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Iranian Air Defense Systems

It's the first time I see such a config in Army's SAMs, thanks to traitor TV director we didn't even see it in the parade!

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Important all-in-one Sayyad based AD system with new chassis

Camera director -> "You know what we really need? Long range footage of Bell helicopters..."

I honestly dont know,tho one thing that would potentially point to it being a reverse/reengineered copy would be the new wheeled chassis,as it wouldnt make much sense for iran to simply rehouse the original tors on a new wheeled chassis as this would effectively be compromising their off road capability for no gain.
On the other hand,there have been 2 previous sam systems that iran rehoused on new wheeled transporters,one was the sa6,the other the hq7,however both of these were extensively modernized and in the case of the sa6 completely reworked,with no part of the original system left untouched.
If these are the original systems rehoused,then it seems a safe bet that these have been at a minimum completely modernised,which I think is probably just as well.
Nice to see a good Chassis, previous version that was being tested had a Chassis that looked a bit flimsy.

I’m skeptical it’s a 100% ground built up TOR. As I said earlier, the bolts are in the same exact locations. Rarely does Iran reverse engineer something and it look carbon copy the same...much less a Cold War era design (TOR-M1).

What’s a possibility is this is a modernized TOR-M1 to bring it closer to TOR-M2 standard.

As for track, track is overrated. Those wheels can handle most off terrain and still drive on highway and get to destinations on their own accord.

What people forget about track is, it’s not ment to be driven long distances. It’s ment to be taken to the site on flatbed, which is cumbersome. Track also damages roads and aren’t made for long distances.
I suppose the counter would be tracked vehicles having greater survivability, but realistically if your behind the front lines tracked AD is being attacked, chances are you are already screwed...
 
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Are we sure that isn’t the final production version of Mersad system?


I suppose the counter would be tracked vehicles having greater survivability, but realistically if your behind the front lines tracked AD is being attacked, chances are you are already screwed...

How does tracked vehicle have greater survivability? Speed is much lower and distance it can travel is lower. Unless we are speaking of strictly armour standpoint, at which point it can survive smalls arms and heavy caliber. But chances are if you are getting shot by small arms or heavy weapons you already screwed.

The above system can be moved into city or a town and a tarp thrown over it to mimic a civilian truck very quickly. Probably has top speeds of 60-70 mph.

I don’t know where this thinking that tracked survives longer than off road terrain tires comes from. There is a reason S-400 and S-500 aren’t tracked (besides weight).

Also in this day and age of drones, any drone with a decent EO/IO FLIR can locate a tracked vehicle hiding in a forest. Just look at Ukraine war.

The only thing tracked provides in my opinion is being able to go thru mud terrain or deep snow without issues. Which in Ukraine conflict is important due to the frost thawing.
 
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Unless we are speaking of strictly armour standpoint, at which point it can survive smalls arms and heavy caliber. But chances are if you are getting shot by small arms or heavy weapons you already screwed.
That was exactly what I was referring too.



Which is why I also stated that if you are being engaged, anti-armor is already trained on you most likely. I literally said this. I'm not sure what the purpose of your comment was.
 
That was exactly what I was referring too.



Which is why I also stated that if you are being engaged, anti-armor is already trained on you most likely. I literally said this. I'm not sure what the purpose of your comment was.

The purpose was you saying survivability of track is better than off terrain tires.

I don’t follow the logic. Other than one having armour and another not, it’s irrelevant. The advantages I listed with off terrain tires chassis strongly outweighs any minimal armour protection from a tracked vehicle.

Unless your war plan is bulldozing thru the forests rather than scoot and shoot then yes go with track. Iran’s air defense systems are mostly on flat arid terrain bordering on desert like.
 
The purpose was you saying survivability of track is better than off terrain tires.

I don’t follow the logic. Other than one having armour and another not, it’s irrelevant. The advantages I listed with off terrain tires chassis strongly outweighs any minimal armour protection from a tracked vehicle.

