Iranian missles & the US Navy in the Gulf

X-posted from my blog http://rdanafox.blogspot.com/

Until recently Iran had relied on the Russian SAM-6 surface to air missile. With a range of 25 km it might be considered a short range or point defense system. The Russian SAM-11 missile looks like it can be fired from older SAM-6 launchers with little work to accommodate the SAM-11 missile. The SAM-6 was first developed by Russia, starting in 1958.

http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/modern/trump00361reviewcs_1.html

By the 1973 yon Kippur war it was a proven system.

In August 1992 the NYT reported "Iran is reportedly negotiating the purchase of SAM-5, SAM-11, and SAM-13 missiles from Russia and other Eastern European countries." Don't forget that the SAM-11 missile looks able to be fired from Iran's existing SAM-6 mobile launchers.

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Missile/1788_1807.html

In the Summer of 2006 reports suggested that Iran was looking to buy the Tor-M1 Air defense system, This was confirmed in the first week of 2007 from Russian sources.

http://www.defense-update.com/products/t/tor.htm


The TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile system is a mobile, integrated air defense system, designed for operation at medium-, low- and very low –altitudes, against fixed/rotary wing aircraft, UAVs, guided missiles and precision weapon. The system is capable of operating in an intensive aerial jamming environment.

The Tor-M1 system has a range of 25 KM, making it a significant qualitative upgrade from the existing SAM-6 systems. The same source indicates the Iranians also are buying the longer range Pechora-2A.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/12/16/iranantiaircraft.shtml

Pechora-2A can hit the air targets at distances from 3.5 to 38 kilometers and at heights from 0.02 to 20 kilometers, flying at a speed of up to 700 meters per second. The complex was successfully tested at a Middle East firing range, hitting an F-16 fighter and an analogue of a Tomahawk cruise missile.


I get the feeling that Iran has not set up a comprehensive air defense grid as we think of it here in the US. They seem to favor using jet aircraft as a long range platform to shoot down air borne threats (F-14, SU-27 & Mig 29). Then they seem to rely on mobile SAM systems as point defense. @ globalsecurity.com they have indicated that Iran may have deployed some of these SAMs in underground bunkers, with multiple entrance tunnels. This allows the mobile SAM launcher a hardened supply/maintenence point, from which the launcher can make its appearance from a number of tunnel entrance points. The Tor-M1 system needs only 10 seconds from target aquisition to launch.

The combination of these 3 systems does add a layer of complexity to Iranian air defense that they have not had in possibly decades. The Pechora-2A with its 38km range would be the 1st layer in this arrangement, while the older but more numerous (and a bit slower to acquire targets) SAM-6 may be left out in the open to deal with targets that get past the Pechora-2A. If a target gets that far, the far more modern and accurate Tor-M1 can be trundled out from a tunnel to defend against the intruder.

At most Iran has maybe 60 front line modern aircraft & maybe 100 SAM style launchers. Whether or not these assets are tied to the 3 major nuclear sites, they will be overwhelmed. The question in my mind is will Bush & Cheney dictate to the US military how & when todoo the job. This administration has a track record for screwing up when it concerns military matters, and a screw up in dealing with Iran could lead to a bit of a bloody nose for the US military.

On the Offensive side of the plate:



Sunburn missile:

"In July 1999, defense analyst Richard D. Fisher wrote an evaluation of the Russian-built Sunburn missile being sold to China. A senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington based think-tank, Fisher reported that the SS-N-22 may be capable of a dive speed of Mach 4.5 that would help it evade U.S. naval defenses. The Sunburn anti-ship missile is perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world," wrote Fisher in a review of the Chinese navy. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.5 speed with a very low-level flight pattern that uses violent end maneuvers to throw off defenses. After detecting the Moskit, the U.S. Navy Phalanx point defense system may have only 2.5 seconds to calculate a fire solution -- not enough time before the devastating impact of a 750-lb. warhead."

