Posted on 12/02/2005 2:30:17 AM PST by HAL9000
Russia sells anti-missile systems in Iran
MOSCOW - Iran signed a contract with Russia on the sale of 29 Russian systems anti-missile Tor M-1, affirmed Friday the financial daily newspaper Russian Vedomosti, quoting sources in Russian military industry.
"Iran will defend itself against the United States and Israel with the Russian systems Tor M-1", titrated Vedomosti with the one.
According to the sources of the daily newspaper, expressing itself under cover of anonymity, 29 systems' anti-missile Tor M-1 able to intercept cruise missiles and airborne bombs were manufactured by the military factory Koupol with Ijevsk (the Volga) for Greece which had already bought 21 systems of this type.
But the end of the Nineties Greece had given up the new contract which would then have cost him 526 million dollars.
"We recently signed a contract with a foreign State on the sale of anti-missile systems Tor M-1", declared with AFP the spokesman of the factory Koupol, Maria Oudalova, joined by telephone to Ijevsk.
The spokesman refused to specify of which country it acted and which was the number of systems sold Tor M-1, explaining that it acted of a "strategic secrecy" of Russia.
The service of press of the official agency Rossoboronexport in charge of Russian exports of weapons, joined by AFP, affirmed that it "did not have information" in connection with this contract.
The contract "will not violate any international engagement of Russia", because Moscow had left in 2000 a secret agreement with Washington known under the name of Gore-Tchernomyrdine protocol which limited the Russian deliveries of weapons to Iran, underlines Vedomosti.
The Tor systems are "a weapon of defense" and "represent a danger to the United States only if this country attacks Iran", raises a Russian expert of the magazine Exportations of weapons, Mikhaïl Barabanov, quoted by the newspaper.
Iran in particular seeks "to defend its nuclear thermal power station" that Moscow is building in Bouchehr, bus "Israel had affirmed that it examined the possibility of launching strike preventive against this site", explains a professor of the Russian Institute of the International relations, Sergueï Droujilovski, quoted by Vedomosti.
Washington shows Teheran to seek to obtain the nuclear weapon under cover of civil activities.
The purchase of the systems Tor M-1 could cost Iran more than 700 million dollars, according to another expert, Dmitri Vassiliev of the Center of analysis of the strategies and technologies.
bump
That's what we have Predators armed with Hellfires for.
And if it came down to it, saturate the bloody things with cruise missiles used as decoys, THEN slam them with the real strike aircraft. Also, these things only have about 8 rounds apiece, then they have to spend at least an hour being reloaded by a dedicated maintenance truck with a crane. So, 8 shots max, and then they're toast.
I'm not worried about giving this tactic away, because if the operators ignore the "decoys", they're not decoys any more - since they're still armed. Either way, they go ka-BOOOM. Ooops.
The only problem I see here is that this missile is supposed to go about 3060 kph, and HARM tops out at "only" 2287 kph. Could be nasty if it ever fires on a manned plane. A Predator coming in at tree-top height with a Hellfire will still ruin its day - the system apparently still has a 'hard' floor of 10 meters. And they sacrificed range for speed - 6km max range/altitude? That's 20,000 feet, give or take. Load up the B-52s with HARMs (48km-plus range) and fly them around at 50K (service ceiling) and rain down HARMs on the idiots all day long.
titrated?
Dont forget, the TOR system most likely will have a defensive countermeasures chaff, against radar seeking missiles like HARM.
Except it doesn't matter - if you jam a HARM, it just loiters around in the area until you turn your radar on, then it comes and finds you. Remember, HARM is a High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile - it homes in on enemy radar and radio transmissions. And if you turn off your radar, you can't guide the missiles.
HARM also has a wonderful feature where if it does get a solid lock on a stationary-type radar and then gets jammed or the radar turns off, it flies to the place where it last saw the radar and explodes.
bookmark for later printing.
You are correct on the missiles. I remember when we went after Qaddafi duck and our missiles did just that!
Yup, the guys in the EF-111 Spark Varks and the few remaining F-4 Wild Weasel birds really liked them. The Soviets and Europeans that sold Qaddafi his air defense gear were somewhat less enthused.
I still haven't seen a really good system to defeat a HARM strike. Maybe combine the radar truck with a point defense system of some kind? Even if you did that, it should be relatively easy to saturate such a system, since these systems are too few in number to deploy in heavy layered coverage.
I had heard that in Kosovo, those guys had rigged microwave ovens to turn on with the doors opened to fool the missiles but I'm not sure.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.