US-Iran standoff 2019-

Solid fuelled rockets should be fine for a decade or two... liquid fuels are more volatile but you can leave fuelling them until you are ready to launch them like the Germans did with their V-2s...

I am afraid I have no idea how many missiles they have but to be honest it would be rather cheaper to make tens of thousands of cruise missiles than ballistic missiles... if they can make F-5 fighter planes then making a long range cruise missile is basic stuff... they don't need state of the art engines... even a fairly average model would do... fit the thing with drop tanks to extend flight range if needed.

Modular design would mean if the solid rocket fuel has expired and is not trustworthy, just remove that section and replace it with a new one.

Its based upon Kh-55 missiles sold to Iran from Ukraine.  Reversed engineered and given some updates and bam, low altitude flying cruise missile that Iran can produce.

I would modify them to seriously increase flight range.

The tiny folding wings can be change to larger fixed wings that generate more lift... by redesigning them so they don't fold away you could fit more fuel in the missile and the extra lift generated by the larger wings would allow it to operate at heavier weights.
I would redesign the launcher so it is not tube launched and just one missile is carried per truck with the wings unfolded already for launch and fixed so they can be stronger but not a lot heavier.
With fixed wings you could load external fuel tanks that are dropped when empty to extend range... it would probably need two or more extra solid rocket boosters to get it airborne, but the extra weight should not be too much of an issue. Slightly forward swept wings for efficient subsonic cruise with external fuel tanks to extend range performance should be useful features.

Were there to be a conflict I doubt that it would last long. Both sides will fling everything they can on the first days in an attempt at a knockout blow as there is no way an invasion force of sufficient size, like Iraq, could be landed.

Actually, if the Iranians are smart it could last a very long time... look at Kosovo... NATO aircraft were running out of targets...

In a conflict against Iran the US certainly wont want to risk turning the entire population against them by hitting the wrong targets, but of course when someone from the other side of the planet who has been sanctioning your country starts bombing it it is hard to get behind them... a US attack on Iran would probably make being a member of the opposition pretty unpopular with the majority...

The devastation on both sides will be enormous.

I am not sure it will... the US will have no interest in butchering millions of Iranian military, because that worked out well in Iraq didn't it... the same military is going to have to serve as a stabilising force for any new puppet regime the US wants to install, so they can't really humiliate the Iranian military... when they made that mistake in Iraq they basically sowed the seeds for ISIS which was mainly the Sunni officers of the Iraqi armed forces and the rabble left over in the region who wanted the US out and their own country whose borders were not created by the British and the French in the early part of the 20th century.

We will likely see lots of US generals showing video footage hitting various tunnel complexes and certain buildings they will claim are critical to the Iranian regime and their nuclear weapons programme and their ballistic missile programmes, but just like the ones from Kosovo and Serbia we really wont know how actually effective they were for some time afterwards... and US performance in destroying Scud missiles before they launched in the 1990s and later will again be put to the test... I would suggest the Iranians have upped the game compared with Iraqi Scuds that were falling to pieces as they fell towards their targets because the range extensions were not balanced with strength increases for the missiles...

The Iranians will have a very wide range of targets they could take on, and enemies they have wanted an excuse to attack for some time now no doubt... for all we know their ballistic missiles might contain dead animals with foot and mouth disease or anthrax or some other chem or bio weapon... they could airburst several kms up and release material all over the place... whether they are intercepted or not...

The effect on us, in the rest of the world, will be catastrophic as oil prices hit the roof and we disappear into recession. For better or worse Trump would lose in 2020.

Hahahahaha... don't know what it is like where you are but I am paying $2.25 per litre anyway... if they put the prices up any more I will get my car converted to LPG...

High fuel prices is actually good for the planet... the more expensive petrol and diesel is the more alternatives become worth looking at like LPG and also electric like solar and wind power...

R their missile production plants & storage sites also deep underground? If not, they'll be bombed on the 1st day of the air war.

They will almost certainly be under ground, and we will see night after night of video footage from the Americans saying this or that explosion will have ended the war... except it wont... the Iranians have always been smarter than the Americans have ever given them credit for...

IMO, the US will try a decapitation strikes to remove the top leadership in Tehran or wherever they'll happen to be.

Yeah, brilliant... get rid of the current moderates so that the hard liners can seize power and really stick it to you... the Iranian people will suffer more, but the new leadership will likely adopt a more belligerent role in the region.... they could send enormous numbers of troops to Syria for instance....

That's why only 1 CVN & 2 B-52s r being deployed near Iran. If they r successful, the Iranian opposition & other proxies will do the rest, sparing American, Saudi, UAE, & Israeli lives.

Yeah, I enjoyed fairy tales when I was a kid too, but can we agree that after murdering the people they voted to put into power and of course all the economic stress and pain US sanctions have caused that even the Iranian opposition might not actually be pro US?

