Iranian Missiles | News and Discussions

[yavar]

 

[VEVAK]

An evolution of the Khalije Fars (IIR homing seeker) missile now with a smart image recognition algorithm to target land targets.
The Zolfaghar will get it as confirmed by the DM and it should be sufficiently economic to retrofit the Fath-110 and -313 arsenal, especially older 1st an 2nd gen Fateh-110.

Of course for later generation ones with more accurate IMU/INS and those with sub munition warheads, its not worth the effort. And a part of the arsenal will probably be assigned as area-target-only anyway as deterrence against gulf Arab oil and gas infrastructure (for which primary the unguided Zelzal series is the most cost effective choice).

If except for the processors and a few other parts almost every part and component is actually produced domestically the cost wouldn't be that high to produce!
Because if the Mobin kit is mostly made up of Iranian parts then the cost that goes into developing the product has already been paid for! So all the cost for the programing & software development, electrical engineering, metallurgical annalists, testing,.... all have already been paid for and now it's just a matter of producing or buying the parts and components and putting them all together

And if your paying the cost to actually deliver a payload over 200km away your far better off paying the extra cost of a Domestically produced PGM especially if it's domestically produces with mostly domestically produced parts whos research and development has already been paid for

And since Zelzal TEL and launchers aren't much different than Fatteh Class launchers and the personal you need to launch them aren't much different then producing the Zelzal rather than the Fatteh seems like a stupid thing to do at Iran's level of technology

Today the ONLY thing Zelzal1/2/3 are good for is to be used as a decoy's or to rain down submunitions over an area as large as a small city much like unguided rockets of an MLRS and Iran shouldn't be wasting it's time and resources in producing Zelzal class rockets anymore

 

[TheImmortal]

If except for the processors and a few other parts almost every part and component is actually produced domestically the cost wouldn't be that high to produce!
Because if the Mobin kit is mostly made up of Iranian parts then the cost that goes into developing the product has already been paid for! So all the cost for the programing & software development, electrical engineering, metallurgical annalists, testing,.... all have already been paid for and now it's just a matter of producing or buying the parts and components and putting them all together

And if your paying the cost to actually deliver a payload over 200km away your far better off paying the extra cost of a Domestically produced PGM especially if it's domestically produces with mostly domestically produced parts whos research and development has already been paid for

And since Zelzal TEL and launchers aren't much different than Fatteh Class launchers and the personal you need to launch them aren't much different then producing the Zelzal rather than the Fatteh seems like a stupid thing to do at Iran's level of technology

Today the ONLY thing Zelzal1/2/3 are good for is to be used as a decoy's or to rain down submunitions over an area as large as a small city much like unguided rockets of an MLRS and Iran shouldn't be wasting it's time and resources in producing Zelzal class rockets anymore

Hezbollah won the battle of yaburd in Syrian war (one of the most important in the war) using door to door fighting and IRAMS. If anything the Syrian war demonstrated how cost effective IRAMS and artillery rockets are in urban warfare.

So yes Zelzal and other rockets serve great purpose in softening enemy defenses and fortifications when pinpoint accuracy is not needed.

Furthermore, Zelzal tech transfer has been made to Hezbollah. In 2006 it was one of their most advanced rockets and in small supply. Today it is probably one of the staples with Fateh being in short supply.

Furthermore, you do not know how much per cost per operation a Zelzal vs Fateh is. Either way Both serve different purposes.

 

[arashkamangir]

Hezbollah won the battle of yaburd in Syrian war (one of the most important in the war) using door to door fighting and IRAMS. If anything the Syrian war demonstrated how cost effective IRAMS and artillery rockets are in urban warfare.

So yes Zelzal and other rockets serve great purpose in softening enemy defenses and fortifications when pinpoint accuracy is not needed.

Furthermore, Zelzal tech transfer has been made to Hezbollah. In 2006 it was one of their most advanced rockets and in small supply. Today it is probably one of the staples with Fateh being in short supply.

Furthermore, you do not know how much per cost per operation a Zelzal vs Fateh is. Either way Both serve different purposes.

