Iranian Airforce

[Corsair96]

Is it still a reliable fighting force? Does it have any real attack capabilities and is it able to gain air superiority over the battlefield? Are their only new local aircraft in the makings?

Just pretty much any all around new
:sniper:sniper:sniper

 

[Belesari]

Over what battlefield and against what foe? Against Saudi Arabia, Egypt, somebody like that and where dont see them having the ability to truly project any power.

 

[EXSSBN2005]

The Iranian Air Force has between 350 fighters [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_of_the_Iranian_Air_Force"]List of aircraft of the Iranian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Iran_Air_Force_roundel.svg" class="image"><img alt="Iran Air Force roundel.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Iran_Air_Force_roundel.svg/150px-Iran_Air_Force_roundel.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/7/75/Iran_Air_Force_roundel.svg/150px-Iran_Air_Force_roundel.svg.png[/ame] to about 400ish (Iran Air Force) as well as transport aircraft, ground attack, vip transport, helicopters. The majority of the fighters are F-15's, MiG-29A's, and F-5 tigers, with a number of F-4 phantoms, F-7 chengdu's, and F1 Mirages. Plus their newer drone but there is already a thread on that here. http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/air-force-aviation/iran-launches-first-long-range-ucav-10579/

As far as who they would worry about they might be interested in fighting the Azerbaijan(i) or Turkmenistani forces over oil and fishing rights in the Caspian Sea, Russia is still the dominant naval power on the sea but I remember seeing something about a month ago over friction about Iran / Azerbaijan having a falling out over these issues. In this scenario I could see the Iranians being able to fairly easily roll up the militaries of either of these countries in an attempt to spread their influence further into the sea area for the deep water resources available there. Azeri and Iran are both mostly shia so this could also prove a catalyst for maybe a reunification of greater Iran [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan%E2%80%93Iran_relations"]Azerbaijan–Iran relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Unbalanced_scales.svg" class="image"><img alt="Unbalanced scales.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Unbalanced_scales.svg/45px-Unbalanced_scales.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/f/fe/Unbalanced_scales.svg/45px-Unbalanced_scales.svg.png[/ame]. Im not going to go into much more detail on relations as that is not to the point on the topic.

This is possiably a low intensity conflict that could roil into a regional conflict unless maybe the azerbijans form some alliances with either Israel or Russia would be the only way the US would probably become involved. Azerbaijan has only about 106 fighters and 35 helos [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_Armed_Forces"]Azerbaijani Armed Forces - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:MN.png" class="image"><img alt="MN.png" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/MN.png/150px-MN.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/f/fa/MN.png/150px-MN.png[/ame] (USA is also helping upgrade their navy, and some airbases to use them as emergency landing areas for planes bound for afghanistan.)

 

[Corsair96]

Against saudi lets say

 

[EXSSBN2005]

Probably would not happen ( war iran vs saudi) but it is a possiability (According to Le Figaro, on June 5, 2010, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Hervé Morin, the Defense Minister of France that: "There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel.) - per wikipedia linked here (not trying to be inflamitory just showing a quote from a regional/world leader ) [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_%E2%80%93_Saudi_Arabia_relations"]Iran – Saudi Arabia relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Iran_Saudi_Arabia_Locator.svg" class="image" title="Map indicating location of Iran and Saudi Arabia"><img alt="Map indicating location of Iran and Saudi Arabia" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Iran_Saudi_Arabia_Locator.svg/250px-Iran_Saudi_Arabia_Locator.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/6/64/Iran_Saudi_Arabia_Locator.svg/250px-Iran_Saudi_Arabia_Locator.svg.png[/ame] Both Iran and Saudi are muslem nations but Iran being shi'ite and Saudi being Sunni/Wahabbi and their territory including Mecca and Medina that Iran has said the Saudis allow non-muslem types too close to these cities

But for a hypothetical are we going with iran being the agressor or Saudi being the agressor? I'm not sure on dispositions of units and airbases but say both sides were escalating towards a major fight with time to reposition forces and assuming no major suprise attack Saudi would win more than likely due to higher number of aircraft (1009 total, 504 fighters counting the new eurofighter typhoons on order still) (royal saudi airforce wiki) and relatively newer generations of aircraft and maintance practices. Plus figure in Kuwait (~50 air craft) and maybe some other countries plus US carrier aircraft and Iran would probably be out of action in the air for awhile. While this scenario is prossiable I would not think it would go down this way due to Iran not wanting to fight a war it is sure to lose and thus would more than likely they not be the aggressors. This probably went beyond the scope of the origional question and if it veered into a VS thread then I'll go back if the mods want and change it to something less viewed as a VS thread.

 

[Feanor]

The Saudis have much better gear then Iran. I'm not sure what their pilots training or what their doctrine look like, but I suspect they also have one-up on IRan in those areas, so that one would be a no-brainer (to me at least).

