually with the users having next to zero knowledge of the contexts behind the phrase.

When I was active duty, we have Professional Military Education (PME). We -- officers and enlisted -- have our respective institutions, such as Air University and the NCO Academy, and so on. We learned about history, a little bit of politics, leadership development, training, and employment of theories.

Here is one of the exercises we had for discussions...

Let us say that...

- There are three countries: America, Canada, and Mexico
- Each country have a 1,000 man army
- America have access to the seas but Canada and Mexico are landlocked

Let us say that one day, America invented the 'boat' and eventually can travel on the waters. Then America have a 'navy'.

In ABSOLUTE terms, we can argue that militarily speaking America have no peers. But because Canada and Mexico are landlocked, the only branch that can wage war on either country is the army. This make it in PRACTICAL terms, despite having a navy, America still have two military peers.

While the exercise is simplistic, it is much more sophisticated than using sheer numbers of weaponry and manpower to compare militaries which inevitably affects national policies and foreign affairs. A false or incomplete understanding of the idea of what is a 'military peer' and how to come to such a conclusion WILL have disastrous consequences.

The exercise forced the student to take into consideration seemingly unrelated factors like politics, government, geography, economics, ethnic composition, societal strata, moralities and philosophies, and even lower level factors like ratio of men to women and lifespan expectancy to guesstimate the national potency of a country. This is why JPN is guesstimated to decline on the world stage because of the rising ratio of seniors to younger adults over the next 20 yrs. Like it or not, it is very much a dick measuring contest but one with serious international implications because the military is reflective of the greater society whence it came from.

Let us say that Canada is experiencing a birth boom. This mean that in 20 yrs time odds are good that Canada's economy will rise, and Canada will have a 1,500 man army which make it in PRACTICAL terms, Canada's military will have no peer. America's navy remains useless.

But...But...What about the other day when USAF General Joe Schmoe on CNN said something about China's PLAAF being a 'near peer'?

The problem in that scenario is that people love to jump to conclusion on what General Schmoe said. When General Schmoe said that the PLAAF is a 'near peer', he actually meant it in a very narrow context, namely, that China can make her own aircraft, formulate her own air combat doctrines, trains her own airmen, and so on, without relying on external help. In a real fight against the USAF, the PLAAF would lose. The USAF would take losses, but those losses would not pose any statistical delay on the final victory over the PLAAF. In absolute and practical terms, US airpower from all branches grossly oversized the PLA, especially in combat experience.

The US military is unique in the modern world in the sense that we trains exclusively to fight on other lands. Continental US (CONUS) is effectively immune from invasion, and we have the National Guards to defend the homeland. That leave the main army an exclusively expeditionary force. When I used the lower case 'army', I do not mean the US Army but the totality of the US military. France's expeditionary force is the Foreign Legion, an example to illustrate the difference where an army may have a unit of any size that is dedicated for overseas missions versus an entire military that is formed and trained to do so. A component that is dedicated to expeditionary missions are mainly for harassment, reconnaissance, insurgency, or preparation to a larger force. Whereas an entire military that was formed to be expeditionary is meant for conquest and it will have the resources to back up the mission.

No one like to rated lower than the US military but reality give no options, so in theory, if one strains hard enough, Burkina Faso can be a US 'near peer'.

 

[Blue In Green]

The problem with the phrase 'peer military' or variants thereof is that they are used too casually with the users having next to zero knowledge of the contexts behind the phrase.

When I was active duty, we have Professional Military Education (PME). We -- officers and enlisted -- have our respective institutions, such as Air University and the NCO Academy, and so on. We learned about history, a little bit of politics, leadership development, training, and employment of theories.

Here is one of the exercises we had for discussions...

Let us say that...

- There are three countries: America, Canada, and Mexico
- Each country have a 1,000 man army
- America have access to the seas but Canada and Mexico are landlocked

Let us say that one day, America invented the 'boat' and eventually can travel on the waters. Then America have a 'navy'.

In ABSOLUTE terms, we can argue that militarily speaking America have no peers. But because Canada and Mexico are landlocked, the only branch that can wage war on either country is the army. This make it in PRACTICAL terms, despite having a navy, America still have two military peers.

While the exercise is simplistic, it is much more sophisticated than using sheer numbers of weaponry and manpower to compare militaries which inevitably affects national policies and foreign affairs. A false or incomplete understanding of the idea of what is a 'military peer' and how to come to such a conclusion WILL have disastrous consequences.

The exercise forced the student to take into consideration seemingly unrelated factors like politics, government, geography, economics, ethnic composition, societal strata, moralities and philosophies, and even lower level factors like ratio of men to women and lifespan expectancy to guesstimate the national potency of a country. This is why JPN is guesstimated to decline on the world stage because of the rising ratio of seniors to younger adults over the next 20 yrs. Like it or not, it is very much a dick measuring contest but one with serious international implications because the military is reflective of the greater society whence it came from.

