Although the Iranian military is very secretive they have showed off some of their equipments. Lets talk about Iran's military capabilities incase of war against aggressors. Also about Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

mean while here are some pictures of its military, (not that great picture but what do you expect)

to tell there would have to be a war.  

though, in my opinion it could hold its own against any regional power.

Israel could not beat Iran in a conventional war if it was trying to invade, not even Iraq, that is why Israel asked America to do the dirty work for it, there are not enough Israelis to do it and they are so scared of spilling their own blood.

Funny how one of the first things America did was to look into reinstating the Kirkuk -> Haifa pipeline.

During the shah period of Reza Pahlavi, I believe Iran had the fourth most powerful army. I guess this changed after the revolution because either other countries got more powerful and more advanced or the Iranian army just weakened.

Also, Iraq was being completely supported by all western powers during the Iran-Iraq war. The Americans supported Iraq and Saddam because Iran was supposodly the less of the two "evils".

Iran gave Iran a drubbing int eh first 2 years of that war because:

- Iran had no competent military commanders most were purged, fled or were in prison one of my uncles was in Khuzestan on military service when they attacked, he said it was a calamity

- 40% of the regular army had deserted

- Iranian Airforce Pilots were mostly purged or in prison, when Iraq attacked they begged to be released to defend Iran and they were and did so like heroes. Iranian airforce was shooting Iraqi planes down 6:1, on one occassion 6 Iranian Phantom F-4s destroyed 42 Iraqi planes that were grounded near the Jordan border, they were refuelled over Iraqi Airspace.

Iraqi Airforce after these complete routings decided to go for low risk attrition targets like busy town centres, hospitals and schools, they avoided air to air combat.

Iran pushed Iraq out after 1982 and the rest of the fighting was mainly on Iraqi soil, at this point it looked like Iraq would lose, all major powers barr none started rushing aid to Saddam and that was the only thing that saved him, including WMD.

That war was indirectly equivalent to Iran vrs the world.

So Iran did not overall receive a drubbing, Saddam achieved none of his objectives and did infact lose that war and the bastard would never have dared to attack Iran prior to 1979.

Today I would say the Iranian army is much improved in terms of command structure from the 80s, where mullah warriors took control of operations and got hundreds of thousands needlessly killed, today dishonoring their memory by calling them martyrs for the "Islamic" cause, complete BS.

This is a good page for info on the Iran-Iraq war: http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/printer_205.shtml - http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/printer_205.shtml

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http://www.essaydepot.com/essayme/2223/index.php - http://www.essaydepot.com/essayme/2223/index.php

heres more pictures:

Can any body find picture of the new Iranian MBT,  Zolfaqar 3 ?

here read this, taken from

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL16Ak01.html - http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL16Ak01.html

How Iran will fight back
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

TEHRAN - The United States and Israel may be contemplating military operations against Iran, as per recent media reports, yet Iran is not wasting any time in preparing its own counter-operations in the event an attack materializes.

A week-long combined air and ground maneuver has just concluded in five of the southern and western provinces of Iran, mesmerizing foreign observers, who have http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/images/iran-us-bases.gif" target=_blank src="smileys/smiley3.gif" 0?> described as "spectacular" the
massive display of high-tech, mobile operations, including rapid-deployment forces relying on squadrons of helicopters, air lifts, missiles, as well as hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of well-coordinated personnel using live munition. Simultaneously, some 25,000 volunteers have so far signed up at newly established draft centers for "suicide attacks" against any potential intruders in what is commonly termed "asymmetrical warfare".

Behind the strategy vis-a-vis a hypothetical US invasion, Iran is likely to recycle the Iraq war's scenario of overwhelming force, particularly by the US Air Force, aimed at quick victory over and against a much weaker power. Learning from both the 2003 Iraq war and Iran's own precious experiences of the 1980-88 war with Iraq and the 1987-88 confrontation with US forces in the Persian Gulf, Iranians have focused on the merits of a fluid and complex defensive strategy that seeks to take advantage of certain weaknesses in the US military superpower while maximizing the precious few areas where they may have the upper hand, eg, numerical superiority in ground forces, guerrilla tactics, terrain, etc.