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1449.cfm



From Will Pitt:

"It is Iran's missile armaments that pose the greatest concern for American forces in the Gulf, especially for the US Navy. Iran's coast facing the Persian Gulf is a looming wall of mountains that look down upon any naval forces arrayed in those waters. The Gulf itself only has one exit, the Strait of Hormuz, which is also dominated by the mountainous Iranian coastline. In essence, Iran holds the high ground in the Gulf. Missile batteries arrayed in those mountains could raise bloody havoc with any fleet deployed below.

Of all the missiles in Iran's armament, the most dangerous is the Russian-made SS-N-22 Sunburn. These missiles are, simply, the fastest anti-ship weapons on the planet. The Sunburn can reach Mach 3 at high altitude. Its maximum low-altitude speed is Mach 2.2, some three times faster than the American-made Harpoon. The Sunburn takes two short minutes to cover its full range. The missile's manufacturers state that one or two missiles could cripple a destroyer, and five missiles could sink a 20,000 ton ship. The Sunburn is also superior to the Exocet missile. Recall that it was two Exocets that ripped the USS Stark to shreds in 1987, killing 37 sailors. The Stark could not see them to stop them.

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/16812


I think its important to note how Will Pitt places the use of the Sunburn in a terrain specific scenario. I think that a sea based attack on Iran should not come from a task force in the Persian Gulf, but rather from the Arabian Sea. ThePersiann Gulf is a bad spot to be in if Iran gets a shot at US forces in the Gulf.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/congress/1997_cr/s970617h.htm

Global security states that Iran not only has purchased the Sunburn, but also the Chinese-made C-801 and C-802 cruise missiles. The C-801 and C-802 appear to be flexible in that they can be fired from patrol boats, submarines, or even trucks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802

I think that as long as the US Navy sails carrier groups into the Persian Gulf, what we are seeing is battleship diplomacy. Iran has made some purchases that may give Iran a chance to blow some stuff up, if it comes to an actual shooting war. That'ss not to say the the US Military wont get to its targets, it will. The more I think about it, the more I think the US will not attack Iran using the US Navy. What possibly may be the best US bunker buster is the GBU-28, dropped from a plane, it weighs 4400 pounds. 4400 pounds dropped from 60,000 ft may penetrate a few hundred feet. Never the less I think the best we can do is to blow up the doors to the tunnels, that lead to the bunkered nuclear facilities.

Hopefully the cabal understands this and will settle for a little saber rattling, battleship diplomacy, if you will.

Vigilance.

be sooner or later within range. I think this crew of chickenhawks think our superior firepower cures all that ails them but there is no fixing stupid no matter how many guns one might have. until the little man has been nuetered I will worry

Terminal attack is mach 4.5

US navy Harpoon & Sparrow are subsonic defensive missles.

Not good.

Our carriers would have big bullseye on them The military, political and morale value of sinking one would be so big I would throw many Sunburns after them just for a chance to sink one.

and if hit right with a sunburn, the ship and water around the ship will become deadly.

:scared:

though those Sunburns appear to be very bad ass missiles. 6+ of them at the same time...might overwhelm a carriers defenses.

and kill thousands.

Plus all that wiz-bang defense I would not bet my life on being all that good. It has never really been tested in REAL LIFE.

The Libyans, with similar weapons and tactics, made a couple suicide runs on US naval forces in the '80s. Got shot down a long, long way from the carrier.

They will likely leave the Gulf and be in the Indian Ocean when Bush moves the final chess pieces into position. If I were admiral, I wouldn't be caught dead in the Gulf when the shooting starts.

Those sunburns could be used, on the other hand, to sink American merchant ships and oil tankers in the Hormuz Strait and the Gulf though in retaliation for the US bombing campaign against Iran.

