Iran creates new drone-bomber

[R.O.A]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100822/wl ... 0822090338

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday unveiled a long-range bomber drone called the Karar, designed to operate at high speed, state television reported.

State television footage showed the president applauding as a blue cloth covering the Karar (assailant) was removed to reveal a short aircraft marked "bomber jet" in military-green.

The broadcast showed the aircraft in flight, while Fars news agency quoted Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying the drone had a range of up to 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).

"This jet, before it heralds death for enemies, is the messenger of salvation and dignity for humanity," Ahmadinejad said in his speech at the unveiling in a hall at Tehran's Malek Ashtar university.

State television said the drone was built to "carry and fire four stealth cruise missiles... and, depending on the mission, it can carry two bombs of 250 pounds (115 kilos) each or a precision missile of 500 pounds (230 kilos)."

Ahmadinejad said Iran's defence abilities "should reach a point where we can cut off the aggressor's arm before he acts, and if we miss, we should destroy him before he hits the target."

"The main message of Karar bomber is to prevent any kind of aggression and conflict" against Iran, he added.

The Karar was unveiled on Iran's annual Defence Industry Day, and two days after the Islamic republic test-fired a domestically built surface-to-surface missile, the Qiam (rising).

Iran is expected to follow up with series of military announcements as the nation also marks "government week," a period which Tehran uses to tout its achievements.

The country is also expected to test-fire a third generation Fateh (conquerer) 110 missile, after having already paraded a version with a range of 150 to 200 kilometres (90 to 125 miles).

The production lines of two missile-carrying speedboats, Seraj and Zolfaqar, are also due to be inaugurated.

Karar's unveiling came days after Iran took delivery of four domestically-built Ghadi mini-submarines, a "stealth" vessel designed to operate in shallow waters such as the Gulf.

The moves coincide with Iranian warnings against any attack. Its arch-foes, the United States and Israel, have not ruled out military action over Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

And on Saturday, Iran began to load nuclear fuel in its first nuclear power plant. The Russian-built reactor in the southern port of Bushehr, which is not targeted by UN sanctions, aims to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

They probably started working on this to try to counter that new plane that Isreal is building. But since it lacks the range to get to Isreal (unless if it's missiles can reach that far once its flown out), Isreal's plane sounds more viable.

[Night_stalker]

OK, call me paranoid and crazy, but is nobody worried about the fact that they unveiled this after they just got some new stealth mini-submarines, AND after they started making their own nuclear reactor? I am willing to believe they don't have anything planned against Israel at the moment, but still I'm worried. I doubt it's all just coincidences that these things are happening at the same time. Maybe they'r eplanned as a way of showing off new hardware that they'll later claim that those new weapons helped drive the Great Satan from the Middle East or some Islamic fundimentalist BS like that. (Note, I was insulting Islamic fundmanentalists, not Islam in general)

[Shroom Man 777]

They're improving their technology base and giving themselves newer and better defense systems. I fail to see a problem in a country modernizing its defense forces. I wouldn't be particularly worried either if the US or UK or Lithuania or Turkmenistan built a new UAV/UCAV or had a new nuclear power plant. In fact, I think it's a good thing for nations to have better technology to defend themselves and their people with. It is a right of all free countries. This is a free world, isn't it?

Yes it is.

=^____________________^=

EDIT:

That drone looks fucking ugly. It doesn't look stealthy at all. It doesn't even look aerodynamic. It looks like a giant turd painted olive green, to make it look more militaristic then colonistic. If a Maverick is something that crashes and burns in my ass, that thing looks like something that crashes and burns out my ass.

[Narkis]

From this very article:

Over the next few days Iran is expected to make series of further military announcements as the nation marks the annual government week, a period used by Tehran to tout its achievements.

No conspiracies involved. Just tooting their horn.

Also, what Shroom said.

[Ilya Muromets]

OK, call me paranoid and crazy, but is nobody worried about the fact that they unveiled this after they just got some new stealth mini-submarines, AND after they started making their own nuclear reactor? I am willing to believe they don't have anything planned against Israel at the moment, but still I'm worried. I doubt it's all just coincidences that these things are happening at the same time. Maybe they'r eplanned as a way of showing off new hardware that they'll later claim that those new weapons helped drive the Great Satan from the Middle East or some Islamic fundimentalist BS like that. (Note, I was insulting Islamic fundmanentalists, not Islam in general)

You're paranoid and crazy.