Let us say that Canada is experiencing a birth boom. This mean that in 20 yrs time odds are good that Canada's economy will rise, and Canada will have a 1,500 man army which make it in PRACTICAL terms, Canada's military will have no peer. America's navy remains useless.

But...But...What about the other day when USAF General Joe Schmoe on CNN said something about China's PLAAF being a 'near peer'?

The problem in that scenario is that people love to jump to conclusion on what General Schmoe said. When General Schmoe said that the PLAAF is a 'near peer', he actually meant it in a very narrow context, namely, that China can make her own aircraft, formulate her own air combat doctrines, trains her own airmen, and so on, without relying on external help. In a real fight against the USAF, the PLAAF would lose. The USAF would take losses, but those losses would not pose any statistical delay on the final victory over the PLAAF. In absolute and practical terms, US airpower from all branches grossly oversized the PLA, especially in combat experience.

The US military is unique in the modern world in the sense that we trains exclusively to fight on other lands. Continental US (CONUS) is effectively immune from invasion, and we have the National Guards to defend the homeland. That leave the main army an exclusively expeditionary force. When I used the lower case 'army', I do not mean the US Army but the totality of the US military. France's expeditionary force is the Foreign Legion, an example to illustrate the difference where an army may have a unit of any size that is dedicated for overseas missions versus an entire military that is formed and trained to do so. A component that is dedicated to expeditionary missions are mainly for harassment, reconnaissance, insurgency, or preparation to a larger force. Whereas an entire military that was formed to be expeditionary is meant for conquest and it will have the resources to back up the mission.

No one like to rated lower than the US military but reality give no options, so in theory, if one strains hard enough, Burkina Faso can be a US 'near peer'.

Thorough explanation, very much appreciated.

 

[Blue In Green]

The problem with the phrase 'peer military' or variants thereof is that they are used too casually with the users having next to zero knowledge of the contexts behind the phrase.

When I was active duty, we have Professional Military Education (PME). We -- officers and enlisted -- have our respective institutions, such as Air University and the NCO Academy, and so on. We learned about history, a little bit of politics, leadership development, training, and employment of theories.

Here is one of the exercises we had for discussions...

Let us say that...

- There are three countries: America, Canada, and Mexico
- Each country have a 1,000 man army
- America have access to the seas but Canada and Mexico are landlocked

Let us say that one day, America invented the 'boat' and eventually can travel on the waters. Then America have a 'navy'.

In ABSOLUTE terms, we can argue that militarily speaking America have no peers. But because Canada and Mexico are landlocked, the only branch that can wage war on either country is the army. This make it in PRACTICAL terms, despite having a navy, America still have two military peers.

While the exercise is simplistic, it is much more sophisticated than using sheer numbers of weaponry and manpower to compare militaries which inevitably affects national policies and foreign affairs. A false or incomplete understanding of the idea of what is a 'military peer' and how to come to such a conclusion WILL have disastrous consequences.

The exercise forced the student to take into consideration seemingly unrelated factors like politics, government, geography, economics, ethnic composition, societal strata, moralities and philosophies, and even lower level factors like ratio of men to women and lifespan expectancy to guesstimate the national potency of a country. This is why JPN is guesstimated to decline on the world stage because of the rising ratio of seniors to younger adults over the next 20 yrs. Like it or not, it is very much a dick measuring contest but one with serious international implications because the military is reflective of the greater society whence it came from.

Let us say that Canada is experiencing a birth boom. This mean that in 20 yrs time odds are good that Canada's economy will rise, and Canada will have a 1,500 man army which make it in PRACTICAL terms, Canada's military will have no peer. America's navy remains useless.

But...But...What about the other day when USAF General Joe Schmoe on CNN said something about China's PLAAF being a 'near peer'?

The problem in that scenario is that people love to jump to conclusion on what General Schmoe said. When General Schmoe said that the PLAAF is a 'near peer', he actually meant it in a very narrow context, namely, that China can make her own aircraft, formulate her own air combat doctrines, trains her own airmen, and so on, without relying on external help. In a real fight against the USAF, the PLAAF would lose. The USAF would take losses, but those losses would not pose any statistical delay on the final victory over the PLAAF. In absolute and practical terms, US airpower from all branches grossly oversized the PLA, especially in combat experience.

