Iran vs. Israel: Can You Win Using Just 'Ballistics' and 'Shaheds'?
Recently in the material Who will win the war between Israel and Iran?? We talked about the fact that the armed conflict between Iran and Israel is extremely asymmetrical.
Israel is conducting an air-space offensive operation, or rather a multi-domain offensive operation, when in addition to reconnaissance from space and air strikes, cyber attacks were carried out on Iran's infrastructure, and reconnaissance and sabotage units were also deployed with drones-kamikaze and with autonomous remote-controlled anti-tank installations missile Spike antitank missile systems.
In turn, Iran conducts military operations almost exclusively with the help of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (BRMDs and MRBMs), as well as with the use of a limited number of kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are sometimes referred to as “shahids”.
Can Iran Defeat Israel Using Only 'Ballistics' and 'Shaheds'? What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of This weapons? What mistakes have Iran made in the past that could seriously affect the outcome of the fighting?
We will talk about this today.
Let's start with the introduction:
1. By victory in this case we mean not the unconditional surrender of Israel, but the cessation of its attacks on Iran, the conclusion aviation from Iranian airspace and the transition to negotiations.
Of course, there can be no talk of any destruction or capitulation of Israel. Why? Because we have point 2.
2. When speaking about the armed conflict between Israel and Iran, it is necessary to take into account that one of the parties is a nuclear power, and the other is striving to become one.
Regarding Israel, I think no one has any doubts, and as for Iran, their statements about the lack of intentions to make nuclear weapons are unconvincing - Iran clearly wants to get into the "nuclear club", and it cannot be ruled out that it already has experimental models of nuclear weapons.
Possible delivery vehicles for Israeli nuclear warheads
3. The US factor – this also needs to be taken into account. US intervention can be assumed in two scenarios – when everything is bad for Iran or when everything is very bad for Israel.
At the time of writing, the US had already carried out a limited number of strikes on Iran, which speaks to the latter's sad situation, although Israel is far from being in a smooth situation either.
Iran has no allies willing to go to war for it, much less allies that can stand up to the United States on equal terms.
So, can Iran defeat the US using only "ballistics" and "shaheeds"?
Although, perhaps, it is more appropriate to speak in the past tense here – could Iran have won?
Theoretically, yes, he could, but to do this he would have to inflict...
First hit
The ballistic missiles used by Iran have one serious drawback - they only hit stationary targets. This is typical for this type of weapon, not just Iranian ones.
Yes, theoretically, the aeroballistic hypersonic missile of the Kinzhal complex that Russia has is capable of hitting moving surface targets, and it seems that the Chinese DF-21 ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle can do the same, but so far there is no open data on confirmed moving targets destroyed by these missiles.
The military-political leadership of Israel, when planning a strike on Iran, of course, took into account the consequences in the form of Iranian “ballistics” landings – the level of Israeli intelligence allows us to assume that their information about Iranian arsenals is quite accurate.
Accordingly, all important mobile targets changed their location, for example, airplanes and helicopters moved to the territory of friendly countries, including Turkey. (Of course, Türkiye is a situational, temporary ally for Israel, in the future, if the current policy of “Sultan” Erdogan to create a “Turkic world” is maintained, Conflict between Turkey and Israel is almost inevitable).
The basis of Israel's combat power is its aviation
As for stationary targets, those that were likely to be hit were most likely abandoned by their personnel. For example, after the Iranian strike on the Mossad headquarters, Israel hinted to Iran that all agents of the said organization were already operating on Iranian territory at that time.
Of course, there are important objects on Iranian territory that cannot be moved or evacuated, but this is where the accuracy factor of Iranian ballistic missiles comes into play.
Accuracy
And judging by everything, the accuracy of Iranian ballistic missiles is not very good.
Israel has been heavily censoring information about Iranian missile incomings lately, but even the footage that leaks online shows multiple Iranian missile strikes on Israeli cities. It is unlikely that Iran really has the goal of destroying skyscrapers and residential buildings – this is not a matter of humanism, but of the lack of military expediency of such strikes.
However, there are two factors that need to be taken into account. The first is that some of the Iranian ballistic missiles are intercepted in the air by air and missile defense systems (Defense-PRO) of Israel, but the detonation of the warhead (WH) does not occur. In this case, the BR deviates from the course and detonates upon falling.
There are also cases of self-shelling of cities by their own missiles launched by Israeli air defense and missile defense systems.
In fact, we have the same thing as in Ukraine, where a significant number of cases of civilian targets being hit are the result of the destruction of Ukrainian air defenses by Russian cruise missiles (CM), as well as civilian targets being hit by Ukrainian anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAMs), and given that the SAMs used by the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) have warheads weighing several hundred kilograms, their “arrival” is quite comparable to a strike by a cruise or ballistic missile.
