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2004-06-02 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran says it is building a stealth missile
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Posted by Steve 2004-06-02 9:26:08 AM|| || Front Page|| [11129 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 they can base them at the large paved parking lot Khomeini Airport. Iranian tech woo hoo!
Posted by Frank G  2004-06-02 9:41:54 AM||   2004-06-02 9:41:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#2  ...a rocket that can evade electronic detection, the Iranian Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The missile, named Kowsar after a river in paradise, will be capable of hitting ships and aircraft...

ECCM capabilities no doubt provided by those transistor radios that Russian guy sold to Saddam right before the war - you remember, the ones that could make LGBs and GPS guided bombs miss?
The code on the guidance system has gotta be impressive too:
001: KILL ALL JOOOOOS
002: KILL ALL INFIDELS
003: ULULATE
All kidding aside, a combination SAM/SSM isn't that far outta whack - the USN's Standard SAM had a secondary SSM capability long ago, and there is a land attack variant of the current service version(http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/lasm.htm), but to the best of my knowledge has never been used that way. Now - keep in mind the old Imperial Iranian Navy had a bunch of Standards shipped to it in the good old days...

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2004-06-02 9:56:25 AM||   2004-06-02 9:56:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 huh. They're doing all that without Juche?
Posted by BH 2004-06-02 9:59:50 AM||   2004-06-02 9:59:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Iran is producing its first stealth missile, a rocket that can evade electronic detection, the Iranian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

Yep, it's so tiny it can evade detection. Only problem? It packs no punch.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-06-02 10:25:33 AM||   2004-06-02 10:25:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 So if one of our planes or boats gets boomed, can we just assume Iran did it?
Posted by JerseyMike 2004-06-02 10:31:52 AM||   2004-06-02 10:31:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Just begging Israel to to give them the whipping they so much deserve.
Posted by Tom 2004-06-02 10:56:44 AM||   2004-06-02 10:56:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 The missile, named Kowsar after a river in paradise

How do we know all the geograpic names of places in paradise? Who went? How did they then came back and made a report?

#s 5,6 - Exactly - in one way or another - BOOM! -
Mullahs in Paradise.



Posted by BigEd 2004-06-02 11:30:21 AM||   2004-06-02 11:30:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 According to the folks at the Buffalo Naval Park & Museum, the 1959-vintage Talos missiles on USS Little Rock had a secondary anti-ship capability.
Posted by Mike  2004-06-02 11:33:04 AM||   2004-06-02 11:33:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 SEND IN VIRGINS
From “Khatami In Paradise”

Sung to :
“Send in the Clowns”
By Stephen Sondheim

Isn't it nice?
Bombs in the air?
Me here in heaven right now,
and Khomeni down there.
Where are virgins?
Send in virgins,
They have to be here!

Just when I stopped,
Sending missiles,
Finally finding the one,
That’d smash Zionists.
But entering airspace,
with their new fighter planes.
Things went K-boom.
Now everyone’s here. . .

Isn't it rich?
Iran’s no more
Losing the Persians from,
Maps after 3000 years,
But where are virgins?
Send in virgins.
Well, maybe ... next year.
Posted by Oge_Retla_2004 2004-06-02 11:34:08 AM||   2004-06-02 11:34:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 "Features of the Kowsar, such as its guidance and positioning systems..."

Probably stamped "Frabrique en France."

As others have noted, you can use a SAM to attack surface targets, but the warhead is too small to do much damage. OTOP, against a really soft target, you might not need much to do a lot. Remember that the HMS Sheffield was sunk by a dud Exocet (the rocket motor caused the fire; the warhead never went off). An oil tanker probably could withstand a few hits. An LPG tanker though ... BOOM!

Of course, "stealth" is not an all-or-nothing thing. Reduced RCS is a typical design goal of cruise missiles and not hard to achieve. It IS harder on SAMs because they have to go so fast that an aerodynamically inefficient shape really hurts your range.

Anyway, a reduced RCS does not make the missile invisible; it only reduces the range at which a given radar system can detect it. That does hurt defenses (less tracking time and you need a faster intercept). The only question I would have is: how much is the RCS reduced? 10%, 90%, 99.99%? To an extent, using it against ships might not matter so much as we can turn up the power on the Aegis (for ships with it). Heck, that radar can practically burn out the missile by itself. It does mean that the Phalanx or RAM will have less time to shoot the thing down.

Now, a "stealth" SAM makes less sense. First of all, how do you guide it? With a built in radar, like AMRAAM/ERAM? Well, then who cares how "stealthy" your airframe is when you are blasting out radar waves? A passive IR system would eliminate that problem, but that's really only reliable for a short range. It might be usable for point defense, but not area defense. Oh, you could make it a semi-active system like Standard, but then your guidance station on the ground becomes a HARM target.

(Guess where I work.)
Posted by Jackal  2004-06-02 1:00:55 PM|| [http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]  2004-06-02 1:00:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Prevent Estes from selling them the "D" engine. The proliferation must stop!!!
Posted by Super Hose  2004-06-02 3:11:46 PM||   2004-06-02 3:11:46 PM|| Front Page Top

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