The US military is unique in the modern world in the sense that we trains exclusively to fight on other lands. Continental US (CONUS) is effectively immune from invasion, and we have the National Guards to defend the homeland. That leave the main army an exclusively expeditionary force. When I used the lower case 'army', I do not mean the US Army but the totality of the US military. France's expeditionary force is the Foreign Legion, an example to illustrate the difference where an army may have a unit of any size that is dedicated for overseas missions versus an entire military that is formed and trained to do so. A component that is dedicated to expeditionary missions are mainly for harassment, reconnaissance, insurgency, or preparation to a larger force. Whereas an entire military that was formed to be expeditionary is meant for conquest and it will have the resources to back up the mission.

No one like to rated lower than the US military but reality give no options, so in theory, if one strains hard enough, Burkina Faso can be a US 'near peer'.

Truth be told, I'm not the best at this sort of stuff so I will admit my ignorance. That being said let me pose this question to you then.

If we take the Russians who have a very robust defense orientated military infrastructure set up in Russia that is meant to counter U.S. military in Eastern Europe and beyond. Can one say or try to say that an equally defended nations can stack up to an equally offensive nation? I guess at that point we can't use the term "peer" military since, from what I gather you're trying to say, is that a peer military must be similar enough in order for there to be an comparison in the first place.

I.E:
-Object A is an hyper offensive military with all the characteristics of one that come therein.
-Object B is an hyper defensive military with all the characteristics of one that come therein.

Can we then compare the power level of these two militaries more directly even though they are effectively polar opposites.

What overall terms and classifications, in your view, do we need to use when comparing such nations and militaries?

The problem with the phrase 'peer military' or variants thereof is that they are used too casually with the users having next to zero knowledge of the contexts behind the phrase.

When I was active duty, we have Professional Military Education (PME). We -- officers and enlisted -- have our respective institutions, such as Air University and the NCO Academy, and so on. We learned about history, a little bit of politics, leadership development, training, and employment of theories.

Here is one of the exercises we had for discussions...

Let us say that...

- There are three countries: America, Canada, and Mexico
- Each country have a 1,000 man army
- America have access to the seas but Canada and Mexico are landlocked

Let us say that one day, America invented the 'boat' and eventually can travel on the waters. Then America have a 'navy'.

In ABSOLUTE terms, we can argue that militarily speaking America have no peers. But because Canada and Mexico are landlocked, the only branch that can wage war on either country is the army. This make it in PRACTICAL terms, despite having a navy, America still have two military peers.

While the exercise is simplistic, it is much more sophisticated than using sheer numbers of weaponry and manpower to compare militaries which inevitably affects national policies and foreign affairs. A false or incomplete understanding of the idea of what is a 'military peer' and how to come to such a conclusion WILL have disastrous consequences.

The exercise forced the student to take into consideration seemingly unrelated factors like politics, government, geography, economics, ethnic composition, societal strata, moralities and philosophies, and even lower level factors like ratio of men to women and lifespan expectancy to guesstimate the national potency of a country. This is why JPN is guesstimated to decline on the world stage because of the rising ratio of seniors to younger adults over the next 20 yrs. Like it or not, it is very much a dick measuring contest but one with serious international implications because the military is reflective of the greater society whence it came from.

Let us say that Canada is experiencing a birth boom. This mean that in 20 yrs time odds are good that Canada's economy will rise, and Canada will have a 1,500 man army which make it in PRACTICAL terms, Canada's military will have no peer. America's navy remains useless.

But...But...What about the other day when USAF General Joe Schmoe on CNN said something about China's PLAAF being a 'near peer'?

The problem in that scenario is that people love to jump to conclusion on what General Schmoe said. When General Schmoe said that the PLAAF is a 'near peer', he actually meant it in a very narrow context, namely, that China can make her own aircraft, formulate her own air combat doctrines, trains her own airmen, and so on, without relying on external help. In a real fight against the USAF, the PLAAF would lose. The USAF would take losses, but those losses would not pose any statistical delay on the final victory over the PLAAF. In absolute and practical terms, US airpower from all branches grossly oversized the PLA, especially in combat experience.

The US military is unique in the modern world in the sense that we trains exclusively to fight on other lands. Continental US (CONUS) is effectively immune from invasion, and we have the National Guards to defend the homeland. That leave the main army an exclusively expeditionary force. When I used the lower case 'army', I do not mean the US Army but the totality of the US military. France's expeditionary force is the Foreign Legion, an example to illustrate the difference where an army may have a unit of any size that is dedicated for overseas missions versus an entire military that is formed and trained to do so. A component that is dedicated to expeditionary missions are mainly for harassment, reconnaissance, insurgency, or preparation to a larger force. Whereas an entire military that was formed to be expeditionary is meant for conquest and it will have the resources to back up the mission.

No one like to rated lower than the US military but reality give no options, so in theory, if one strains hard enough, Burkina Faso can be a US 'near peer'.

So just to make sure. What I think you're saying is that for a military to be considered a peer military to another, it must be comparable in all or nearly all facets?