,

It's time for Iran to unveil their work on Hypersonic missiles. I am calling Emad and Khoramshahr as candidates for the first stage booster.

 

[PeeD]

If except for the processors and a few other parts almost every part and component is actually produced domestically the cost wouldn't be that high to produce!
Because if the Mobin kit is mostly made up of Iranian parts then the cost that goes into developing the product has already been paid for! So all the cost for the programing & software development, electrical engineering, metallurgical annalists, testing,.... all have already been paid for and now it's just a matter of producing or buying the parts and components and putting them all together

And if your paying the cost to actually deliver a payload over 200km away your far better off paying the extra cost of a Domestically produced PGM especially if it's domestically produces with mostly domestically produced parts whos research and development has already been paid for

And since Zelzal TEL and launchers aren't much different than Fatteh Class launchers and the personal you need to launch them aren't much different then producing the Zelzal rather than the Fatteh seems like a stupid thing to do at Iran's level of technology

Today the ONLY thing Zelzal1/2/3 are good for is to be used as a decoy's or to rain down submunitions over an area as large as a small city much like unguided rockets of an MLRS and Iran shouldn't be wasting it's time and resources in producing Zelzal class rockets anymore

Yes the Zelzal series had a purpose against military targets back in the 90's and early 2000's, but after that it became a weapon to hold enemy infrastructure at risk. Look at Saudi oil infrastructure at their east cost, it is in range of Zelzal-2 and -3 and such a dense and huge target that a 4km CEP is still sufficient.
Submunition variants of them have still some purpose against large airbases near the Persian gulf.

So only if Iran thinks that it is not anymore necessary to hold that infrastructure under immediate risk it can invest to upgrade the Zelzal-2 and -3 with a guidance system and the terminal seeker of the Fathe Mobin.

We know that the Zelzal arsenal and their propose is already sufficient. They already switched the production to wind corrected battlefield rocket variants.

In total a Fateh with Mobin terminal seeker is still quite more expensive than a spin stabilized Zelzal rocket. It has all the steering system + IMU/INS + high rated terminal seeker.

Btw: The development of the Fateh Mobin is quite a big engineering feat. It's a worlds first in terms of design solution, unique. Imagine the difficulties to drop the protective tip without harming the seeker or crash into the missile body/fins. Especially so if it keeps the cap until the moment it is close enough to make the terrain correlation and thus update the INS. There doping the tip cap it the enorm dynamic pressure would be hard to master. In such a case even laser weapons that would try to destroy its seeker could not illuminate it long enough to achieve it. Hence it is possible that the Fathe Mobin is in fact a counter-measure against laser weapons of the enemies or just increase the robustness and allow higher terminal speeds.
Another reason could be that the Khalije Fars seeker became too hot to be used at land and only worked well against ships against cold water. Hence the cap would be there to keep the seeker cool until it can do the job.
Thats why I think the footage of the IIR seeker in the video is not the actual one of the Fathe Mobin but an UAV recording the test.

 

[AmirPatriot]

Yes the Zelzal series had a purpose against military targets back in the 90's and early 2000's, but after that it became a weapon to hold enemy infrastructure at risk. Look at Saudi oil infrastructure at their east cost, it is in range of Zelzal-2 and -3 and such a dense and huge target that a 4km CEP is still sufficient.
Submunition variants of them have still some purpose against large airbases near the Persian gulf.

So only if Iran thinks that it is not anymore necessary to hold that infrastructure under immediate risk it can invest to upgrade the Zelzal-2 and -3 with a guidance system and the terminal seeker of the Fathe Mobin.

We know that the Zelzal arsenal and their propose is already sufficient. They already switched the production to wind corrected battlefield rocket variants.

In total a Fateh with Mobin terminal seeker is still quite more expensive than a spin stabilized Zelzal rocket. It has all the steering system + IMU/INS + high rated terminal seeker.

