Bluffer’s Guide: Fortress Iran

man overbored said:

Lets talk about Serbia. Again Russian air defense systems failed. Nato lost two aircraft, an F-117 and a bit earlier an F-16. Serbia lost all but two of it's large long range air defense radars. Nato SEAD was so effective there was nothing to constrain Nato from using Serb airspace above 12,000 ft ( to avoid manpads ) as it saw fit. Btw, where was the Yugoslav Air Force and it's MiG-29's during this campaign? Nato forced Serbia to bend to it's will solely by the application of air power. No ground troops. Serbia was unable to use it's few remaining mobile radars as they knew the instant they lit it off it would draw an anti-radiation missile, some "victory" for Serbia.

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The Serbians had older Russian/Soviet export variant of defense systems and aircraft. Many of their electronic systems failed, including the ones installed on the MiG-29. ACIG has a pretty good article:


With what little they had, the Serbs did their best to defend their air space and lure NATO aircraft into SAM traps. Regardless of the final outcome, I'd give them credit at being more effective than the Iraqis!

Yeah, the Iraqis flew their jets with seemingly no regard to that tone indicating a radar lock in their headsets. I recall the images on CNN of night time air strikes and you could see streams of tracers being sprayed randomly across the sky. What were those gunners shooting at.
Gun defenses are useful against very low, slow fliers, typically helos. You guys are funny, the US isn't about to attack Iran. No way. There would be too much commotion if the US attacks Iran. Israel is another story. Israel has more than enough combat cabability ( you guys seem to ignor what 75 F-15's and over 100 F-16's could do, that is a very heavy strike package, and importantly Iran will never see it coming ) to badly degrade Iran's nuclear ambitions. And who would blame them after all the garbage to come out of the Iranian President's mouth? Besides that, what would be the ramifications? While the US would be labeled the bully and all that, pretty much every nation out there except maybe Syria would silently nod their heads in assent. I can almost guarantee you the Germans, Brits and French will be feeding Israel intel ( anyone ever ask why the French workers at that Iraqi reactor suddenly held an emergency meeting away from the job site conveniently at the exact same time the Israeli's hit that reactor? Coincidence? ) right up to the moment of the strike.
Europe and a lot of Sunni regimes in the Middle East are also threatend by a nuclear Iran. For politcal reasons they cannot be seen to cheerlead such an attack, and they cannot be seen condoning more US military action in the region, but should Israel do the deed, there will be the usual noise on the Arab street and a lot of silent high-fives behind the palace walls in those Sunni dictatorships, and in the government offices of much of Europe. What is worst thing that could happen to Israel after such an attack? Israel's enemies are already constrained by the sure knowledge that the Israeli Army and Air Force can defeat any nation that border's her. Iran cannot mount a counter strike unless it uses ballistic missiles. Israal in this case is far better situated to do what the US cannot, and when diplomacy is viewed in Israel as having failed, or Iran crosses some threshold the Israeli government has set in it's deliberations ( we won't necessarily be privy to this ) they will act.

The political and the military cannot be separated my friend. When people compare a weapon capability to a threat that it's supposed to defend against, it is a valid argument to show that there may be a threat that is being overlooked. In the case of Iran, I think people both overestimate the likelihood of a US attack, so quarterbacking that notional fight is not necessarily useful, while many underestimate the ability of Israel to take successfully attack Iran. This post is about the level of air defense in Iran with the unspoken theme that it will be firing on US aircraft sooner rather than later ( and that isn't warmongering? ). I am pointing out that Israel has both the capability ( in spades ) and the reason to attack Iran, and that a lot of these weapons will be less effective than some here imagine simply because of routine Western access to all of these systems. Knowing the systems, Israel will have effective and tested countermeasures before the first airplane leaves the runway.

Curious fact; relative to other analysis this one has been comparatively well received on the Iranian military forum I also post on. The madly patriotic Iranian clan don't have much of an answer even if they don't like it. Say Iran only has 80 torpedo/missile boats on the other hand...