 

[PeeD]

During actual war time Large Balloon type radars and Surveillance are good for countries equipped with the type of Air Forces that can protect them or else modern Air Forces equipped with modern and future BVR missiles will be able to down them at the max ranges of the missiles capabilities.

During peace time sure they can be used as coms gear to surveillance gear against Terrorist, smugglers,.... and as a type of an early warning system right before an attack however due to their slow speed and rather large size they can easily be spotted even from orbit and their lack of speed and large size will make them easy targets. And I'm 100% positive that countries like the U.S. have Air to Air missiles specifically designed to take out such targets from 200-300km out (And that's not including classified airborne directed energy weapons and Lasers).

For Iran's purposes at least in my opinion for a SHORAD systems would be to have a specific number of MALE UAV's monitoring a specific area with various types of sensors with multiple UAV's in the air at any given time conducting 24/7 search with a large number of cheaper sensors on the ground conducting surveillance across an area and a handful of towers with more expensive sensors all networked together on a closed high speed network to conduct SHORAD surveillance operations for a specific area with the threat level posed to the area determining the concentration and type of your ground sensors and the number and type of your UAV's that's also fed in info from other Iranian EWS, Radars, SAM Systems,.....
And for the defensive weapons there should be
1.Cheap Algorithm based missiles (assisted with low cost optical sensors & and a few upgraded with higher end night sensors.)
2.Large number of command based missiles (Vertically launched out of a 20ft long container that's towed or on the back of a truck(25fter) and I would also place at least 8 short ranged (~30km ranged) land attack cruise missiles like a modified Akhgar missile to be vertically launched out of the same container to protect against any special forces operation....)
3.A Specific number (based on threat level) remotely operated AAA

And each area would have to be properly mapped and engineered to each area's specific needs.

I tried to make the argument based on the airfield issue, here a different approach:

Your enemy has LO/stealth cruise missiles and you need to have persistent and assured low level protection of your capital city.

Your choice is a AEW aircraft that does the detection and tracking part of the task. Your fleet is large enough to enable 24/7/365 coverage.

What is your reaction of a mission kill scenario in which adversary airpower creates a concentrated force towards the capital city, threatening your AEW assets. They force it to a sufficiently long distance, so that arriving LO cruise missile are able to reach their targets in the capital city. Detection and tracking failed by the asset that was meant to do it, it wasn't killed, used its mobility/flexibility to move to a safe area but it was effectively mission-killed. A large number of LO CM's took out high value objects throughout the capital city while your AEW asset was trying to avoid long range BVR missiles of the adversary.

Hence they situation is rather like, either you stand your ground and keep your defense intact, or you may loose it all. So the added flexibility and mobility of a AEW asset is irrelevant for this case. It is relevant for offensive operations and that's why it is of central importance to the U.S while much less important to Russia.
As gambit said, the U.S due to its geography, traditionally, emphasis on offense not defense. Russia on the other hand wants to neutralize U.S offensive capability by heavy defense.
Moscow was heavily defended in order to have the U.S wear off its offensive tooth against it. Back in those, still often analog, days where defense against LO terrain masking assets was still incredibly difficult.

Is a bulletproof defense possible? If your goal is areal defense, then you adversary can always concentrate its offensive assets on one pressure point and make your life difficult. But if your goal is point defense e.g of your capital city then your systems over each other and the adversary has no other mean than to go frontally against it.

On the defensive side things are already ugly against BMs for everyone and after INF termination will get even uglier and hypersonics will further reduce envelopes. But the terrain masking LO and atmospheric VLO threat spectrum can soon be reasonably well defended against in the case of Iran.

 

[PeeD]

I have confidence that the upcoming Oghab system does not use a copy of the original TOR-M1 missile, like the Chinese FM-2000 does but a new more compact, higher speed, longer ranger missile modeled around the new TOR-M2 9M338.

An ideal fit would be the 9th Day missile in a single square container instead a round tube as the 9M338. The 9th Day is compact enough for this layout, it needs folding fins and the nose mounted rocket reaction system for alignment. It should be able to reach 15km and speed approaching mach 3.
It could allow a load of 16 ready to fire missiles like the TOR-M2.

The wind-tunnel "Iranian Pantsir" might actually be a 9th Day missile with a booster for the 20-25km range spectrum. This could be for a future Morfey-like layout system to give the IRGC what the IRIADF now has as Mersad-16/Kamin-2.
Fact is, that the "Iranian Pantsir" is very different to the Pantsir unpowered kill-stage layout and may first have been a boostered Rapier that developed into a boostered 9th Day.

I expect the production-line and team behind the Ya-Zahra/Herz-9 to switch to the Oghab at expanded production rate to produce for both, IRGC and IRIADF.