I mean american faggots squealed like bitches at the hint that Russian hackers might have "interfered" in US elections, all the while admitting it had no effect on the results... imagine how Iranians feel about America and the west in general with your history in the entire region...

They can also hit israeli nuclear plant resulting into a new Tchernobyl.

They will have other nuclear facilities used for producing nuclear weapons that would also be targeted... being able to hide your fighters in the hills and mountains near Syria to launch sneak attacks at Iranian and Syrian forces... well those radar shadows work both ways...

But then the winds will carry the radioactive cloud to Iraq & Iran, with some fallout reaching Pakistan, India, China, Korea & Japan.

Funny... when Israel says they will use nuclear weapons to defend their existence then nobody gets upset or talks about radiation damage or fall out, yet the potential for Iran to try to defend itself from a group of countries violating international law and you whip that one out?

I remember the rhetoric over Saddam attacking Kuwaite... he was violating international law by attacking his neighbour in an unprovoked attack... how can we describe US actions against Iran... a country they have a long history of Fucking Over.

mad dog Bolton influencing mad dog trump, this doesn't bode well. what a seriously fucked country they are.

The sad thing is it would be more accurate to replace country with planet in this case because it wont just be the US and Iran that get all the benefits and glory of what will likely be a very nasty conflict...

It’s a shame they have not got the abilities to properly defend themselves.

We need to see what they are prepared to do... they might surprise everyone...

The carnage will be from the air day and night.

Yeah, I don't think they will be going for shock and awe... most of their primary targets will be ballistic rocket bases and the homes of the leaders of the country and official buildings.

They would probably hit the "secret police" buildings and also a few prisons to create a bit of mayhem, not to mention the obvious airfields, army barracks, comms centres, HQs, and anything potentially to do with nuclear weapons development and production.

They will also likely try to hit ports and naval vessels where they can and any coastal installation that uses anti ship missiles.

In their turn I think the Iranians will try to launch ballistic missiles at US bases in nearby countries while they still have them... which will be why such bases will be such important targets.

Cruise missile launchers could simply be buildings where the wall facing the nearest coast or in the direction of the primary target falls away and the missile is launched... no reloads so it wont matter if it is hit by air power after it has launched and there would probably be no reason to hit it before it launches... they can't hit every building in the country...

Boots on the ground is a non runner as the Iranians would inflict real damage there.

Which means boots might have to go to where the American boots are...

the capabilities are anyones guess but the airforce will be destroyed on day one leaving their very questionable air defence network to thwart the attacks..

Yeah, in Kosovo the Serbs were going to be begging for peace terms in 3 days if I remember some claims correctly... a week tops...

Not saying the Iranians are Serbs or vice versa, but Iran has some capable systems that the Serbs lacked and also while there are US friendly countries in the area there are also US non friendly countries there too.... more to the point there is a channel of water that goes beside Iran that is critical to the US...

US military complex must be licking their lips - big pay day coming, a lot of ordinance required.

But what if they can't get enough F-22s over there and the F-35s they send start suffocating pilots and crashing... or both turn out to be not as invisible to radar as the US has been claiming? I mean if Serbia can shoot down an F-117 with an ancient SA-3... how about the Iranians shoot down a B-2 with an S-300...

They r not moderates anymore as far as relations with the US r concerned.

If they are not it is because the US gave them no choice... it is not Iran that has broken the agreement it is the US and now the EU.

They hope that the new regime will be fractured & less active in the ME.

What new regime? All will be united against the US and the west again... and the only reason they have been active in the ME is because the US and the West and Israel and Saudi Arabia have been fucking everyone over... Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya... was Iran supposed to ignore expansion of Sunni terrorism supported by the west?

Attacking Iran will not solve the problem because the problem is not Iran.

Ordinary Iranians r pissed that $ & resources r being spent on Iraq & Syria while the economy suffers from crippling sanctions.

Again.... fucking hilarious... the west destroys Syria and Iraq and Yemen and Iran tries to help but Iran is the bad guy that needs regime change... no wonder ISIS finds it so easy to recruit.

They neither confirm nor deny their possession of nukes.

Yet they are so certain Iran has nukes and while following all the rules to allow them access to nuclear power generation technology and signing the nuclear non proliferation treaty Israel wants to bomb the shit out of Iran because they think that Iran might have or nearly have something they have hundreds of...

Like I said, Israel is the biggest promoter of anti Semitism... a country born from white jewish terrorism that has the support of the west out of sympathy because of German actions 70 years ago... which I find rather amusing because while what Germany did to the jews was bad they did the same to the communists and the crippled and the gays and a great long list of others including those who just happened to be slavs, but the jews have great pr and lots of money and they own many media outlets so they cannot be criticised.... fuck em... if Palestine doesn't exist then why should israel?