The problem any anti-ship missile has against US targets is the very high quality of our electronic countermeasures, especially when in a carrier task force with an E-2 AWACs platform aloft. The jamming and false radar signals the task force puts out make it extremely difficult for a missile coming from over the horizon to find its target. It's a very big ocean, even a bathtub like the Persian Gulf, and a sea-skimmer missile flying under 50 feet has a horizon of less than 7 miles. Unless they completely luck out and point the Sunburn on exactly the right bearing, it flies until it's out of fuel and goes splash.

The Stark was a Perry class frigate, and it was steaming independently in peacetime mode. Compared to an Aegis destroyer or cruiser, a Perry class is virtually defenseless against air attack. They were designed as torpedo catchers during the Cold War, antisubmarine platforms that could toss AA missiles up for a cruiser to direct to the target.

The E-2 can spot a missile at dozens to hundreds of miles away, and the F-18 armed with the latest version of the AMRAAM can engage at more than 50 miles.

F-18s alone (there are no more F-14s in the fleet, btw; they're all retired) would have a tough time against Iranian air defences, but they wouldn't go in until the B-2s and cruise missiles had taken out most of the AA radars and command-and-control networks.

Giving Iran hi ground. The Sunburn is not low level, and its mach 3, mach 4.5 in final approach. Phalynx has about 3 seconds to aquire the Sunburn. US Navy Sparrow & Harpoon are sub sonic. Non of our jets are fast enough to "Chase" the Sunburn, so it must be shot down within 1 minute of the Sunburn being fired.

What you say is very true, but no plan stays intact after contact with the enemy. See Greenmans post up thread.

3 or 4 carriers going up in smoke might do the trick.:sarcasm:

They could hide the warships behind tankers loaded with water;like little boys hiding behind their mothers' skirts.

...of greater concern is WTF he thinks will happen after we've finished bombing Iran's 400+ nuke-related sites. Or rather, what he doesn't think will happen...much as he didn't think there'd be an insurgency in Iraq....

But the actual nuke sites, there 3 prime sites, 15 in all.

I mistook strategic targets for nuke sites.

Even if they restricted themselves to the 15 nuke sites -- which they won't! -- that's a lot of remodeling. And the Iranians will not sit still for it.

Missile launcher they have....and a 1/2 dozen stop signs... LOL

Doesn't this imply that American warships are in danger only if they have attacked Iran? Does the Iranian leadership - remember Iran was attacked by Iraq with the support of the USA - wish a Bush inspired national armageddon? Unlikely.

What false flag operation - a la the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident"/"Operation Northwoods"/or PNACS "another Pearl Harbor" - will Bush and his neocon buddies come up with to provide justification for a "response" (read, pre-emptive attack)?

Let us not forget that Hitler only admitted that the war was lost to his inner circle a month or so before Germany's unconditional surrender.

The Sunburn (faster than a F-16) & the C-801 and C-802 cruise missiles.

Iran will respond with these weapons if attacked. I don't think they will pre-emptively go after an American aircraft carrier in The Gulf, do you?

though ted is photogenic and fairly adept with his hands, has a supoob memory and a pedigree that goex back to king arthor, he still is a vile lil man who gets a thrill strangling his victims in the night! iow not a good c-in-c!
but cnn/foxnews says otherwise, and the cudchewers wanna believe them, so what can anyone do?

Iran now has the material to produce the Bomb, and can do so regardless of whether or not the U.S. bombs its big reinforced reactors.

Though I agree that the US - long term- cannot stop Iran from a making a nuke.

But they've got the material out of the reactors and can do the enriching some place else.

The Elborz and Zagros mountain ranges are impressive. My bedroom window in Tehran looked out towards the Elborz range. Solid rock. The Zagros range runs NW to SE west of the great deserts. More Solid Rock.

how much of an elevation change is it...Say from Tehran to the gulf.. 5000 ft.?

According to the Nat.Geographic site.

High desert weather: hot in the summer and Cold in the winter (yes, it does snow there). Less than 10" of precipitation per year. Mt. Damavand is 5671m high and has a ski area on it. When I was there (in 1970-71), my family drove up there and we played in the snow.