According to a much-publicized article on the "Iran war game" in the US-based Atlantic Monthly, the estimated cost of an assault on Iran is a paltry few tens of millions of dollars. This figure is based on a one-time "surgical strike" combining missile attacks, air-to-surface bombardments, and covert operations, without bothering to factor in Iran's strategy, which aims precisely to "extend the theater of operations" in order to exact heavier and heavier costs on the invading enemy, including by targeting America's military command structure in the Persian Gulf.

After this Iranian version of "follow-on" counter-strategy, the US intention of localized warfare seeking to cripple Iran's command system as a prelude to a systematic assault on key military targets would be thwarted by "taking the war to them", in the words of an Iranian military strategist who emphasized America's soft command structure in the southern tips of the Persian Gulf. (Over the past few months, US jet fighters have repeatedly violated Iran's air space over Khuzestan province, testing Iran's air defense system, according to Iranian military officials.)

Iran's proliferation of a highly sophisticated and mobile ballistic-missile system plays a crucial role in its strategy, again relying on lessons learned from the Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003: in the earlier war over Kuwait, Iraq's missiles played an important role in extending the warfare to Israel, notwithstanding the failure of America's Patriot missiles to deflect most of Iraq's incoming missiles raining in on Israel and, to a lesser extent, on the US forces in Saudi Arabia. Also, per the admission of the top US commander in the Kuwait conflict, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the hunt for Iraq's mobile Scud missiles consumed a bulk of the coalition's air strategy and was as difficult as searching for "needles in a haystack".

Today, in the evolution of Iran's military doctrine, the country relies on increasingly precise long-range missiles, eg, Shahab-3 and Fateh-110, that can "hit targets in Tel Aviv", to echo Iranian Foreign Minister Kemal Kharrazi.

Chronologically speaking, Iran produced the 50-kilometer-range Oghab artillery rocket in 1985, and developed the 120km- and 160km-range Mushak artillery rockets in 1986-87 and 1988 respectively. Iran began assembling Scud-Bs in 1988, and North Korean technical advisers in Iran converted a missile maintenance facility for missile manufacture in 1991. It does not seem, however, that Iran has embarked on Scud production. Instead, Iran has sought to build Shahab-3 and Shahab-4, having ranges of 1,300km with a 1,600-pound warhead, and 200km with a 220-pound warhead, respectively; the Shahab-3 was test-launched in July 1998 and may soon be upgraded to more than 2,000km, thus capable of reaching the middle of Europe.

Thanks to excess revenue from high oil prices, which constitute more than 80% of the government's annual budget, Iran is not experiencing the budget constraints of the early and mid-1990s, when its military expenditure was outdone nearly one to 10 by its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf who are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council; almost all the Arab states possess one or another kind of advanced missile system, eg, Saudi Arabia's CSS-2/DF, Yemen's SS-21, Scud-B, Iraq's Frog-7.

There are several advantages to a ballistic arsenal as far as Iran is concerned: first, it is relatively cheap and manufactured domestically without much external dependency and the related pressure of "missile export control" exerted by the US. Second, the missiles are mobile and can be concealed from the enemy, and third, there are advantages to fighter jets requiring fixed air bases. Fourth, missiles are presumed effective weapons that can be launched without much advance notice by the recipient targets, particularly the "solid fuel" Fatah-110 missiles that require only a few short minutes for installation prior to being fired. Fifth, missiles are weapons of confusion and a unique strike capability that can torpedo the best military plans, recalling how the Iraqi missile attacks in March 2003 at the US military formations assembled at the Iraq-Kuwait border forced a change of plan on the United States' part, thereby forfeiting the initial plan of sustained aerial strikes before engaging the ground forces, as was the case in the Kuwait war, when the latter entered the theater after some 21 days of heavy air strikes inside Iraq as well as Kuwait.