Stealth mini-submarines? That's redundant since submarine operations revolve around being quiet and undetectable. Every military combat submarine is ideally supposed to be stealthy. Plus, all of the claims about the Ghadir-class design's capabilities are all just proud proclamations of Iranian officials. I suggest you take them with a grain of salt before you start hyperventilating.

Likewise, you don't even know the capabilities of this thing. You don't know how sophisticated its systems are, what's its range, what's it's payload capability. They only say it "carries bombs at long ranges and high-speeds" which can mean anything and is worded in a vague way that smacks of bullshit.

What, do you seriously think that the Iranians are somehow going to use these things for some sort of massive nuclear attack? Because that's what your worrying sounds like. It's also silly as all hell.

That drone looks fucking ugly. It doesn't look stealthy at all. It doesn't even look aerodynamic. It looks like a giant turd painted olive green, to make it look more militaristic then colonistic. If a Maverick is something that crashes and burns in my ass, that thing looks like something that crashes and burns out my ass.

From the poor quality pic, it looks pretty much like it was based on a cruise missile. And that's providing that this thing actually works and that they're slated for production instead of being just some PR mock-up.

[Temujin]

OK, call me paranoid and crazy

OK, you are paranoid and crazy!

Just because someone trots out a new weapon system doesn't mean it's actually any good. Rhetoric does not automatically translate into performance, and a name does not imply capabilities; i.e., calling them "stealth" subs does not mean they are particularly stealthy by US standards. If you think a new unproven UAV and a few of shitty mini-subs is going to tip the balance of power you seriously are paranoid.

Edited for spelling.

[Serafina]

Shroomy, the "free world" was long defined as those allied with the USA. And to many, it still is - an enemy of the USA can not possibly be part of the free world
Also, a long-range bomber is not exactly a defensive weapon, other than being a possible deterent to your enemies.

But yes, i basically agree with you. As a sovereign state, Iran definetly has the right to do this.
Also, i doubt this thing can do what they claim it can do.

[Lonestar]

OK, call me paranoid and crazy, but is nobody worried about the fact that they unveiled this after they just got some new stealth mini-submarines, AND after they started making their own nuclear reactor? I am willing to believe they don't have anything planned against Israel at the moment, but still I'm worried. I doubt it's all just coincidences that these things are happening at the same time. Maybe they'r eplanned as a way of showing off new hardware that they'll later claim that those new weapons helped drive the Great Satan from the Middle East or some Islamic fundimentalist BS like that. (Note, I was insulting Islamic fundmanentalists, not Islam in general)

Are you really this stupid or are you faking it? I can't tell.

Iran rolling out a mockup of a aircraft whose range and speed is analogous to a firebee isn't exactly something to go screaming about. How are they going to control them? Do they have the satellite bandwith to do so? How are they going to get from point A to B? Shitty drones are great against someone who can't fight back(hint: Israel can fight back).

"Mini stealth subs"? Jesus Christ. While they could wreck havoc as mine layers(why they would be better than using dhows or small craft in the Strait of Hormuz I'll leave up to you to explain) I'm not going to be worrying too much about their capabilities, especially when the Iranian navy seems to have manning issues with their Kilos.

By the way it looks like something made in metal shop in high school



(No tell-tale "bump" for a SATCOM dish...hmm)

[folti78]

Some better pictures from the Uskowi on Iran blog: 1, 2.
Somewhere on the net people speculated that it's based on the old MQM-107 Streaker target towing drone which Iran got some early variants. Not exaclty your islamic bomber drone of doom ...

[Lonestar]

CNN has a better picture. The whole flowers and paper-mache clouds win it for me. Obviously I was wrong to underestimate the Iranians and I should be running around screaming like Night-stuffer.

[Ilya Muromets]

Some better pictures from the Uskowi on Iran blog: 1, 2.
Somewhere on the net people speculated that it's based on the old MQM-107 Streaker target towing drone which Iran got some early variants. Not exaclty your islamic bomber drone of doom ...

According to one of those links, that thing's supposed to have a range of 1000 km and a speed of 1000 kph. Assuming that's true, those are hardly impressive at all. That's less than a third the range of a Predator drone and pretty much par speed for a Streaker. As noted, the lack of any visible bump for a viable satellite dish remote link is also telling. This looks to be pretty much nothing more than a glorified development of a target drone.