The second factor is Iran's claims that most of the ballistic missiles used against Israel were "old stocks," meaning they were low-precision weapons designed to overwhelm Israel's air and missile defenses and deplete their stocks of SAMs and interceptors.
Here, of course, several questions arise. Firstly, the veracity of the said statements, since, as we know, the official Iranian media are good at lying, and secondly, it is unclear whether Iran will be able to deplete Israel's stock of SAMs at all, especially since the US will certainly provide assistance to Israel by supplying SAMs for the Patriot SAM system. (which in this case will not go to Ukraine) and THAAD missile defense systems.
In this sense, it is logical to overload Israel's air defense and missile defense systems immediately before launching modern ballistic missiles with high accuracy, although it is possible that Iran is doing this, since some of its ballistic missiles hit military targets.
However, recently the number of Iranian ballistic missiles in a salvo has significantly decreased, while Israel’s air and missile defense system continues to function, albeit with less efficiency.
Massive application
You can laugh at Israel's air and missile defense as much as you like, but based on open data, their work deserves the highest praise.
According to some data, the number of intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles reaches 80-85 percent, which is very high for such a complex type of targets as IRBMs and IRBMs. However, these figures are true only for the first days, when Iran launched up to a hundred missiles at a time, possibly those same obsolete ones.
Currently, missiles are launched in quantities of several dozen at most, and sometimes there are single or paired launches, and even Israel’s air defense and missile defense systems are not always able to intercept them.
There are four possible reasons why the number of Iranian ballistic missile launches has dropped sharply.
The first is that there are physically few of them left, after all, BRMD and MRBM are expensive products. After all, they not only need to be manufactured, but also properly stored and maintained, and these are expenses, and not small ones.
Second, Iran had many ballistic missiles, but they were lost due to bombings carried out by the Israeli Air Force.
The third reason is that the Israeli Armed Forces (IAF) have sealed a significant number of the exits from the underground storage facilities, so it takes a long time to clear them, especially under the constant influence of the Israeli Air Force.
Well, the fourth reason is that Israel quickly knocks out the deployable launchers in the part of Iran closest to it, from which the IRBMs are launched, as a result of which Iran has to work mainly with IRBMs from the eastern part of the country. This explains both the decrease in the number of launches (IRBMs are more expensive and there are fewer of them than IRBMs), and the difficulties with their interception by Israeli air defense and missile defense systems (it is much more difficult to shoot down an IRBM than a IRBM).
Statistics on Iranian Ballistic Missile Use
Although, in fact, it is most likely a combination of all four reasons voiced.
Another Iranian weapon is the Shahed, which in the Geranium-2 variant proved itself well in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
For some reason, the use of long-range kamikaze UAVs by the Iranian armed forces is severely limited. Apparently, attacks usually involve only a few dozen machines, which are intercepted by Israeli aircraft over the territory of third countries. It is logical that, using one or two thousand Shaheds at once, Iran would penetrate Israel's distributed air defense system, but for some reason this does not happen.
The reasons here may be the same as in the case of ballistic missiles - not many Shaheds were initially produced, a significant portion of them were destroyed during Israeli bombings, the exits from UAV storage facilities were blocked, and Israeli aviation quickly destroys UAVs even when they try to launch, along with their personnel.
Israeli attack helicopters are quite successful in hunting for "shahedeen"
The Iranian Armed Forces’ strikes using IRBMs, IRBMs and Shaheds could have been an order of magnitude more massive, but this brings us back to the point of “the first strike”.
However, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the first strike, the Iranian IRBM and MRBM lack one important feature – the ability to operate on area targets.
Work by area
Based on video recordings of strikes carried out by Iranian ballistic missiles, it can be seen that in almost all cases, single-warhead warheads are used.
Such warheads are very good for destroying well-protected stationary objects – buildings, structures, bunkers, etc. However, to guarantee the destruction of a target from a warhead, high accuracy of hit is required, which, as we have already said above, Iranian ballistic missiles have certain problems with.
But with the destruction of area targets, everything is more complicated. A linear increase in the mass of the warhead does not lead to an equally linear increase in the radius of destruction, therefore, cluster warheads have been used to destroy area targets since the Second World War (WWII). For example, if the FAB-500 single-block high-explosive aerial bomb has a destruction radius of 30 meters, then a cluster aerial bomb weighing 500 kilograms has a destruction radius of 300 meters.
The Russian Armed Forces have Iskander missiles equipped with cluster warheads. It is possible that there is a version of the Oreshnik MRBM with a conventional warhead capable of defeating area targets, but there is no confirmed data on this matter yet.
