Iran’s hand-me-down military gifts US a turkey shoot

Iran may be wounded, but it has not lost its bravado.

Throughout the opening days of the war, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made bombastic claims about strikes on its enemies.

The regime even claimed multiple missile and drone attacks on the USS Abraham Lincoln, boasting of “four hits” on the aircraft carrier on Sunday.

The reality is rather different, underscoring the disparity between the modern US and Israeli fighting forces and an ageing, decrepit opponent using whatever hardware is in serviceable condition with little regard for troops.

In the first seven days of the conflict, the US and Israel have decapitated the regime’s leadership, torpedoed a warship and claimed to have destroyed many of its naval assets, missile launchers and drones.

Meanwhile, Iran appears to have done little damage to the Israeli and US military.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in its cost estimates for the first 100 hours of the conflict, could only account for $359m (£268m) of damage done to US assets – all from a single friendly-fire incident that downed three F-15s.

Footage released by the Israeli military shows its forces’ decisive advantage over Iran’s hand-me-down military hardware, which has done little more than offer target practice for allied pilots and captains.

Aged fighter jets

In declassified Israeli Air Force footage, a pilot, seated in the cockpit of his F-35, calmly homes in on an Iranian Yak-130 over Tehran.

The Yak, developed 30 years ago as a training aircraft and pressed into service as an anti-drone fighter by the Iranians, does not even appear to deploy countermeasures before the Israeli pilot signs off: “Target is down.”

The majority of the Islamic Republic’s fighters come from the fleet it inherited from the Shah.

Analysis of the Iranian air force’s inventory shows that 54 per cent of its fighter jet stock comprises former American F-4s, which were developed in the 1950s and saw most of their combat over Vietnam, F-5s from the 1960s, and F-14 Tomcats – the key jets in the 1986 film Top Gun.

Embargoes and sanctions against Iran since 1979 mean the regime has struggled to source replacement parts for maintenance, so it is unclear how many of these aircraft will still be airworthy.

A video declassified by US Central Command appears to show a strike on several Iranian F5 fighter jets and F-27 transport aircraft parked closely together at an unknown location.

Other Soviet cast-offs prove little better. The Sukhoi Su-22s and Su-24s Iran received in the 1990s are among its most advanced fighter-bombers. At least four have been destroyed already, two on the ground and two shot down by Qatar.

Second-hand Western warships

The Iranian navy has probably fared even worse than its air force, with Donald Trump touting the near-annihilation of the fleet in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

Both of Iran’s Bayandor-class corvettes were sunk in their home port in the opening days of the war.

The IRIS Bayandor and IRIS Naghdi were built in 1964, originally for the US Navy.

An extensive refit in 2013 supplying them with new radar and anti-air defences seems to have done little to protect the ships from US strikes.

It could be argued that the unfortunate Bayandor and Naghdi were unprepared for the conflict.

The same cannot be said of the IRIS Dena, a Moudge-class frigate torpedoed off the coast of Sri Lanka this week while steaming home from exercises in India.

The warship was one of the most modern in Iran’s fleet, launched in 2015, but was reportedly still not equipped with long-range sonar, leaving it exposed to submarines.

Among its other ships still serviceable are Alvand-class frigates, which were built in the late 1960s in the United Kingdom, and Kaman-class patrol boats, modified from 1970s La Combattante II French designs.

Dr Sidharth Kaushal, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said that while its surface fleet’s ability to react is now limited, missiles remain a threat at sea.

“The instinct that for now the Iranians have few good options against the US military – particularly the US Navy – is valid,” he told The Telegraph.

“However, if the US navy is compelled to run convoys in the Gulf due to Iranian attacks, that would put it within reach of capabilities such as mines and anti-ship missiles which would pose a threat, particularly at relatively short ranges.”

He added: “The US navy would not be vulnerable per se, but it would be more vulnerable than it is now since Iran has no realistic way of tracking and targeting vessels like aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Oman.”

Main battle tanks are 60 years old

US and Israeli forces have so far resisted a ground invasion, but Iran’s armoured divisions tell a similar story to the rest of its military.

The five armoured divisions of the regular Iranian army field a mix of American and Soviet hardware, including M60A1s and M47s – some dating from the 1950s.

The most modern main battle tank Iran can deploy in substantial numbers appears to be the domestically modernised versions of the Soviet T-72, but sanctions have hampered Iran’s attempts to bring its tanks in line with western counterparts.

However, the conflict in Ukraine has only proven how vulnerable these ageing tanks are to modern anti-tank weapons, and especially drone attacks.

Dr Kaushal said: “A ground invasion, though seemingly unlikely, would be something the Iranian army and IRGC could scarcely resist in a conventional way, but the real risk would be the IRGC and Basij turning to urban warfare and insurgent tactics against supply lines – and some of the cheap capabilities mentioned (unmanned aerial vehicles, for example) would make this more difficult.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]