Henceforth, any US attack on Iran will likely be met first and foremost by missile counter-attacks engulfing the southern Persian Gulf states playing host to US forces, as well as any other country, eg, Azerbaijan, Iraq or Turkey, allowing their territory or airspace to be used against Iran. The rationale for this strategy is precisely to pre-warn Iran's neighbors of the dire consequences, with potential debilitating impacts on their economies for a long time, should they become accomplices of foreign invaders of Iran.

Another key element of Iran's strategy is to "increase the arch of crisis" in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where it has considerable influence, to undermine the United States' foothold in the region, hoping to create a counter-domino effect wherein instead of gaining inside Iran, the US would actually lose territory partly as a result of thinning its forces and military "overstretch".

Still another component of Iran's strategy is psychological warfare, an area of considerable attention by the country's military planners nowadays, focusing on the "lessons from Iraq" and how the pre-invasion psychological warfare by the US succeeded in causing a major rift between the top echelons of the Ba'athist army as well as between the regime and the people. The United States' psychological warfare in Iraq also had a political dimension, seeing how the US rallied the United Nations Security Council members and others behind the anti-Iraq measures in the guise of countering Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Iran's counter-psychological warfare, on the other hand, seeks to take advantage of the "death-fearing" American soldiers who typically lack a strong motivation to fight wars not necessarily in defense of the homeland. A war with Iran would definitely require establishing the draft in the US, without which it could not possibly protect its flanks in Afghanistan and Iraq; imposing the draft would mean enlisting many dissatisfied young soldiers amenable to be influenced by Iran's own psychological warfare focusing on the lack of motivation and "cognitive dissonance" of soldiers ill-doctrinated to President George W Bush's "doctrine of preemption", not to mention a proxy war for the sake of Israel.

This aside, already, Iranians today consider themselves subjected to the machinations of similar psychological warfare, whereby, to give an example, the US cleverly seeks to capitalize on the discontent of the (unemployed) youth by officially shedding crocodile tears, as discerned from a recent interview of the outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell. Systematic disinformation typically plays a key role in psychological warfare, and the US has now tripled its radio programs beamed to Iran and, per recent reports from the US Congress, substantially increased its financial support of the various anti-regime TV and Internet programs, this while openly trumpeting the cause of "human intelligence" in a future scenario of conflict with Iran based in part on covert operations.

Consequently, there is a sense of a national-security siege in Iran these days, in light of a tightening "security belt" by the US benefiting from military bases in Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the island-turned-garrison of Diego Garcia. From Iran's vantage point, the US, having won the Cold War, has turned into a "leviathan unhinged" capable of manipulating and subverting the rules of international law and the United Nations with impunity, thus requiring a sophisticated Iranian strategy of deterrence that, in the words of certain Iranian media pundits, would even include the use of nuclear weapons.

But such voices are definitely in a minority in Iran today, and by and large there is an elite consensus against the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, partly out of the conviction that short of creating a "second-strike capability" there would be no nuclear deterrence against an overwhelming US power possessing thousands of "tactical nuclear weapons". Still, looking at nuclear asymmetry between India and Pakistan, the latter's first-strike capability has proved a deterrence against the much superior nuclear India, a precious lesson not lost on Iran.

Consequently, while Iran has fully submitted its nuclear program to international inspection and suspended its uranium-enrichment program per a recent Iran-European Union agreement inked in Paris in November, there is nonetheless a nagging concern that Iran may have undermined its deterrence strategy vis-a-vis the US, which has not endorsed the Paris Agreement, reserving the right to dispatch Iran's nuclear issue to the Security Council while occasionally resorting to tough saber-rattling against Tehran.

At times, notwithstanding a media campaign in the US, particularly by the New York Times, through news articles carrying such provocative titles as "US versus a nuclear Iran", the US continues its hard-power pre-campaign against Iran unabated, in turn fueling the national security concern of those groups of Iranians contemplating "nuclear deterrence" as a national survival strategy.