Btw: The development of the Fateh Mobin is quite a big engineering feat. It's a worlds first in terms of design solution, unique. Imagine the difficulties to drop the protective tip without harming the seeker or crash into the missile body/fins. Especially so if it keeps the cap until the moment it is close enough to make the terrain correlation and thus update the INS. There doping the tip cap it the enorm dynamic pressure would be hard to master. In such a case even laser weapons that would try to destroy its seeker could not illuminate it long enough to achieve it. Hence it is possible that the Fathe Mobin is in fact a counter-measure against laser weapons of the enemies or just increase the robustness and allow higher terminal speeds.
Another reason could be that the Khalije Fars seeker became too hot to be used at land and only worked well against ships against cold water. Hence the cap would be there to keep the seeker cool until it can do the job.
Thats why I think the footage of the IIR seeker in the video is not the actual one of the Fathe Mobin but an UAV recording the test.

I think I've read the DF-21D uses an optical seeker as well as ARH.

What I'm really interested in is the statement by Gen Hatami that the Mobin warhead can be mounted on Zolfaqar. Keeping in mind he also said Mobin can be used against land and sea targets (and launched from both land and sea!), this means Iran potentially has a 700 km ASBM. A huge development for Iran. Though I'm not sure if Iran currently has the reconnaissance and tracking capability to detect a warship 700 km from the shore.

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

I think I've read the DF-21D uses an optical seeker as well as ARH.

What I'm really interested in is the statement by Gen Hatami that the Mobin warhead can be mounted on Zolfaqar. Keeping in mind he also said Mobin can be used against land and sea targets (and launched from both land and sea!), this means Iran potentially has a 700 km ASBM. A huge development for Iran. Though I'm not sure if Iran currently has the reconnaissance and tracking capability to detect a warship 700 km from the shore.

military/surveillance/spy satellites are needed, what is the progress with these? i havent seen anything about safir in a long time, since the first launch of omid 50kg satellite it seems there has been no progress at all...

 

[PeeD]

I think I've read the DF-21D uses an optical seeker as well as ARH.

What I'm really interested in is the statement by Gen Hatami that the Mobin warhead can be mounted on Zolfaqar. Keeping in mind he also said Mobin can be used against land and sea targets (and launched from both land and sea!), this means Iran potentially has a 700 km ASBM. A huge development for Iran. Though I'm not sure if Iran currently has the reconnaissance and tracking capability to detect a warship 700 km from the shore.

The DF-21D and DF-26 are more sophisticated, expensive and yes, are said to have a dual IIR and AHR seeker.
However we don't know details, whether they also use such a cap tip or what their technical solution for such a cap is.
With the cap it is no issue to develop a variant for the Zolfaghar (which has higher average speed).

As for the means to search for ships at 500-700km. Remember the over horizon surface wave radar on the Shiraz electronics website. They did not specify details nor have we spotted it on GE but they are at least working on it.

 

[VEVAK]

I think I've read the DF-21D uses an optical seeker as well as ARH.

What I'm really interested in is the statement by Gen Hatami that the Mobin warhead can be mounted on Zolfaqar. Keeping in mind he also said Mobin can be used against land and sea targets (and launched from both land and sea!), this means Iran potentially has a 700 km ASBM. A huge development for Iran. Though I'm not sure if Iran currently has the reconnaissance and tracking capability to detect a warship 700 km from the shore.

Even with the use of Sea based and Air deployed sensor I truly doubt Iran could achieve targeting beyond 400km of Iranian soil at sea

I think with the survivability of Iranian ships and Iran's ability to deploy sensors post an initial attack the best Iran can hope for is no more than 400km from Iranian soil against sea targets in the best of conditions!

But even if the best you can hope for using specific vessels and aircraft is only 400km from Iranian soil (using aircraft & sea deployed sensors ) a 700km anti ship missiles would increase survivability of such a missiles because you can not only bring them further inland but you can place them at reduced, more secure and better protected areas!
And with a 700km ASBM even if your targeting capability is no more than 350-400km from Iranian soil against sea targets with the proper inland equipment you can greatly increase the missiles survivability because then you can cover all of the Persian Gulf from 3-4 more secure and better protected Bases

 

[VEVAK]

Yes the Zelzal series had a purpose against military targets back in the 90's and early 2000's, but after that it became a weapon to hold enemy infrastructure at risk. Look at Saudi oil infrastructure at their east cost, it is in range of Zelzal-2 and -3 and such a dense and huge target that a 4km CEP is still sufficient.
Submunition variants of them have still some purpose against large airbases near the Persian gulf.