Deployment of a cluster warhead
We discussed the feasibility of creating heavy ballistic missiles with a warhead designed to deliver area strikes back in 2023 in the article "Swept Away by Fire": ICBMs with Shrapnel Warheads to Hit Targets Deep in Ukraine.
We considered the use of cluster warheads to increase the effectiveness of the heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles (ASM) Kh-22 "Burya" used against ground targets in the material Blow for blow: cluster warheads on high-precision long-range weapons.
It is characteristic that it has recently become known that cluster warheads are being used in Ukraine, but not on the Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, but on the Kh-101 subsonic cruise missiles – we also discussed the advisability of such a decision in the article The Kh-101 cruise missile with a reinforced warhead and the prospects for creating modular long-range precision weapons.
Presumably, these are the remains of a cluster warhead of the X-101 cruise missile somewhere in Ukraine
So, it seems that Iran has no RBMD or MRBM with cluster warheads at all. Some information has leaked about Iran's possible use of a ballistic missile with a cluster warhead with an opening at 8 kilometers, but it looks more like it was not a cluster warhead, but a multiple warhead, and it is unclear whether its sub-blocks were guided or not - in the latter case, such a multiple warhead makes sense only in a nuclear warhead.
Conclusions
So could Iran defeat Israel with just "ballistics" and "shahids"?
Theoretically yes, but for this to happen a number of factors had to come together.
The first factor is a preemptive first strike; only in this case would Iran have a chance to inflict significant damage on Israel’s main striking force – its combat aviation.
The second factor is a massive strike – more than a thousand ballistic missiles in the first day, more than ten thousand long-range kamikaze UAVs.
Massive use of ballistic missiles with single-block warheads against shelters and with cluster warheads against openly located equipment. This also includes government buildings, the Mossad, the main command facilities of the armed forces, and fuel and energy complex facilities. This pace had to be maintained for at least two or three days.
There are two problems here. Firstly, in such a scenario, the US will almost certainly intervene in the conflict to the fullest extent, and everything will come to approximately what we are seeing in Iran now. Secondly, Israel will most likely “get nervous” and use its nuclear weapons. Incidentally, it may well use them in the current situation.
Use of GBU-57 bunker buster munition from B-2 stealth bomber
So the third factor is nuclear weapons. The only way to force the US to stop striking Iran and/or force Israel to stop using nuclear weapons is with the help of those same nuclear weapons, that is, after a few days from the moment of the attack, Iran would have to test a nuclear weapon - it doesn't matter if it is done using a primitive cannon scheme and is the size of a railway car, but test it, and then declare a ceasefire and readiness for negotiations.
For us, the use of nuclear weapons by Israel, and the nuclear tests by Iran will open a “window of opportunity” in which the United States, Russia and China will receive a platform for forced cooperation, since otherwise nuclear weapons will begin to rapidly spread across the planet and the superpowers’ ability to dominate will be significantly reduced, and local armed conflicts across the planet will quickly turn into an ongoing nuclear nightmare, ultimately This could lead to new agreements between the superpowers, which will determine the world order for some time.
If we exclude the possibility of Iran conducting nuclear tests and Israel launching nuclear strikes, Iran could only stop the US by inflicting significant losses on its aircraft, but the current level of Iran's air defense does not allow us to consider such a possibility. We will return to the question of how this can be done later.
It is also worth noting that the situation with the need for massive use of long-range precision weapons may well be transferred to Ukraine - if in 2022, instead of a long and noticeable concentration of ground forces and a subsequent ground invasion, Russia suddenly and without warning, in the middle of the working day, launched a truly massive strike with cruise and ballistic missiles on decision-making centers, financial system facilities and fuel and energy complex facilities of Ukraine, then this war could well have ended in two or three days, and would not have lasted for more than three years, as it has now, however, our missed opportunities are also a topic for a separate conversation.
Can Iran win now, given what has happened and what is happening?
Militarily, probably not – it is unlikely that Iran's current capabilities are sufficient to defeat Israel militarily, but two factors could intervene.
The first is Israel's willingness to make sacrifices. Given the size of Israel's territory and the density of its population, with a sufficient supply of "ballistics" and "shaheeds," Iran could well break the will of the civilian population to resist, systematically turning Israeli cities into ruins.
The second factor is economic. If Iran manages to close the Strait of Hormuz, it could well have such economic consequences throughout the world that Israel and even the United States will be under such powerful pressure, both from other countries and from their own financial structures, that they will be forced to sit down at the negotiating table.
Who can be considered the winner in such a situation is an open question.
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