The prevailing Westerly winds favor Israel.

The time of the west is fading... and partly because of its inconsistencies... Israel was born from terrorism and will continue to live with terrorism forever because negotiations... open and fair are a weakness and jews are strong don't you know... well strong when stealing land or money.

That's irrelevant as the attack won't last too long; they'll hate their own gov. as much, if not more, for bankrupting the country.

So if Cuba launched a ballistic missile attack on your neighbourhood and killed some people there would you rise up against Trump for getting the US into a situation where Cuba is attacking you?

Some believe- or it could be propaganda or "fake news"- that they have a parallel secret nuclear program to build nukes at underground sites that no1 not approved by the IRGC is allowed into.

Yeah bro, and some believe in the tooth fairy, but they are just western children which is why we don't elect people under the age of 4 into elected government positions...

Honestly, if you are trying to suggest it is OK to attack Iran and murder some people because someone said they might have a secret nuclear weapons programme but there is no evidence at all that this might be true... congrats... you are a drone for their machine... how many relatives are you prepared to lose over this?

If it was true, I'm not sure it's easy to hide something like it from modern detection methods, otherwise the US, not to mention Israel, would have revealed more than we heard so far.

If it was true it would be the smoking gun they would use to murder a lot of Iranians, but without proof it is pretty much the same WMD bullshit from Iraq...

Iran has more strategic depth than any other ME nation- Iraq was easy to bomb & invade from Saudi Arabia & Kuwait + CBGs that had land based tanker support & weren't facing LR AShMs, with USSR/Russia not intervening.

But America is a hyperpower and they can beat anyone overnight... except Serbians and Somalians and Vietnamese and Koreans.

Now it would be an uphill battle & thus, if it does happen, we'll see a replay of the 1998 Desert Fox or US CM attack on Syria at the most. Then the Washington hawks will be satisfied & the chickens won't freak out. Iran will be destabilized as a result- the US practiced the art of regime change/hybrid war & perfected it better than any1 else.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.... yeah Washington dickheads are fucking experts at bringing peace and democracy and regime change... I mean people are flocking to move to the Ukraine and Libya to live and those are the success stories...

Israel tricked the Syrians in to shooting down a Russian military plane... you can claim it was all a big mistake but I really don't think so... they sent a message specifically to get the Russian plane to head towards where their operation was about to take place... in my opinion it was murder... hense the Russian reaction... so the Israelis got exactly what they were hoping for... perhaps they thought the Russians would place the blame on the Syrians... that was who they were blaming... but the result was the opposite of what they wanted... the Russians decided to give the Syrians an air defence capability vastly more powerful than they had ever had before, and where once the Israeli airforce and indeed the US airforce could fly where they liked, now they need to use stand off weapons in enormous numbers and most of the time those get shot down and don't hit anything.

Now what were you saying about this being really quick and so the US just needs to fly in there and take out the Iranian air force and the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people will rise up and have a civil war and the more moderate regime will create peace in the region by being more inward looking.

Do you write for Disney?

When the US attacks the Iranian leadership are going to realise that their best friends right now are Russia and China and the EU can go fuck itself because they will be no use at all.

How long did it take for the US to finally take out Saddam? I mean they started trying to kill him in 1990... how long did it take them to get Castro?

Making the leadership and regime of Iran the enemy instantly cements their local support... they didn't break any agreements... the US did that.

If you think the US is expert at hybrid war look at the Crimea and Ukraine... the Russians and US respectively... how has each gone in terms of future and democracy and prosperity?

Officials Reject Pompeo's Claim Iran Is Working With al-Qaeda

Fucking Hilarious... US working with Alqaeda in Syria...

If a real war starts, Iran may get nukes in 6 months, if not less- the US has not enough ground troops to invade it, only some islands in the Gulf.

If they promise to use them only on US targets then Pakistan might give them some nukes...

Lots of cocky people on this forum and in the US government and media who think this is going to be a walk over and that all they have to do is attack a couple of targets and it will be all over is amusing.

Can I suggest that any air attack will probably be a stealth aircraft attack so they can show off those planes that cost so many trillions of dollars (F-35 1.5 trillion, and F-22 and B-2 at least half a trillion each so we are looking at more than 2.5 trillion there)... what happens if a long wave radar or other platform detects something and a Pantsir battery in the right place is used to engage aircraft optically... imagine the shit storm if one or more stealth aircraft gets shot down... this is an enormous risk for the US and would be enormous pressure on their planners to get this right...

The Iranians are not stupid and will have worked out which likely targets will get attacked...

They don't need to take down the entire US AF... just one or more stealth aircraft would do fine...

And they already took down a US stealth drone... a super secret one at that... how did they even know it was there... it was stealthy too after all.