What's Iran got to do in Chinese defense forum?? You should post this somewhere else !ff
This is the Worlds Armed forces discussion of the forum. This subject is permitted.
bd popeye super moderator
Iran TOR M1A SAMs VS US missiles
- Thread starter bomber
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This is the Worlds Armed forces discussion of the forum. This subject is permitted.
bd popeye super moderator
Pointblank
Senior Member
The HARM is listed by the the Federation of American Scientists and Global Security as having a speed of 2280 km/h. It is well known that the USAF and USN will often 'dumb down' the specs of their equipment in the interests of national security.
You want to bet that a couple of HARM's aimed at the Tor-M1 would all be shot down? If 4-5 are fired at the system, most often, one will get through.
The HARM performed very well over Serbia. Even if it did not destroy many SAM sites, it kept them for the most part, offline so they did not become a threat to Allied aircraft. The main purpose of SEAD is to either destroy enemy SAM's or keep them offline. Furthermore, the HARM also performed very well in the 1991 and 2003 Persian Gulf War.
I take the middle ground, SA-15 is an excellent system but it is not on its own going to win any wars.
But in the HARM debate, I think that SA-15 has a lot better chance than most SAM systems when it comes to survival.
Firstly it is relatively advanced in that the search radar, targeting radar and missiles are all mounted on a single chassis - each and every TOR veicle is a SAM "system" on its own. A charactristic that Russian designers have been into since the SA-8 Gecko (TOR's direct predecessor BTW), but relatively few other systems have managed this. So if you have 4 TOR vehicles operating together, the SEAD aircraft is dealing with 4 search radars, 4 tracking radars and 32 SAMs. All at once.
Secondly, SEAD aircraft are likely to operate with only 2 HARM and the likelihood of a single TOR vehicle being simultaneously targeted by 4 missiles is remote.
TORs main weakness is that it is a low-level system which makes it great tactically but not much use against an air-dominant US military operating at medium/high altitude.
There is a better version of TOR called TOR-M2 which has a phased array surveilance radar. It is not known which version Iran is getting but if it is the M2 then it'd be even better survivability and lethality.
Combine TOR with S-300 however....
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Vlad Plasmius
Junior Member
I'm sorry, but it's not toast.
As I said before, the Tor-M1 has fire-on-the-move capability. It has a road speed of about 40 miles per hour. I'm not too certain on its off-road speed, but even at 10 miles per hour in a minute it would be hundreds of meters away from the missile's path.
Also, 2280 kilometers per hour is not Mach 4. It's closer to Mach 2. At max range it's about 2 minutes. The range you gave would be around a minute though. Ultimately the Tor-M1 would have at least half a minute to react. Assuming just 16 kilometers per hour travel speed offroad, assuming it's off-road, the Tor-M1 could move over 100 meters away from the missile's path in a minutes. Half a minute it could move nearly 70 meters away. Without radar to home in on, the HARM would likely not even get close to the Tor-M1.
Pointblank
Senior Member
Then that is the whole point of SEAD: to get you to turn off your radar, either voluntarily or by destroying it! If I can get you to turn off your radar, you pose no threat to the strike aircraft in the area, and as such, mission done. On top of that, turning off the radar won't help because the HARM missile has a inertial guidance system built in, meaning that it will remember where you turned your radar on last. Also, Wild Weasel aircraft also carry other weapons, such as cluster bombs or Mavericks, meaning that once a Wild Weasel aircraft knows where you are, he can turn on his radar, and track your movement, and attack you using the cluster bombs or the Maverick missiles. On top of that, future developments of the HARM missile will incorporate a active radar seeker, meaning that even if you turn off your radar and run, the HARM missile will be able to track you with its radar. As I said: no amount of running can save you then.
And 2280km/h is Mach 4, at altitude. Remember that the HARM missile is fired from altitude, not at sea level.
This isn`t a situation where one wins all and the other looses all. Tor is a capable system and if used with sound tactics, it will send a fair amount of american aircraft to the ground. On the other hand, it will not be able to evade or shoot down all SEAD aircraft and missiles, and you will most likely don`t see any left after the first week. It`s like all military matters, never trust the manufacturer. If the hit percentages they put forward for airdefence was correct, every aircraft flying would be shot down twice, and with the numbers aircraft producers claim, the same aircraft will fly forever. A conflict will see losses on both sides, but the US has the numbers.
..In every TOR sales video I've seen, It's had to STOP to resolve launching it's missles. It has never shown itself firing on the run as Vlad ascribes it as capable of. In fact given the rough suspension of the TOR tank, I'd speculate firing on the move to be just as dangerous to the launcher as the aircraft. It is a wildly top heavy design.....
Vlad Plasmius
Junior Member
Pointblank
Thing is, bombs and Mavericks don't have the range of HARM. In half a minute the HARM will strike behind the Tor-M1, which is safely some distance away. Then the Tor-M1 can turn its radar back on safely and engage any thing else that gets thrown at it, or simply keep moving with the radar off for a while.
Thing is, unlike other SAM sites, like most in Serbia and Iraq, the Tor-M1 is mobile and can move to a whole other position and resume its activities.We can't know where the Tor-M1s will be at any time, which is another part of their lethality.
No, it's less than Mach 2 at altitude. I'm not 100% on the numbers but as I recall Mach 1 is something like 1000 kilometers per hour at sea level and 1200 kilometers per hour at altitude. In other words, 2280 kilometers per hour is about Mach 2. Sound goes faster higher up in the atmosphere because there's less resistance.
Skorzeny
Oh, I think that's giving us far too much credit. Every country we've dealt with hasn't had anything particularly mobile in the air defense department, except man-portable SAMs. Finding these SAMs will be like Israel trying to find the Kayusha launchers.
Thing is, bombs and Mavericks don't have the range of HARM. In half a minute the HARM will strike behind the Tor-M1, which is safely some distance away. Then the Tor-M1 can turn its radar back on safely and engage any thing else that gets thrown at it, or simply keep moving with the radar off for a while.
Thing is, unlike other SAM sites, like most in Serbia and Iraq, the Tor-M1 is mobile and can move to a whole other position and resume its activities.We can't know where the Tor-M1s will be at any time, which is another part of their lethality.
No, it's less than Mach 2 at altitude. I'm not 100% on the numbers but as I recall Mach 1 is something like 1000 kilometers per hour at sea level and 1200 kilometers per hour at altitude. In other words, 2280 kilometers per hour is about Mach 2. Sound goes faster higher up in the atmosphere because there's less resistance.
Skorzeny
Oh, I think that's giving us far too much credit. Every country we've dealt with hasn't had anything particularly mobile in the air defense department, except man-portable SAMs. Finding these SAMs will be like Israel trying to find the Kayusha launchers.
Pointblank
Senior Member
You think a strike mission will have only 1 Wild Weasel escorting it? There will be at least two, and one can go down and attack you while the other keeps an eye open for anyone turning on their SAM radar.
As I said earlier: if I can get you to turn off your radar, then that is the whole job of SEAD! No radar: no SAM firing!
Only difference is that the Tor-M1 radiates a signal that is detectable for miles around. If you pickup that signal, you know where the system is, and you can therefore go ahead and suppress it!