Unless your war plan is bulldozing thru the forests rather than scoot and shoot then yes go with track. Iran’s air defense systems are mostly on flat arid terrain bordering on desert like.
I agreed with you, and said the only viable counterpoint against wheeled is that tracked vehicles are armored. That's it. I never had a problem with Iran making everything on a wheeled chassis. It is the right move for this geography.
 
Are these systems built 100% from the ground up?

Or are they taking the lunchers/radar from old TOR tracked chassis and putting them on these domestically built wheeled platforms?

When the system was first unveiled, several differences in external details between the Dezful and Tor vehicles were spotted on photographs by knowledgeable users here. They actually do not look to like exact carbon copies.

See for instance:


https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/iranian-air-defense-systems.326173/post-13381481

And now, differences were highlighted between the radars of the IRGCASF and IRIADF versions of the Dezful, no less.

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Also, Iran had shown models of Tor-like surface-to-air missiles earlier on (meant for wind tunnel testing, I believe), which suggests that reverse-engineering work was carried out on the system.

Merely 29 Tor-M1's were purchased from Russia. That's not such a large amount, and considering Iran will probably want to field both wheeled and tracked variants since both have their uses, it would imply that any conversion of these Russian-made ones onto wheeled chassis would concern a really limited number of examples, which would make it even more unrealistic.

Add to it the fact that thanks to this week's military parade, it is known that two branches of the military (both IRGCASF and IRIADF) operate the type, thus it becomes quite apparent that the 29 Tor's obtained from Russia would hardly suffice to fulfill the overall demand in terms of Dezful systems. Not to mention it's rather unlikely that the IRGC, which operates the imported Tor's, would hand over some copies to the army after years.

So available data overwhelmingly puts to rest speculation about cannibalization of old Tor-M1's, and points to the Dezful SAM's being brand new systems entirely built from scratch.
 
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When the system was first unveiled, several differences were spotted by knowledgeable users here between external details on the Dezful and on the original Tor vehicles, based on photographs. They actually do not look to like exact carbon copies.

See for instance:


https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/iranian-air-defense-systems.326173/post-13381481

And now differences were even detected between the radars of the IRGCASF and IRIADF versions of the Dezful.

View attachment 836011


Also, Iran had shown models of Tor-like SAM missiles earlier on (suitable for wind tunnel testing, I believe), which suggests that reverse-engineering work was carried out on the system.

Merely 29 Tor-M1's were purchased from Russia. That's not such a large amount, and considering Iran will probably want to field both wheeled and tracked variants since both have their uses, it would imply that any conversion of the system onto a wheeled chassis would concern a really limited number of examples, which would be even more surprising.

Add to it the fact that since this week's military parade, it is known that two branches of the military, IRGCASF and IRIADF both operate the type, thus it becomes quite apparent that the 29 Tor's obtained from Russia would hardly suffice to fulfill the demand in terms of Dezful systems.

So available data overwhelmingly puts to rest speculation about cannibalization of old Tor-M1's, and points to the Dezful SAM being a new system entirely built from scratch.

I wonder if Iran got some sort of TOT from Russia (unannounced) for the TOR-complex and are essentially just producing new ones from scratch whilst adding domestic Iranian upgrades.

We know I.R.I AD technology is quite advanced so the R&D team would be able to implement their own advancements to TOR.

What do you think bro?
 
I wonder if Iran got some sort of TOT from Russia (unannounced) for the TOR-complex and are essentially just producing new ones from scratch whilst adding domestic Iranian upgrades.

We know I.R.I AD technology is quite advanced so the R&D team would be able to implement their own advancements to TOR.

What do you think bro?

I think it's as good as certain that Iran applied in-house modifications not just to its own Dezful variant of the Tor, but basically to every domestic weapons system stemming from or making partial use of reverse engineering. Not just in order to upgrade capabilities where feasible, but also to keep the enemy in the dark as much as possible about technical specifications, as this increases potential risks for the enemy and restricts its war planning options accordingly.