 

[EXSSBN2005]

From what I have read the Saudis have more flight time, more airborne and land based radar, and better tactics from what my limited understanding of air combat goes but I was trying to be able to just give stats and things I could provide links to (sure wiki is not the best but its usually pretty close to correct when hard numbers are involved) and I didnt want to seem like I was on any particular side and allowing my national bias to get involved, just the facts as they say just the facts .

 

[Jack Johnson]

he majority of the fighters are F-15's, MiG-29A's, and F-5 tigers, with a number of F-4 phantoms, F-7 chengdu's, and F1 Mirages.

F-15s? You mean the old F-14As right?

 

[EXSSBN2005]

F-15s? You mean the old F-14As right?

Yes you are right thank you for the correction to F-14As not F-15s,:duel that will teach me to post after pulling a 16 hr shift at work :sleepy3.

 

[peterAustralia]

Saudi Arabia has a far superior air force to Iran.

Iran would I think be unlikley to attack Saudi, as it would lose. As there is no land border any conflict would be confined to air and sea conflict, not a true invasion. Could Iran get hundreds of thousands of troops across the gulf quickly enough to defeat Saudi, I doubt it.

The other thinking is what is the plusses and minusses of Saudi attacking Iran. Yes Saudi Arabia in the short term could gain air superiority and Naval superiority, but what then. It would probably degenerate into a slug fest. Iran could use small submarines, fast attak craft, helicopeters with anti ship missiles and land based anti ship missiles to deny oil exports from Saudi, Kuwait and other gulf states.

Iran could claim it was attacked without reason. It would then see no reason not to speed up its nuclear program (it has the technogy and centrifuges can be dispersed into numerous small underground locations). It would claim that the US was paty to any Saudi action. Iran would start up the insurgency in Iraq, and start supplying sophisticated weapons there, to attack US forces. I suspect guided anti tank weapons would be useful to insurgents.

Iran would start arming insurgent groups is Afganistan more and more. Wih better radios, better SAMs, sophiscitated anti tank guided missiles, the insurgents would be even more effective.

Iran would send fast attack craft across the gulf, with small groups of commandos with orders to destroy oil refineries. Probably they would all be killed, but not before they do a lot of damage.

Then what happens in 4 or 5 years and Iran has the a bomb, what then?

So yes, Iran cant win a conventional war, but an invasion of Iran would be expensive, and very deadly. A mere air power attack would push Iran into developing nuclear weapons. At the moment they seem to be developing their technology and improving their ability to enrich uranium, they have , roughly 6000 gas centrifuges that are known.

What do you do when Iran gets the a bomb. They can claim with a degree of justication that they were attacked with reason, and have the right to fight back.

From a personal point of view, I am no fan of Iran. They have moved from a quasi democracy to a brutal dictatorship.

Iran does not have the high tech to win a conventional war. What they are good at is building hte little things, like RPGs, machine guns, mortars. It is vertically integrated. They make guided anti tank missiles. They have launched their own space satellite.

 

[jaffo4011]

[Mod Edit: Flame bait deleted]

can you source or justify that comment please....seems pretty throwaway to me.

 

[jawaboy]

Does anyone know if the Saudi's have sorted out the maintenace problems they apparently had pre Kuwait invasion?

If they haven't then having all the high tech fighters won't help if they can't fly.

 

[TaranisAttack]

can you source or justify that comment please....seems pretty throwaway to me.

Go do some research and you'll see my point is perfectly valid. If you think I'm writing you a 5 page thesis (when I could be working my own actual thesis!) for your personal pleasure, then you have another thing coming.

Does anyone know if the Saudi's have sorted out the maintenace problems they apparently had pre Kuwait invasion?

If they haven't then having all the high tech fighters won't help if they can't fly.

As I think has been said (though it could have been from one of the many other threads on these two air forces), Saudi has foreign contractors do the whole hi-tech maintenance thing. If Saudi ends up in an actual war, its more likely they will ask the USAF and USN to provide some quality air defence.

 

[Bonza]

Go do some research and you'll see my point is perfectly valid. If you think I'm writing you a 5 page thesis (when I could be working my own actual thesis!) for your personal pleasure, then you have another thing coming.

Excuse me, but it was your one-liner post (which is against the forum rules, by the way) that was out of line, not the request that you back up what you're saying with actual facts. No one asked for a five page thesis, merely a justification or source for what was a totally throwaway comment.

Dial down the attitude and participate constructively. If you can't handle that, don't participate at all. Simple enough?

 

[TaranisAttack]

Excuse me, but it was your one-liner post (which is against the forum rules, by the way) that was out of line, not the request that you back up what you're saying with actual facts. No one asked for a five page thesis, merely a justification or source for what was a totally throwaway comment.