Concerning the latter, there is a growing sentiment in Iran that no matter how compliant Iran is with the demands of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency , much like Iraq in 2002-03, the US, which has lumped Iran into a self-declared "axis of evil", is cleverly sowing the seeds of its next Middle East war, in part by leveling old accusations of terrorism and Iran's complicity in the 1996 Ghobar bombing in Saudi Arabia, irrespective of the Saudi officials' rejection of such allegations totally overlooked in a recent book on Iran, The Persian Puzzle by Kenneth M Pollack (see Asia Times Online, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL03Ak01.html - The Persian puzzle, or the CIA's? , December 3.)

Thus there is an emerging "proto-nuclear deterrence" according to which Iran's mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle would make it "nuclear weapon capable" in a relatively short time, as a sort of pre-weapon "threshold capability" that must be taken into account by Iran's enemies contemplating attacks on its nuclear installations. Such attacks would be met by stiff resistance, born of Iran's historic sense of nationalism and patriotism, as well as by a counter-weaponization based on quick conversation of the nuclear technology. Hence the longer the US, and Israel, keep up the military threat, the more powerful and appealing the Iranian yearning for a "proto-nuclear deterrence" will grow.

In fact, the military threat against Iran has proved poison for the Iranian economy, chasing away foreign investment and causing considerable capital flight, an intolerable situation prompting some Iranian economists even to call for filing complaints against the US in international tribunals seeking financial remedies. This is a little far-fetched, no doubt, and the Iranians would have to set a new legal precedent to win their cause in the eyes of international law. Iran cannot possibly allow the poor investment climate caused by the military threats to continue indefinitely, and reciprocating with an extended deterrence strategy that raises the risk value of US allies in the region is meant to offset this rather unhappy situation.

Ironically, to open a parenthesis here, some friends of Israel in the US, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, an avid supporter of "torturing the terrorists", has recently inked a column on a pro-Israel website calling for the revision of international law allowing an Israeli, and US, military assault against Iran. Dershowitz has clearly taken flight of the rule of law, making a mockery of the esteemed institution that is considered a beacon on the hill in the United States; the same Ivy League university is home to the hate discourse of "clashing civilizations", another ornament for its cherished history. Even Harvard's Kennedy School dean, Joseph Nye, a relative dove, has replicated the US obsession with power by churning out books and articles on "soft power" that reifies every facet of American life, including its neutral culture or entertainment industry, into an appendage or "complement" of US "hard power", as if power reification of what Jurgen Habermas calls "lifeworld" (Lebenswelt) is the conditio sine qua non of Pax Americana.

The ruse of power, however, is that it is often blind to the opposite momentum that it generates, as has been the case of the Cuban people's half a century of heroics vis-a-vis a ruthless regime of economic blockade, Algerian nationalists fighting against French colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s, and, at present, the Iranian people finding themselves in the unenviable situation of contemplating how to survive against the coming avalanche of a US power led entirely by hawkish politicians donning the costumes of multilateralism on Iran's nuclear program. Yet few inside Iran actually believe that this is more than pseudo-multilateralism geared to satisfy the United States' unilateralist militarism down the road. One hopes that the road will not wind down any time soon, but just in case, the "Third World" Iranians are doing what they can to prepare for the nightmare scenario.

The whole situation calls for prudent crisis management and security confidence-building by both sides, and, hopefully, the ugly experience of repeated warfare in the oil-rich region can itself act as a deterrent.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003. He teaches political science at Tehran University.

that was a good article, thanks.

Not at conventional conquest warfare anyway, but Iran has one of the best and most experienced assymetric warfare paramilitaries.

The Tomcat, Phantoms and their brilliant pilots are immortal in Iran.

http://www.iiaf.net/stories/warheroes/warheroes.html - http://www.iiaf.net/stories/warheroes/warheroes.html

Ey JiNanRen
"I don't think is still consider a military power"

Definition of a military power...

Armed forces are the military forces of a state. They exist to further the foreign policy program of their governing body. They consist of both military and paramilitary forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives.
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=X&start=0&oi=define&q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_power -

Originally posted by pikeshot1600 The Iranian military.......you guys are kidding, right?

YEA! Right! We are!

