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2005-03-18 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Now Has 12 X-55 (Kh-55) Strategic Cruise Missiles, from Ukraine
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Posted by Anonymoose 2005-03-18 4:19:59 PM|| || Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 I'd say the Mad Mullahs just upped the ante.
Posted by Bobby 2005-03-18 4:28:03 PM||   2005-03-18 4:28:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Unlikely they've a nuke to fit this particular delivery system.
Posted by Shipman 2005-03-18 4:50:24 PM||   2005-03-18 4:50:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 I call BS on this one. I don't think the Mad Mullahs have the capability to maintain, reprogram and deploy these bad boys without direct help from the Russians. They will look good in a military parade, however.
Posted by Classical_Liberal 2005-03-18 4:51:49 PM||   2005-03-18 4:51:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Even if they could find the "On" switch on these things, they'd have to fly them over Iraq to get to Israel. The moment these things are spotted, the US will assume out of prudence that Iran was launching an attack on US forces there.
Posted by Laurence of the Rats  2005-03-18 5:09:42 PM|| [http://www.punictreachery.com/]  2005-03-18 5:09:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 And that doesn't even count the fact the moment they are spotted, Israel is going to hammer Iran out of existence. And for the wobblies out there, no, they won't ask our permission first.
Posted by Silentbrick  2005-03-18 5:22:59 PM||   2005-03-18 5:22:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Report I saw said the ChiComs got some too. What are the chances that they can reverse engineer the things to make use of em? We already know how they love to share stuff with the mullahs.
Posted by Rex Mundi 2005-03-18 5:33:09 PM||   2005-03-18 5:33:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 The 1st problem for the Iranians is how to make a warhead small enough to fit the payload capacity of these missles.

The scond problem is how to get them pas air defenses - unlike ballistic missles, these can be spotted and shot down rather easily - the F-14 (back in the 1970's) was designed to look-down shhot-down in order to kill sea skillers that were a danger to US ships. Who is to saythat Israeli CAP would not be able to do the same? Add to that overflight of Iraq and exposre to SAM batteries there...

Not to say these are not a threat (filled with bio or chem munitions), but they are not as severe a threat as ballisitic missles with nuke warheads.
Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM||   2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 This is just an alternative power delivery system from their peaceful nuclear power plants. Apparently, the Mad Mullah Neighborhood Association doesn't allow for overhead transmission wires. The solution? Why nuclear tipped missiles, of course. Soon they will be able to deliver 200 kilotons, ahem, watts of nuclear power to their new customers in Israel, Iraq, and southern Europe.
Posted by Scott R  2005-03-18 5:45:26 PM|| [http://five24.net]  2005-03-18 5:45:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Quick! Call in the UN for surrender negotiations...
Posted by Hyper 2005-03-18 6:01:50 PM||   2005-03-18 6:01:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 To expand a little on OldSpook's points.

This is a terrain-following system. That means that to launch it, you need the missile, launcher and a bunch of support equipment including the targetting computers. Now, if Teheran or Beijing got digital terrain map models and the associated software from Kiev, they have the full capability. Otherwise, they have something interesting to parade and to reverse engineer. The Chinese certainly will have done that and the Iranians might have.

Re: warheads, it takes a lot of expertise to miniaturize a nuclear package to fit a missile of this size. Chem or possibly bio is more likely.
Posted by Robin Burk 2005-03-18 6:41:07 PM||   2005-03-18 6:41:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 N.B.: The Iranians are demanding the Russians launch their targetting satellite as soon as possible. A satellite to pinpoint targets is fairly unneccessary, but used to map terrain en route to targets would be very cost effective.
Posted by Anonymoose 2005-03-18 7:02:40 PM||   2005-03-18 7:02:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Assume the worst case, that Iran got the bare system without the targeting computers or terrain maps. That leaves them with two basic problems: building the GIS waypoint list and loading it into the missiles.

Building the necessary terrain maps is almost child's play if done the conventional way. Back in the day I wrote, in a matter of months, a global terrain mapping application that placed terrestrial users and tracked their LOS communications links with LEO satellites and I was no better than an average software engineer. That sort of thing could be adapted to plot waypoint courses in a matter of hours (days at the most). There's relatively solid GIS data available commercially to feed such systems and one can always just dial in a few extra meters altitude at each waypoint to keep the missile from slamming into the side of a mountain so there's no huge obstacle there.