Quite chilling....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ19Ad01.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ20Ad01.html

These people have already made their money. If the US collapses in the ensuing world war, they don't care. They're already filthy rich.

or they downed one of our planes today stated the CIA... speaking under conditions of anonymity.

is supposed to be this guy linked here ..... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3047433&mesg_id=3048409

any thoughts?

And I found a link which states that the Eisenhower {CVN69} is currently in 'The North Arabian Sea' as of Jan 4th. Reminded me of your scenario of standing a Carrier off a bit out of the Gulf. That link is here ..... http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy.asp?id=146

Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG)is in theater, and the Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) is on its way. Still only the one Carrier Strike Group (Eisenhower) out there ...... but the Stennis is still scheduled to leave later in the month. hmmmmmmm ......

Peace, and thanks again for another informative post FogerRox.

However all that is predicated on the US operating out of the gulf. Consider the following. I am about to propose some theories, these are not my beliefs...........

1. The US does not need to operate in the Persian gulf to attack Iran. In fact, doing so is counter intuitive. If these Sunburn missles are such a threat we would understand that and not deploy right in their kill zone. What we would do is a rehash of the 1991 Gulf War when we had several carriers in the red sea and operated Air refueling ops over Central Saudi Arabia. Given that the Saudis hate the Shia Persians this is not an unlikely scenario. Ditto for the Tomahawks. Why deploy your forces inside the enemy's envelope of attack. It makes no sense. When all carriers leave the Gulf and start operating outside the Sunburn range at the same time, then you should get worried. Iran has the "high ground" but if we don't have to play in their "yard" we won't. Red sea based carriers with a submarine screen around the Horn of Africa to protect against Iran surface and submarine forces would render the Sunburn missles void. If they target missles against Saudi oil facilities all that does is enrage the world at Iran, the US would still receive condemnation but Arab countries would firmly fall into the anti Iran camp if such a scenario took place.

2. So Iran has some rather modern Air defense platforms. That is all well and good but what are 75-100 launchers going to do when 500-800 Tomahawks, JDAMS, and other smart munitions start coming at them, not to mention the sorties of I would guess at least 400-500 aircraft? Yes they will get some and prevent some targets from being hit, but they will not endanger the strike package. Secondly before those attacks took place F-117's and B-2's would strike at each and every telemetry and radar facility in Iran. Making a National Air Defense Grid impossible to maintain. It's not just the sites that would be hit there would also be carbon filament weapons dropped by stealth aircraft that would scramble any redundant or backup tracking devices Iran has.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0302,smith,41051,8.html


3. Finally Iran is at a serious disadvantage in an Air attack, yes they have Mig 29's and Su-27's both fine modern aircraft, but they do not possess them in numbers large enough to defeat an air sortie against them. They can and would do damage but when they are gone Iran would have to order and planes and hope they have enough trained pilots to man them. The US would have hundreds if not thousands of planes and pilots in reserve.

Again these are just some thoughts. I do not advocate an attack against Iran, I have enough to do already in Iraq.

"When all carriers leave the Gulf and start operating outside the Sunburn range at the same time, then you should get worried."

I agree 100%.

the Navy would oversee two ground conflicts...

As I posted in a couple threads today, my brother leaves for the middle east Sunday. Just like 160,000 others right? Wrong. He is RETIRED... a Navy Commander that retired 10 years ago after being in both the first Gulf war and Somalia. I believe he was on the USS Trenton back then. Since then he has married, had a family and has a career.

Why, unless there is something big about to happen would they call him back into active duty with less then a months notice for a full year deployment?

I am usually pretty level headed and logical, but this has me really shaken up, I have a very bad feeling about this coming year.

My Son returned in November and is getting married in March, I hope they don't call him up again soon, but I have this feeling, it is going to happen.

Best Wishes to you and your family and especially to your Brother.. He will be in my thoughts :hug:

This installation is on the coast of iran at the straights of hormuz,
along with lots of buried facilities and stuff..