[Lonestar]

According to one of those links, that thing's supposed to have a range of 1000 km and a speed of 1000 kph. Assuming that's true, those are hardly impressive at all. That's less than a third the range of a Predator drone and pretty much par speed for a Streaker. As noted, the lack of any visible bump for a viable satellite dish remote link is also telling. This looks to be pretty much nothing more than a glorified development of a target drone.

What the fuck?

Didn't I just say both of those things?

[Ilya Muromets]

Sorry. I missed that part of your first post when I came back to this thread it was already after folti had posted, and I went directly to the links said post provided.

[Temujin]

Some better pictures from the Uskowi on Iran blog: 1, 2.
Somewhere on the net people speculated that it's based on the old MQM-107 Streaker target towing drone which Iran got some early variants. Not exaclty your islamic bomber drone of doom ...

That's what I thought, looks like any old old school drone. Welcome to the 1970s Iran.

CNN has a better picture. The whole flowers and paper-mache clouds win it for me. Obviously I was wrong to underestimate the Iranians and I should be running around screaming like Night-stuffer.

That's because it's a messenger of salvation and dignity for humanity! That is before it heralds death for their enemies.

[MKSheppard]

I like this:

Speaking to a group of officials Ahmadinejad said, "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship."

But anyway; I wouldn't discount this. Sure; it has no SATCOMM hump; but you don't need one for the very basic mission of take off, fly over a target point, and fly back to Iran -- we managed that in the reconnaisance Firebees over North Vietnam and China. Later in the 1970s we actually hung Mavericks from a Firebee and blew up stuff in tests.

With GPS guided bombs, you can combine that with a GPS guided drone to achieve a reusable weapon system that achieves at least 1991 level accuracy without the enormous cost of training pilots to fly fast supersonic jets or buying said jets (Su-27 or MiG-29) and the weapons needed to survive against modern air defenses.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's still a poopy weapons system that's not really threatening to the Middle Eastern balance of power at all.

[Patroklos]

Iran wouldn't have GPS in the event of hostilities. Without any SAT assistance it would have to rely on terrain image mapping or inertial guidence, something I don't think Iran is up to fielding.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Iran wouldn't have GPS in the event of hostilities. Without any SAT assistance it would have to rely on terrain image mapping or inertial guidence, something I don't think Iran is up to fielding.

Well, there's always GLONASS and soon the Galileo and COMPASS, too. In actuality there will probably not be a situation where no GNSS would be available to Iran unless someone started to physically destroy the satellites, which would be a WW3 type situation or at least very close to it.

[Patroklos]

I am pretty sure all those systems have the ability to be encrypted, and in any plausable war Iran might get into I am sure all of the operators of those systmes would be doing so.

All I am saying is that it is not a reliable option for Iran.

[MKSheppard]

You of course forget that while the US might selectively degrade civilian GPS in the ME in case of a conflict; other nations won't.

The EU might degrade Galileo *slightly* after much pressure from the US; but the Chinese won't degrade COMPASS. Same for the Russians with GLONASS.

And there are tricks to get around degradation; like precisely measuring on your airfield several locations, then placing receivers for many systems there and then measuring the error levels between what they are getting and the actual location; you can then program that bias into your weapons system so that the INS system on board isn't thrown off as much as it would be with a straight GPS hack.

[Marcus Aurelius]

I am pretty sure all those systems have the ability to be encrypted, and in any plausable war Iran might get into I am sure all of the operators of those systmes would be doing so.

I would not be sure about it at all. The Galileo for instance is developed primarily as a civilian system and making it unavailable for anyone would have a very high threshold. Russian and China on the other hand might not want to do that for other reasons. They certainly would have no obligation to do so.

"Any plausable war Iran might get into" does not necessarily involve Israel or the current US backed regime of Iraq. A lot can happen in five years and there are still no guarantees that Iraq for example remains a democratic country five or ten years into the future. Saudi Arabia is another plausible enemy of Iran because of the wahhabites who consider shi'ites heretics.

[Patroklos]

Its really irrelevant. COMPASS isn't slated to reach worldwide coverage until 2020, GLOSNASS is still short satillites, and Galileo won't be able provide a quality worldwide signal until 2014.

