aryobarzan
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The story I read a decade ago and as I remember today. The story was told in writings by a person who was there and printed in an Iranian news paper. My memory is foggy but I remember the highlights.
Before the start of Iran-Iraq war, Soviet Union had provided the Shah of Iran with a single functional SCUD missile as a gift…This was to persuade Shah to buy Soviet weapons (late 1970’s). Iran’s military strategy was based on “air power” as proscribed by the Americans …The ground to ground missile had no place in Iranian strategy and as a result this single SCUD missile was long forgotten and never made operational . The SCUS was stored in an underground facility run by the Americans.
Shortly after Saddam starts dropping SCUD missiles on Iranian cities. The Iranian military gathers a group of university (professors or students!!) and also few others . They are transported over nite in a plane and trucks to a mountainous site in Western Iran.
They arrive and are briefed. The SCUD is inside a cave and no one knows how to operate the monster. All they have are few manuals and schematics all in Russian…The person who is telling the story goes on in detail describing how in few days or few weeks (do not remember) they had to translate and pour through Russian manuals and schematics. They had heated arguments (sounds familiar!!lol) about what each dial or circuit is doing..How to Fuel the beast and how to program it and how to orient its gyros and how to fire the beast….An additional issue was how to get it out of the cave. Missile was placed on its tracked wagon (TEL) inside a one way cave. The main entrance/exit to the cave was blocked by a giant blast door…The blast door control was sabotaged by the Americans before they left the placed and stuck in a Shut position…They did not know how to open the door to get the missile and its carrier out.
Again after many details the story teller say that by the grace of God and many days of work they managed to figure out how to fix the blast door and open the damn thing. They drive the beast and the fuel truck and bring them out in the open. Again they had many arguments about the setting up of the control panel knobs and Gyro setting and fuel valves and pumps and knobs etc....but they finally compromise and set up the missile for Baghdad…. they were ready.
They erect the missile and are ready to fire the beast .Thinking it will explode on its launcher or at best it will fly for few minutes and drop in the desert… they fired…It roared like a giant dragon and made lots of smoke and fire, but it flew away… Happy that they managed to fire and thinking it will safely drop or run out of fuel in the desert, they go back to the compound and sleep.
The next day …...News reports arrive that an Iranian SCUD missile hits the tallest building In Baghdad identified as the headquarters of the biggest Iraq bank in a Bulls eyes manner.
I remember that day when the news came in all western news orgs…I saw even a photo. So I knew the end was real…I just did not know the story behind it…
Imagine the most inaccurate missile of the soviets with CEP of may be a kilometer being stored for many years, fired by a bunch of university students reading dictionary translated Russian manuals finds its way to record the most accurate hit of missile war between Iran and Iraq… This made Iran to go the way of missiles. And then Tehrani Moghadam came back from Syria and made Iran world’s 4th missile power in the world…
”May the FORCE be with you”…and this is how I became a believer.
Before the start of Iran-Iraq war, Soviet Union had provided the Shah of Iran with a single functional SCUD missile as a gift…This was to persuade Shah to buy Soviet weapons (late 1970’s). Iran’s military strategy was based on “air power” as proscribed by the Americans …The ground to ground missile had no place in Iranian strategy and as a result this single SCUD missile was long forgotten and never made operational . The SCUS was stored in an underground facility run by the Americans.
Shortly after Saddam starts dropping SCUD missiles on Iranian cities. The Iranian military gathers a group of university (professors or students!!) and also few others . They are transported over nite in a plane and trucks to a mountainous site in Western Iran.
They arrive and are briefed. The SCUD is inside a cave and no one knows how to operate the monster. All they have are few manuals and schematics all in Russian…The person who is telling the story goes on in detail describing how in few days or few weeks (do not remember) they had to translate and pour through Russian manuals and schematics. They had heated arguments (sounds familiar!!lol) about what each dial or circuit is doing..How to Fuel the beast and how to program it and how to orient its gyros and how to fire the beast….An additional issue was how to get it out of the cave. Missile was placed on its tracked wagon (TEL) inside a one way cave. The main entrance/exit to the cave was blocked by a giant blast door…The blast door control was sabotaged by the Americans before they left the placed and stuck in a Shut position…They did not know how to open the door to get the missile and its carrier out.
Again after many details the story teller say that by the grace of God and many days of work they managed to figure out how to fix the blast door and open the damn thing. They drive the beast and the fuel truck and bring them out in the open. Again they had many arguments about the setting up of the control panel knobs and Gyro setting and fuel valves and pumps and knobs etc....but they finally compromise and set up the missile for Baghdad…. they were ready.
They erect the missile and are ready to fire the beast .Thinking it will explode on its launcher or at best it will fly for few minutes and drop in the desert… they fired…It roared like a giant dragon and made lots of smoke and fire, but it flew away… Happy that they managed to fire and thinking it will safely drop or run out of fuel in the desert, they go back to the compound and sleep.
The next day …...News reports arrive that an Iranian SCUD missile hits the tallest building In Baghdad identified as the headquarters of the biggest Iraq bank in a Bulls eyes manner.
I remember that day when the news came in all western news orgs…I saw even a photo. So I knew the end was real…I just did not know the story behind it…
Imagine the most inaccurate missile of the soviets with CEP of may be a kilometer being stored for many years, fired by a bunch of university students reading dictionary translated Russian manuals finds its way to record the most accurate hit of missile war between Iran and Iraq… This made Iran to go the way of missiles. And then Tehrani Moghadam came back from Syria and made Iran world’s 4th missile power in the world…
”May the FORCE be with you”…and this is how I became a believer.
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