How many air defense systems does Iran have? - explainer

In the wake of the Israeli airstrikes against Iran on Saturday, there has been increased focus on Iran’s air-defense systems. In general, even though Iran has a large number of air-defense systems, its air defenses have not been a strongpoint.

This is partly because Iran hasn’t faced a major conventional military threat for years, and it has been under sanctions. The last time Iran fought a conventional war and had to seriously defend its airspace was during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Therefore, Tehran has to make do with what it has and invest where it can in defenses. Iran boasts an impressive quantity of different systems. Whether they are effective is less clear.

Iran’s defense mechanisms: Quantity over quality

Iran’s air defenses are also hampered by the fact it doesn’t have a large air force that can aid its air defenders by intercepting threats. Iran’s air force is aging and is not well placed to confront a modern sophisticated fifth-generation air force, such as Israel’s.

That being said, Iran hasn’t needed its air force in recent decades because it has usually been able to support proxies abroad. Iran also carved out a kind of buffer zone by colonizing part of Iraq using pro-Iranian militias. Therefore, Iran is actually well placed in the region because many of the countries in the region are relatively weak or are not its enemies.

Israel’s October 26 attack included precision strikes on numerous targets. What is known about these strikes is only being revealed slowly in the media. For instance, Iranian radar systems were “breached” during the airstrikes and their “screens froze,” KAN News reported Monday. Due to this possible breach, The Jerusalem Post reported earlier, Iran’s ability to intercept targets was limited and allowed the IAF to penetrate Iranian airspace, according to Iranian sources cited by KAN News. All of Iran’s air defenses were impacted by the strikes, The Wall Street Journal reported.

What is the significance of saying all of Iran’s air defenses may have been impacted? To understand what may have been impacted, it’s worth understanding what Iran has in terms of air defenses. Four Iranian S-300 batteries were affected, according to reports.

Iran acquired the S-300 system from Russia over the past two decades. The deal dates from 2007 when Iran signed an $800 million deal for the Russian system. But the deal was delayed over the years. Tehran sought to acquire four of the systems. It was supposed to give Iran a major military advantage over its Arab neighbors in the Gulf, which use advanced American warplanes and air defenses.

Iran has actually tested those defenses over the years. In 2019, Iran attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq facility with drones and cruise missiles. The Houthis also attacked Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The Iranian S-300 acquisition was covered heavily by Qatari media. The “range and advance tracking of the S-300 system allows Iran to threaten aircraft long way from its borders,” Al Jazeera reported in 2015. A year later, it reported:  “Iran Foreign Ministry confirms receipt of S-300 long-range, surface-to-air missile as part of first batch of the defenses.”

This past April, Israel “hit the Artesh air force base in Isfahan, destroying part of an S-300 long-range air defense system,” Al Jazeera reported.

The S-300 system consists of several components. It has launchers and as two radar systems. This means each S-300 battery actually has a number of vehicles, radars, launchers, and components.

Iran has received four of them from Russia since 2015. They included the S-300PMU2 version of the batteries and the S-300PMU1 version. In 2016, the Washington Institute reported: “Even if upgraded, the system has lower capabilities than the PMU-2 version Tehran was originally believed to purchase, but it still represents a potentially formidable boost to the country’s air-defense network.”

According to reports, each had four launchers, two radars, and other support vehicles. Photos showed “what appear to be partially camouflaged components of the ST68U/UM Tin Shield and 64N6E Big Bird search-and-acquisition radars associated with the older PMU-1 version,” a report said.

The S-300s are located in different places, and they can be moved. The Institute for Science and International Security said the S-300s were key to defending nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow. Reports in the wake of the October 26 airstrikes point to several S-300 sites being affected near Tehran, as well as radar sites in places such as Ilam.

Iran has its own locally made air defenses that are as good as the S-300, according to reports. Iran has a number of other locally made systems. It has showcased the Bavar 373 air-defense system. The system uses the Sayyad 4 missile and can supposedly shoot down aircraft and other threats.

“The Bavar’s two radars are carried on eight-wheeled Zafar trucks: an S-Band acquisition radar for spotting aircraft at a distance, and a shorter-range but more precise X-Band fire control radar that guides missiles to their targets,” The National Interest reported. “Both are supposedly Active Electronically Scanned Array radars, which are harder to detect and have higher resolution.” The system could engage targets up to 155 miles away, the same article said.

According to the Washington Institute report in 2016 that examined the Russian supply of S-300s to Iran, “To effectively cover such a large country, however, Iran will still need to integrate the S-300s with its modified S-200 and Raad surface-to-air missiles, and perhaps with the Bavar-373, a system that is claimed to be under development in Iran loosely based on the S-300 design.”

The overall goal of the different radars and systems is that they can detect hundreds of targets at a range of 200 to 300 miles and then intercept the targets at a range of up to 100 miles.

Iran also developed other systems or improved upon existing systems. Iran developed a system with missiles based on the US-made MIM-23 Hawk air-defense system. It called the system Mersad and continued to improve upon it in recent decades, using locally made missiles dubbed Shalamcheh and Shahin and also a version of the Sayyad-2 missile. A later version of this system was called the Mersad-16, also called Kamin, and it is a road-mobile, short-range, air-defense system.

Iran has a plethora of other systems and surface-to-air missiles. The Sayyad 1 missile that Iran uses was developed based on a Chinese system called HQ-2J. Iran also has Russian S-200s. The Iranian regime also employs the 15 Khordad system, as well as the shorter-range HQ-7(CH-SA-4) of Chinese origin. Iran also uses the Russian Tor M1 system. Iran mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian commercial airliner using the Tor M1 system in 2020.

Iran also developed a system called Talaash, which uses its Sayyad-2 and Sayyad-3 missiles. That system first appeared in 2013. Around the same time, Iran introduced the Raad air-defense system, from which it then developed its 3rd Khordad air-defense system. It used a 3rd Khordad to shoot down a large American Global Hawk drone off the coast of Iran in 2019. It also tried to export the 3rd Khordad to Syria in April 2018. The system arrived at Syria’s T-4 base but was destroyed upon arrival.

Iran has sought to increase its air defense capabilities in recent years. In February, Tehran claimed to have rolled out a new missile system called Arman and a new air-defense system called Azarakhsh.

“Arman is also known as Tactical Sayyad, as the missiles used in it belong to the Sayyad 3 class,” Iranian state media reported. “The system is capable of detecting targets from a distance of 180 kilometers (112 miles) and engaging at least 12 targets within the range of 120 km (74.5 mi) simultaneously.”

In June, Iranian Brig.-Gen. Alireza Sabahifard inspected “tactical radar sites, observation posts, and artillery positions along the northwestern border,” Iranian state media reported. “Air Defense, based on its indigenous capabilities and domestic capacities, is at a very high level of readiness and combat capability,” Sabahifard was quoted as saying.

In August, Iranian state media boasted that the military had received new equipment, including locally-made radars and missiles.