I suppose you'll be laughing if nothing but twisted metal hunks that used to be a US battle group or two afflict their ugly mass on the bed of the Persian Gulf thanks to the P270 Moskit. And if the straights of Hormuz are shut down for months on end, won't sky high fuel prices just be hilarious? 

I know I will be... 

But the part I will enjoy most is when suddenly the draft is reinstated to deal with this new terror that will erupt in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Gulf states, that will just be hysterical. 

I didnt say Iran would win, his ignorance was just a little funny.  I was stating a worst case scenario, that is, if Bush decided to launch terror attacks on Iran and Iran's probable reaction with its laughable military. 

No doubt the US would win any war, but it has some highly exploitable strategic weaknesses vis-a-vis Iran that would not require air superiority to take advantage of.

Zagros:

You are proud of your country, no doubt, but a few ballistic weapons systems, and some obsolescent aircraft and tanks would not bode well for a confrontation.  Neither would a nuclear device...that is probably the least valuable asset the Iranian military could possess.

The "bomb" is easy; the delivery systems are not, and an aerial delivery would seem unlikely as that would be the first capability taken out.  An attack of this type would result in retaliation far more serious than closing the Straits of Hormuz for awhile.

The U.S. has its own oil fields and strategic reserve of oil, as well as access to supplies in Latin America, the North Sea and Nigeria.  Closing the outlet from the Gulf would cripple Iran, set back your continuing development, make innumerable enemies for you, and gain you nothing.  The West would pay higher prices for fuel for awhile....not such a disaster.

The tone of your post was a little tough, just be careful with your wishes lest some of them come true.  You do have a great laugh (), and I hope a sense of humor.

did u not know that the US bought off most of the Iraqi army's officers prior to the invasion and that is why most of it went plain clothed and disappeared into the general populace on invasion? only a few loyal battalions were left and even they fought in a very lukewarm manner.

If the US had faced any form of spirited resistance from the Iraqi Army, taking every town would have been like taking Fallujah which is even now not fully under government, nevermind, US control.

revolutionary guards are not conventional infantry, by the way, and are not comparible to the republican guards - the pasdaran have branches of every sort.  I fhte US wants to attack they will not be able to defeat the Iranian army before they do so, like they did with Iraq.

okay the north korean missiles are just iranian proto-types. There are about dozens of iranian military scientists in N korea assisting them. Basically the iranians are testing their technology in north korea and then perfecting them in iran with "Shahabs". Iran has already upgraded its shahab 3 missile with solid fuel engine and has a range of 2000 - 2500? km that can reach the middle of europe, they are also developing shahab 4 which can reach London (i say they probably have made several prto-types). They have made them so they cant be destroyed by american Patriots or israeli "needle missles".

if iran is attacked, iraqi shias and afghanis are going to create so much trouble for americans. You think americans have been triumpht in both countries. please, if it wasnt for iran, both afghanistan and iraq would be graveyards for american and british soldiers.

lets not forget hizbollah, with iranian made drones can penetrate deep in israeli terrotory.

I almost forgot, iran has designed and manufactured its own fighter aircrafts. one of them which is "Azarakhsh". iran has pilotless drones and also is in deep work for stealth bombers, there are rumores that iran bought the technology for stealth bombers from russia. and i think iran will launch its own spy satellite in few years.

the primary factor of delay was hardly the Iraqi army but rather logistics

exactly, the Iraqi army was practically non existent, look what trouble a hand full of militants caused in fallujah. god forbid it had been an organised army garrison fighting for god and country.

they had to reinstate part of the old iraqi army headed by a baathist officer to make ceasefire.

Conventionally the Iranian military is nothing special at all, it is still largely stuck in the 70s/80s.  However, such a decapitation is impossible unless a full scale and competely ruthless conventional invasion is mounted and no country is willing to take the economic risk of such an adventure nor the will.

Israel could easily rebuff any conventional invasion mounted by any army within a 2000 mile radius.

Electronic and power plant upgrades notwithstanding, the F-5 and F-14 are 30-40 year old technology, and no match for contemporary weapons systems.  I am not trying to denigrate your pilots or command structure here, but technological sophistication and experience trump the warrior's spirit and courage in the 21st century.