So only if Iran thinks that it is not anymore necessary to hold that infrastructure under immediate risk it can invest to upgrade the Zelzal-2 and -3 with a guidance system and the terminal seeker of the Fathe Mobin.

We know that the Zelzal arsenal and their propose is already sufficient. They already switched the production to wind corrected battlefield rocket variants.

In total a Fateh with Mobin terminal seeker is still quite more expensive than a spin stabilized Zelzal rocket. It has all the steering system + IMU/INS + high rated terminal seeker.

Btw: The development of the Fateh Mobin is quite a big engineering feat. It's a worlds first in terms of design solution, unique. Imagine the difficulties to drop the protective tip without harming the seeker or crash into the missile body/fins. Especially so if it keeps the cap until the moment it is close enough to make the terrain correlation and thus update the INS. There doping the tip cap it the enorm dynamic pressure would be hard to master. In such a case even laser weapons that would try to destroy its seeker could not illuminate it long enough to achieve it. Hence it is possible that the Fathe Mobin is in fact a counter-measure against laser weapons of the enemies or just increase the robustness and allow higher terminal speeds.
Another reason could be that the Khalije Fars seeker became too hot to be used at land and only worked well against ships against cold water. Hence the cap would be there to keep the seeker cool until it can do the job.
Thats why I think the footage of the IIR seeker in the video is not the actual one of the Fathe Mobin but an UAV recording the test.

Clearly it will be more expensive BUT building the Solid fuel, solid fuel engine, liquid fuel engines and stabilization control & Air Frame of a 250km missile is NOT cheap either!

And as you know Iran is not America where privet companies base prices based on the massive profit they plan on making for producing and selling each guided missiles where the cost of R&D, testing, facilities, tools,..... of that project and initial R&D cost for getting their next project going goes into the production cost!

Yes no doubt Iran would have to import it's processors, memory storage devices..... but overall if most of the components are Iranian produced and since you have already paid for R&D cost and the cost of the tools, facilities & human resources needed to produce them then the overall material cost, human resources cost, tools and facility cost,... needed to producing them wouldn't be as high as the costs needed for producing the Solid Fuel, Solid Fuel Engine, Rocket Airframe, spin stabilizing liquid fuel engines and controls, and warhead of a Zelzal 3 ( At least if most of the components are actually Iranian produced parts)
And since 2 Zelzal-3 will NEVER be equivalent to a single Fatteh-110A let alone the Mobin then it's utterly absurd to produce them anymore even to be used as a platform do deploy submunition in a target area of 5 square km it still make no sense to produce them anymore and the ones we already have in storage are sufficient to be used as decoys over Air Bases within ~200km of Iranian soil

As for upgrades it if was up to me I would upgrade all my Zelzals 2-3 with the controls of the Fatteh-110A/B/C and I would upgrade my Fatteh-110 A/B/C rockets to Mobine with new flight controls, terminal seeker,.....


U.S. installing lasers on it's ships creates problems for all Iranian anti ship missiles that rely on optical or thermal seekers for terminal guidance & they don't actually have to take out the missile to make the missile miss a moving target because disabling the terminal guidance for a few seconds will be sufficient to make them miss a moving target by well over 500 meters or more (As for Chinese anti Ship DF-21 for the Chinese even landing within a few km of the target will be more than sufficient because most likely than not they will arm their own DF-21 with Tactical Nukes and they wouldn't bother firing such an expensive platform against sea targets without a nuclear payload )

 

[Hack-Hook]

As for upgrades it if was up to me I would upgrade all my Zelzals 2-3 with the controls of the Fatteh-110A/B/C and I would upgrade my Fatteh-110 A/B/C rockets to Mobine with new flight controls, terminal seeker,.....

Didn't we previously announced some precision upgrade for Zelzal.