If the Iranians don't want to wing it they have other options. They could, for example, send a GPS-equipped person across northern Saudi Arabia and Jordan to the Israeli border or across southeastern Turkey and Syria to the Israeli border then simply download the list of waypoints from the traveler's commercial GPS (they have several routing solutions, not just across Iraq). I'd imagine they'd have little trouble doing something similar within Israel itself so figure the waypoints / terrain map issue is absolutely moot.

Communicating with the guidance systems in the missiles is also probably not an issue. Assuming the Russians used stolen western commercial microprocessors, derivatives thereof, or systems they themselves documented well, they'll be well-documented and easy to interface with. Nothing beyond the capabilities of any moderately competent electrical engineer.

The only real challenge will be figuring out where to load the waypoints, the precise format required, and how many waypoints can be used / are required. Figure 6 months for a team of particularly dull and unimaginative engineers to completely reverse engineer the primitive operating / guidance system and viola, operational missiles.

Now for that payload ....
Posted by AzCat 2005-03-18 7:42:14 PM||   2005-03-18 7:42:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 "Hello OnStar"
Posted by Frank G  2005-03-18 7:47:28 PM||   2005-03-18 7:47:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Heh I'm with Old SPook but for another reason. The payload capacity of the KH-55SM variant (the nuke capable variant) is about 3300lbs. However these suckers are huge and were only carried by the Bear and Blackjack bombers. Next you have the debka article which doesn't exactly state which variant we're looking at which may add limitations. There are a lot of the anti-ship variants of the Kh-55 that were pushed in the 90s by the Russians for sales abroad which were more limited to tactical ranges and a lot smaller payloads, but had basically the same designation. I'd say at the moment finding out if this is true and then finding out which variants were sold if true is the most important thing right now.
Posted by Valentine 2005-03-18 7:49:26 PM||   2005-03-18 7:49:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 And it is Debka. Traffic volume is probably more important than content. I would not be surprised to hear lots of disinformation from that source in the days running up to any action by Israel.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-03-18 7:55:36 PM||   2005-03-18 7:55:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 The original story was a mea culpa and an admission by the Ukrainian State Prosecutor. Debka has just picked up on that story and filled in some blanks, from their point of view. I also noted that the Ukrainians said that materials related to "radiation weapons" were delivered to Iran. Now, putting a rad weapon on one of these things is a terrible waste of money; but, if you deploy radiation bombs ahead of time it might be a useful distraction, either before or after you launch your nuclear weapons. Last but not least, remember that Iran *also* still has the SHAHAB missiles, and just because they use one weapons system doesn't mean they won't use several.
Posted by Anonymoose 2005-03-18 8:22:36 PM||   2005-03-18 8:22:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 As another steely-eyed (if near-sighted) missile-man, I too am Old Spook on this.
As we have seen here at Rantburg, roughly analogous (though smaller) weapons can be made by private individuals from commercially available components. The real hang-up is the nuclear package for this missile, but even that may not be out of reach for a nation-state with Iran's resources and worldwide network of sympathizers.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-03-18 9:21:07 PM||   2005-03-18 9:21:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 I remember a distant, now dead, relative tell me in the late 90s that, based on his reading of intel, Iran had three battlefield tacticals. (Some how by hook or crook after the USSR fell). Seems they might be small enough for these cruise jobs.
Posted by 3dc 2005-03-18 10:01:22 PM||   2005-03-18 10:01:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Yet another reason for either us or the Israelis to pulverize the mullahs' machinery and facilities into very fine dust particles.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-03-18 10:56:12 PM||   2005-03-18 10:56:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 The 1st problem for the Iranians is how to make a warhead small enough to fit the payload capacity of these missles.

The scond problem is how to get them pas air defenses - unlike ballistic missles, these can be spotted and shot down rather easily - the F-14 (back in the 1970's) was designed to look-down shhot-down in order to kill sea skillers that were a danger to US ships. Who is to saythat Israeli CAP would not be able to do the same? Add to that overflight of Iraq and exposre to SAM batteries there...

Not to say these are not a threat (filled with bio or chem munitions), but they are not as severe a threat as ballisitic missles with nuke warheads.
Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM||   2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM||   2005-03-18 5:40:05 PM|| Front Page Top

23:58 Spaimble Hupaiper3886
23:50 nada
23:35 Spaimble Hupaiper3886
23:34 Bobby
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