Whatever differences there are between Iran and regional powers, or with outside powers, can and should be addressed without military conflict if possible.  

Look, no one is saying the Iranian military is "all dat" and its airforce would fall out of the sky like flies against the high tech powers, but Iran has devised such a strategy that a war against it would not be won in the air, Iran has no delusions over its military prowess like Saddam which at the least is 100 times more powerful than Saddam's and its caution, prudence and intelligence is what makes Iran a difficult customer.

This thread is just an analysis, no need to make mocking and ignorant remarks.

hmm, does China have any indigenous fighter/bombers in teh pipeline? I am really surprised that nothing prominent has yet emerged. Correct me if I am wrong.

Personally I think that Iran, Russia, China and India as well as the Central Asian Republics should form a new Axis to balance the flagrant Western exploitation of the world.

J-10a, JH-7A and the FC-1 caught my eye.

The real way for them to prove their mettle would be in combat.  But I am glad to see China has some advanced programs.

The SCO, should solidify a comprehensive constitution.

Just about Purya's axis idea that JiNanRen pointed out as the SCO, I don't think it wise to trust the Russian government, I think it'd be good for a Iran, Central Asia, China alliance though...

And while I'm talking about Iranian Alliances... theres this other forum about Iranian politics (they're anti-IRI), and I was reading this guys thread and he thinks that we should ally with India and Israel against "Pan-Arabism" and the Arab states or sumthing along those lines, I don't really agree and thought I'd ask to see what other ppl think

Arash

Iran already has some sort of alliance with India in case of a war with Pakistan.

I quite like Russia on the international front - Israel is not to be trusted at all they have a proven record of stabbing allies in the back. And I do not think Iran needs other countries to counter "the [very minmal] Arab threat".

In the case of war between India and Pakistan, Iran would allow Indians access to its Eastern bases to attack Pakistan from.  I think this just reinforces peace and forces Islamabad to scale down its involvement in stimulating unrest in Indian Kashmir. Pakistan was readily arming them and allowing foreign terrorists through to cause trouble.

That is aimed at curbing China, right?

Well, it seems that the US is more afraid of any unity between these two Asian juggernaughts and is striving to cause tension between them and in so doing stifling the sort of co-operation which leads to real power like that seen between the nations of the West, an economic hegemony over the world which makes the rich richer and keeps the poor poor.

Are there any potential areas of dispute between India and China?

Yeah, lots.  The Indians and Chinese fought a short war in the 1960's and tend to distrust one another because of issues relating to border disputes.  The Chinese are also allies with India's archenemy Pakistan.  Anyone who hates Beijing has a friend in New Dehli. 

I have done some reading about the Iranian Imperial Air Force back before the 1979 revalution.  The Iranians were constantly buying stuff from the U.S. and just before the revalution i read they were gonna buy a whole bunch of F-14 tomcats.  Anyway i was wondering if anyone knows if the Iranian  airforce is weeker now then it was during the late 70's. 

My personal educated guess is that they got some what weeker.  Fighter planes are hard to maintain and need parts replaced all the time.  When the shaw was around these parts were bought from the western countries.  After the revolution i think these parts were not available very much or at all.  When parts arnt available many countrys (ex Iraq ) take parts off of  one plain and use it on another ( i believe this is called Canibilizing planes).  So my guess is that the Iranian airforce does not have as many fighter planes as they did during the late 70's.  Does anyone have any information on this?

Iran got 80 or so Tomcats - Iranian fighters were shooting down Iraqi fighters 5:1 in dog fights that is why the Iraqis resorted to bombing civilian targets, because their planes were dropping like flies.

I remember the alerts on radio then seeing them fly over as they came from over the border to bomb schools and hospitals.

even Tomcats Serials numbers are Availble:
http://iiaf.net/aircraft/jetfighters/F14/f14.html - http://iiaf.net/aircraft/jetfighters/F14/f14.html

The first and only country to receive F-14 Tomcat was, The Nirouyeh Havaiyeh Shahanshahiye Iran, or Imperial Iranian Air Force.