Dial down the attitude and participate constructively. If you can't handle that, don't participate at all. Simple enough?

Then ban me

[Mod Edit: Banned as requested]

 

[peterAustralia]

well this thread sure degenerated pretty quickly

If you are interested in the Iranian military, the best information that I know of can be found at military photos dot net. There is a thread there that goes into twenty pages or so. It is very detailed and has a huge amount of information.

this is one thread

[external forum links not allowed.]

but this thread only relates to one aircraft. There is a much larger thread at the same website that goes into everything, is really really detailed. The overview would seem to be that Iran seems good at the basics, but cant match the high tech of new weapons systems.

This is less of an issue, a new G3 rifle, is quite similar to a G3 rifle designed 30 years ago, and as such they would be competitive, same for mortars, grenades, machine guns etc. However when it comes to combat aircraft, the one that was king 30 years ago, is not competitive against todays best aircraft.

find the thread at military photos dot net, it will tell you all you need to know. Well most things that are in the public domain should be say.

 

[fahj]

Saudi Arabia has a far superior air force to Iran.

Iran would I think be unlikley to attack Saudi, as it would lose. As there is no land border any conflict would be confined to air and sea conflict, not a true invasion. Could Iran get hundreds of thousands of troops across the gulf quickly enough to defeat Saudi, I doubt it.

The other thinking is what is the plusses and minusses of Saudi attacking Iran. Yes Saudi Arabia in the short term could gain air superiority and Naval superiority, but what then. It would probably degenerate into a slug fest. Iran could use small submarines, fast attak craft, helicopeters with anti ship missiles and land based anti ship missiles to deny oil exports from Saudi, Kuwait and other gulf states.

Iran could claim it was attacked without reason. It would then see no reason not to speed up its nuclear program (it has the technogy and centrifuges can be dispersed into numerous small underground locations). It would claim that the US was paty to any Saudi action. Iran would start up the insurgency in Iraq, and start supplying sophisticated weapons there, to attack US forces. I suspect guided anti tank weapons would be useful to insurgents.

Iran would start arming insurgent groups is Afganistan more and more. Wih better radios, better SAMs, sophiscitated anti tank guided missiles, the insurgents would be even more effective.

Iran would send fast attack craft across the gulf, with small groups of commandos with orders to destroy oil refineries. Probably they would all be killed, but not before they do a lot of damage.

Then what happens in 4 or 5 years and Iran has the a bomb, what then?

So yes, Iran cant win a conventional war, but an invasion of Iran would be expensive, and very deadly. A mere air power attack would push Iran into developing nuclear weapons. At the moment they seem to be developing their technology and improving their ability to enrich uranium, they have , roughly 6000 gas centrifuges that are known.

What do you do when Iran gets the a bomb. They can claim with a degree of justication that they were attacked with reason, and have the right to fight back.

From a personal point of view, I am no fan of Iran. They have moved from a quasi democracy to a brutal dictatorship.

Iran does not have the high tech to win a conventional war. What they are good at is building hte little things, like RPGs, machine guns, mortars. It is vertically integrated. They make guided anti tank missiles. They have launched their own space satellite.

iran very strong from you thinking .
most of incoming export oil is costs for building military industrial and about 2 milion people working in this area most of them non governemet. and they are existing in all of iran land.

 

[fahj]

well this thread sure degenerated pretty quickly

If you are interested in the Iranian military, the best information that I know of can be found at military photos dot net. There is a thread there that goes into twenty pages or so. It is very detailed and has a huge amount of information.

this is one thread

[external forum links not allowed.]

but this thread only relates to one aircraft. There is a much larger thread at the same website that goes into everything, is really really detailed. The overview would seem to be that Iran seems good at the basics, but cant match the high tech of new weapons systems.

This is less of an issue, a new G3 rifle, is quite similar to a G3 rifle designed 30 years ago, and as such they would be competitive, same for mortars, grenades, machine guns etc. However when it comes to combat aircraft, the one that was king 30 years ago, is not competitive against todays best aircraft.

find the thread at military photos dot net, it will tell you all you need to know. Well most things that are in the public domain should be say.

i think iranian pilots are important not there aircraft becaus they are in owns sky and supproted from ground equipment.

 

[Feanor]

I'm not sure you realize how huge the difference is between a modernized F-5 knock-off and a F-15C, or EF-2000.

 

[Todjaeger]

I'm not sure you realize how huge the difference is between a modernized F-5 knock-off and a F-15C, or EF-2000.

And more importantly, the system of systems which compliment and support the F-15C, EF-2000, et. al. Minor little things like satcoms, AEW/AWACS, datalinks.

Plus of course the training and doctrine to effectively use the platform and supporting system.
Collectively, it all makes an enormous difference.

-Cheers