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...