 

[AmirPatriot]

As for the means to search for ships at 500-700km. Remember the over horizon surface wave radar on the Shiraz electronics website. They did not specify details nor have we spotted it on GE but they are at least working on it.

I'm somewhat doubtful about the ability of OTH radars to detect ships, but let's roll with it.

Assuming the 700 km flight time of Zolfaqar would be about 6 minutes a Nimitz carrier moving at 30+ knots would have moved up to 12 nautical miles, or 22 km from the initial snapshot coordinates fed into the Zolfaqar by the OTH radar. The question is, would the Zolfaqar's onboard sensor be able to detect the ship which could be anywhere in an up to 30-35 km radius of the initial position (it can make very sharp turns) given to it. This is why a dual ARH/IIR homing seeker would make sense I guess. Though I'm not sure how wide an area an IIR seeker can detect a target.

Link for estimated missile flight times, though Zolfaqar is a quasi-ballistic missile with lower velocity and possibly longer flight time.

https://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/ABM/BM_Classes.htm

 

[PeeD]

I'm somewhat doubtful about the ability of OTH radars to detect ships, but let's roll with it.

Assuming the 700 km flight time of Zolfaqar would be about 6 minutes a Nimitz carrier moving at 30+ knots would have moved up to 12 nautical miles, or 22 km from the initial snapshot coordinates fed into the Zolfaqar by the OTH radar. The question is, would the Zolfaqar's onboard sensor be able to detect the ship which could be anywhere in an up to 30-35 km radius of the initial position (it can make very sharp turns) given to it. This is why a dual ARH/IIR homing seeker would make sense I guess. Though I'm not sure how wide an area an IIR seeker can detect a target.

Link for estimated missile flight times, though Zolfaqar is a quasi-ballistic missile with lower velocity and possibly longer flight time.

https://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/ABM/BM_Classes.htm

At Zolfaghars range a IIR only seeker should still be sufficient. Dual seeker with ARH/SAR would be good for longer ranges and more robust against counter measures.

 

[Agha Sher]

I'm somewhat doubtful about the ability of OTH radars to detect ships, but let's roll with it.

Assuming the 700 km flight time of Zolfaqar would be about 6 minutes a Nimitz carrier moving at 30+ knots would have moved up to 12 nautical miles, or 22 km from the initial snapshot coordinates fed into the Zolfaqar by the OTH radar. The question is, would the Zolfaqar's onboard sensor be able to detect the ship which could be anywhere in an up to 30-35 km radius of the initial position (it can make very sharp turns) given to it. This is why a dual ARH/IIR homing seeker would make sense I guess. Though I'm not sure how wide an area an IIR seeker can detect a target.

Link for estimated missile flight times, though Zolfaqar is a quasi-ballistic missile with lower velocity and possibly longer flight time.

https://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/ABM/BM_Classes.htm

If the flight time of Zolfaqar is 6 minutes for 700 km, a Nimitz carrier will at most have moved 5 km by the time of arrival. Anyways, it is unreasonable to assume that a carrier will be moving with 30 knots, as it is not economical. 15-20 knots is a fairer assumption.

 

[AmirPatriot]

If the flight time of Zolfaqar is 6 minutes for 700 km, a Nimitz carrier will at most have moved 5 km by the time of arrival. Anyways, it is unreasonable to assume that a carrier will be moving with 30 knots, as it is not economical. 15-20 knots is a fairer assumption.

You're right, thanks for the correction.

But the carrier would still be moving at 30 knots because the Nimitz carriers are nuclear powered and therefore have effectively unlimited range. They will especially be moving at full speed and making erratic manoeuvres if they are being fired upon.

At Zolfaghars range a IIR only seeker should still be sufficient. Dual seeker with ARH/SAR would be good for longer ranges and more robust against counter measures.

Seeing as the carrier would only have moved a maximum of 5 km, this is true. I'd hope the seeker would become active at relatively high altitude so the ship doesn't move out of the FOV of the sensor or manoeuvring capability of the missile (I'm more worried about the former than the latter).

Any ideas of the accuracy of an OTH radar detecting a ship at very long range? Given Iran's Sepehr radar is quite far inland.