I am not sure about COMPASS but Galileo and GLOSNASS are both designed to be jammable without interfering with GPS (well, in the case of GLOSNASS its designed so you can jam GPS without jaming GLOSNASS).

Again, its just not a reliable asset for Iran.

[FSTargetDrone]

a glorified development of a target drone.

Stop it, stop it, stop it! This cobbled-together piece of junk is unworthy of being put in the same category as that of my namesake brethren. You sully their names when you compare them to this.

On a slightly more serious matter, the language that these people like to use always amuses me to no end. Seriously, "heralds death"? Who talks like this? Is it something that is a byproduct of translation? He sounds like Cobra Commander. Actually, no, more comical than that.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Its really irrelevant. COMPASS isn't slated to reach worldwide coverage until 2020, GLOSNASS is still short satillites, and Galileo won't be able provide a quality worldwide signal until 2014.

I am not sure about COMPASS but Galileo and GLOSNASS are both designed to be jammable without interfering with GPS (well, in the case of GLOSNASS its designed so you can jam GPS without jaming GLOSNASS).

Again, its just not a reliable asset for Iran.

2014 is full four years into the future. That is a really long time... GLONASS will probably be complete again even before that if the Indians launch their satellites like they were supposed to. Your point about the COMPASS is more valid, but there's no reason to believe that the theocratic regime of Iran will collapse any time soon and if it doesn't, the developments of this system will still be available ten years from now.

Jamming SatNav signals is often not very practical or hugely effective, by the way, although it certainly can be done. Most of the time jamming will only degrade accuracy but not make the SatNav completely useless.

[MKSheppard]

It costs about $40-50 million on average to buy a FLANKER (Russian order in 2009 for 64 Flankers for $2.5 billion) so a squadron of 12 of them will set you back a cool $480 to $600 million.

Course you won't have the "sweetheart deal" that Sukhoi has with the Russian government; so tack on 20% to the price; raising it to $576-720 million.

Figure in spare parts, and the price can rise to a billion easily.

Given that the -34L Firebee only cost $215 grand; you could buy 200 to 250 of them roughly for the price of a single Flanker. Indigenious production in Iran probably would double the price.

Still means that for the price of a squadron of modernish Su-27s, you can get 1,200 to 1,500 attack drones, each capable of carrying a pair of 250 lb or a single 500 lb guided bomb.

Granted; they'd be shot down in enormous numbers in any conflict; but plenty would get through -- because there are only so many anti-aircraft weapons like SAMs or AAMs that any state, even the US could field that first day.

Targets would be enemy airfields, in particular, the revetments -- if you look at Al Asad Airbase on Google earth, you can find 20 Harriers parked in nice rows on a parking apron measuring about 350 x 120m. Drop a pair of GPS guided cluster bombs onto that apron, and you're assured of pretty much blowing up two squadrons of Harriers.

Of course, plenty of aircraft would survive in the hardened aircraft shelters the military's been building; but there are only so many HAS, and too many aircraft for them.

As a bonus; the drones can be reusable. You can have them fly out and strike their targets using waypoints fed into the GPS/INS system; and when they come home, you can guide them in using short range radio control; allowing you to amortize the cost of the drone over more than just a single mission.

Of course, you can also use short ranged ballistic missiles to supplement the drones.

RAND back in 1999 did a study on this threat:

Link to PDF

which was later referenced in a different publication

Link to PDF 2

RAND concluded that it would take 2-4 cruise missiles to destroy a Patriot/THAAD unit protecting a major airfield; and then up to 10-19 more ballistic missiles to carpet the airfield and tent city in bomblets; and that Iran could launch quite a few such attacks for about a billion USD.

Obviously, a much simpler solution is to launch enough ballistic missiles at an airfield to overwhelm the Patriot firing batteries there -- there are only so many missiles in a battery, and once they're expended, you have to do a fairly long 15-25 minute reload cycle.

While a few aircraft on alert status would get into the air; there's no way the Air Force can somehow generate an airfields' worth of aircraft into the air with just 10-15 minutes warning -- particularly as all personnel are going to be running for the shelters. I suppose you could move a couple into hangars and then take shelter in the hardened rooms inside; but that's only a few saved.

All in all, doing this kind of attack would be able to destroy far far more combat aircraft than a single squadron of Su-27s; and offers a much better chance of completing it's mission -- the Su-27s would either fly into the ground at the hands of low-time pilots or be shot down by US fighters.