Iran military parade

utelore said:

during the engagments I had with the republican guard NONE of the T-72 that I engaged had reactive armour. some of their T-54/55 had passive type armour added on.

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Wait a minute - were you in one of the Gulf wars? That's interesting, I didn't know that. Were you close enough to see their tanks? They never got close enough to fire at the U.S. tanks.
Well, the eyewitness said it - it was probably only a minority of Iraqi T-72s that had ERA or laser guidance. Perhaps only a few dozen. Maybe its the same for some of Iran's older tanks, like those T-55s that were on parade. Iran does have T-72s as well as indogenous tanks, right?

Iran Army tank force is junk compared to Egypt Army tank fleet of M1-A1 tanks. Nations that use T-72 tanks in their armies in the 21st century is militarily...weak. Iran's Army needs tanks that match performance of Merkava 4, M1-A2, and Challenger 2 if it wants to defend against external threats.

Nations that use T-72 tanks in their armies in the 21st century is militarily...weak.

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oh no, not weak. You see it's not always the quality, but the ability to get the best from it. Countryes with even more inferior forces have managed to defeat superior enemyes. But i do agree, Iran would have the use for modern tanks. Wonder will there ever be more than just rumours about the Zulfigar II???

Since the indigenous development of military hardware by Iran is being discussed, the following are really interesting insights into Iran's indigenous fighter aircrafts:

1] Azarakhsh : Iran was not known to have possessed advanced technology to build fighter planes or tanks.

According to one theory, Iran cobbled together an aircraft by reverse-engineered elements from a number of other aircraft. Evidently a modified F-5, this Iranian design evolved from an examination of the wide variety of fighter aircraft in Iran's inventory [which include both the F-4 and F-5], along with training and experimentation.

A scaled-up version of the US Northrop Grumman F-5f Tiger, Azarakhsh features shoulder mounted air intakes. It is said to be a 10- to 15- percent larger than the F-5. It incorporates an Iranian-designed radar, but with some of the avionics modules actually of Russian design.

In June 1999 it was reported that Iran had begun series production of the Azarakhsh. As of 2000 only four examples of the Azarakhsh were thought to be in existence, and series production was expected to start in 2001. As of 2001 there were six in inventory, with a production schedule established for 30 aircraft over the following three years.

Source with photo :


Comments : Iran beats even India in the diversity of the aircrafts in its Air-Force. From US made F-5s and F-14s to Russian MiG-29s, Su24, and Su-25 to French Mirage-1 and Chinese F-6 and F-7, IrAF has many frontline aircrafts of the 1980s.

Thus, just like the Zulfiqar, they assembled their own fighter plane, by combining good features of all aircrat, although the end-result appears to be very similar to the US F-5.

It may be mentioned, that this indigenous innovation by learning from the leftovers from a begone era, under the cloud of isolation and secrecy......is fascinating.

I believe that the Zulfiqar tank is much more indigenous that the Al-Khalid tank of Pakistan. The reason is that the Zulfiqar takes some features and modifications from many tanks such as M-1A1, M-60, and T-72 and is thus TOTALLY UNIQUE (after all, even Indian hardware designers do look at brochures and pictures to see what the hardware looks like. For example, the Kaveri engine).

In contrast, the Al-Khalid is just an upgrade of the Chinese Type-90 or T90S, with a Ukrainian engine, besides many other Ukrainian and Chinese inputs.
According to me, it doesnt qualify to be called an "indigenous development". It is more like the F-7 jet of China, which is an uppgrade of the MiG-21.

Pakistan used many indigenous systems and Western systems on the Al-Khalid. You could say it's like an upgraded export version. A lot if designs were based on what the Shah had in plan. Plus the Shah already had a working air industry that was fledgling. But it's amazing how the mullahs got it back into shape.

Azarakhsh has been subject to some serious problems in its presentation. While it was in fact a project it's possible that some projects were confused for the Azarakhsh. Iran is developing a Fighter-bomber that is believe to be the Azarakhsh 2, confused with the Azarakhsh. In fact the picture on globalsecurity.org is fake.

Here's the original pic:



If you look at the pic of the "Azarakhsh" you'll find it actually doesn't even have a very good emblem design on it. The bullseye emblem on the "Azarakhsh" looks more like it was done in paint. That's the only picture of it mentioned. That says to me it isn't real. In fact, it's easy to see where it's edited if you look. The two seats in the cockpit are the same and you can see both "pilots" facing the exact same way.

Supposedly the Azarakhsh was just an experimental project that was probably put aside for other projects.

The globalsecurity.org article even seems to be bogus, it seems to say that the azarakhsh has supercruise at Mach 1.6, faster than F-22, but only has a combat radius of 600 kilometers.

I must say, Iran does put very controversial messages in its military parades. Take a look at this video:



Having troops doing stuff like that is not advisable if you want to convince the international community that your nuclear intentions are peaceful. And just out of interest, are there any ideas as to how many Shahab-3s Iran has in its arsenal. I've heard from some places that they only have just over a dozen. Not enough to threaten both Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle east.

What about Al-Khalid, is it in series production or not? And any developed by Iranians APC is out there?

DPRKPTboat said:

I must say, Iran does put very controversial messages in its military parades. Take a look at this video:

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Having troops doing stuff like that is not advisable if you want to convince the international community that your nuclear intentions are peaceful. And just out of interest, are there any ideas as to how many Shahab-3s Iran has in its arsenal. I've heard from some places that they only have just over a dozen. Not enough to threaten both Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle east.

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If delieverd well the Dozen can do the damage required.

Latest military parade held in 18th April you can see some pictures here (this parade only includes original army not guards corps who controls most of Iran ballistic missile force then you can't see most of Iranian ballistic missiles)









All pictures concerning other than chinese military, should be posted in the "world military photos" -forum, thanks.

Iran is not like Iraq...
Little is kwown to most people about that country's capabilities. One tends to think of a very backward, unworthy third world country when hears the name.
It has a relatively big economy (the paralel with Argentina that someone made is a good comparison), natural resources, it's quite industralized, good infrastructure, makes R&D in technology and weapons... Of Mr. Bush so called "Axis of evil" states it is by far the more competent one, i really doubt that it can be crushed in a matter of 4 weeks like happened to Iraq.