As for undisclosed transfer of technology from Russia with regards to Dezful, for sure there didn't need to be, considering Iran's technological and defense industrial advancement as well as its extensive experience and expertise in reverse engineering.

This said, I'd say it's possible that Russia over the years provided Iran with technological assistance or documentation at least in a limited number of instances, with both sides keeping these sorts of transactions under wraps.

A look at Iran's arsenals, whether in the area of air defense, radars, ground forces equipment and a few others, will suggest that a portion of its newly developed weapons appear to have some connection to, or to be remotely inspired by Russian equivalents.

We know that in some cases like the 3rd of Khordad SAM, it doesn't go beyond mere outer resemblance, with the Iranian-made system having practically nothing in common with the Russian platform it seems to share external similarities with (in this example the SA-6).

In other cases, Iran got hold of token samples of Russian weaponry from third parties including but not limited to black market actors. Naturally, items such as the Ukranian-sourced Kh-55 come to mind. Syria could also have been a source for a couple of these.

This leaves a few systems which raise the question as to how Iran could have developed them domestically with zero input from the Russians, or why then the resemblance is so striking whilst Iran never got near any one of these. Pertaining to this category, Iran's Rezonans-style OTH radars for instance.

To summarize, there's no doubt in my mind that Iran has become extremely self-sufficient at all levels when it comes to weapons design and production (with the exception of a few types of armaments such as fighter jets, for well known and often cited reasons). However, I also think it's possible that on a select few items, there's been stealthy cooperation with Russia and possibly China.

Last but not least, I would add that Iran has reached a level where in my opinion such cooperation, limited as it might be, could well have become bidirectional. If I'm not mistaken, Iranian military officials reported that Russia was interested in Iranian know how on drones.
 
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I think it's highly probable that Iran applied in-house modifications not just to its own Dezful variant of the Tor, but basically to every domestic weapons system stemming from or making partial use of reverse engineering. Not just in order to upgrade capabilities where possible, but also to keep the enemy in the dark as much as possible about technical specifications, as this increases potential risks for the enemy and restricts its war planning options accordingly.

As for undisclosed transfer of technology from Russia with regards to Dezful, for sure there didn't need to be, considering Iran's technological and defense industrial advancement as well as its extensive experience and expertise in reverse engineering.

This said, I'd say it's possible that Russia over the years provided Iran with technological assistance or documentation at least in a limited number of instances, with both sides keeping these sorts of transactions strictly under wraps.

A look at Iran's arsenals, whether in the area of air defense, radars, ground forces equipment and a few others, will suggest that a non-negligible portion of its newly developed weapons systems appear to have some connection to, or to have been inspired by Russian equivalents.

Now we know that in some cases like the 3rd of Khordad SAM, it doesn't go beyond mere outer resemblance, with the Iranian-made system having practically nothing in common with the Russian platform it seems to share external similarities with (in this example the SA-6).

In other cases, Iran got hold of token samples of Russian weaponry from third parties including but not limited to black market actors. Naturally, items such as the Ukranian-sourced Kh-55 come to mind. Syria could also have been a source for a couple of these.

This leaves a few systems which raise the question how Iran could have developed them domestically with zero input from the Russians, or why then the resemblance is so striking considering that Iran never got near any one of these. Pertaining to this category, Iran's Rezonans-style OTH radars for instance.

To summarize, there's no doubt in my mind that Iran has become extremely self-sufficient at all levels when it comes to weapons design and production (with the exception of a few types of armaments such as fighter jets, for well known and often cited reasons). However, I also think it's possible that on a select few items, there's been stealthy cooperation with Russia and maybe China. Last but not least, I would add that Iran has reached a level where in my opinion such cooperation, limited as it might be, could well have become bidirectional. If I'm not mistaken, Iranian military officials reported that Russia was interested in Iranian know how on drones.

My sentiments exactly!

Well said Salar-jan, and thanks for the reply!
 

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