Iran Launches Satellite

[walker 0]

Hi all

Iran already tested a nuke in October 2008 but Cheney and Bush missed it! And then hid it from the American people!

Iran has apparently conducted two tests!

Quote[/b] ](IsraelNN.com) A weekend 5.0 Richter earthquake in Iran was actually a nuclear bomb test, says an Iranian nuclear scientist claiming to be working on the project.

The report is an Israel Insider exclusive.

This past Saturday night, southern Iran experienced what was reported as a significant earthquake - a seismic event measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was just north of the strategic Straits of Hormuz, which separates Iran from Abu Dhabi and Oman and which is the gateway to the Persian Gulf.

The report quotes an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project, and who said that the "quake" was acutally an undergound nuclear bomb test.

Israel Insider adds that the test/quake was actually the second in a series. Nine days ago, a 4.8 Richter scale event occurred, with its epicenter only five kilometers away from the weekend tremor...

Follow link for the full report

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128151

also

http://israelinsider.ning.com/profile....3A11698

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol....647.ece

The area where the tremor happened is on a fault line so as to mask the tests and is in close proximity to a site involved in Iranian Nuclear testing.

Shocked Walker

[kavoven 4]

Wouldn't Iran let everyone know that they have the bomb now?

[walker 0]

Wouldn't Iran let everyone know that they have the bomb now?

Hi all

It did.

It was an Iranian scientist who confirmed it. The Israeli government has never confirmed it has nukes. So there is no requirement for the Iranian government to confirm it.

Of course it could all just be a Mossad plan just to get America to attack Iran.

In reply to Baff1's point about Syria.

Actually the Syrian Air Force, while it has comparable numbers of fighters, has nothing to match the Iranians 20 x F-14A Tomcats. These are used in the same role as AWACS in the Iranian air defense guiding their other aircraft onto attacking air units. Thus forcing them to fly low and into the anti air missile system the Iranians have.

Add in those 12 Su-30s and the 6 J-10s and possibly two Ilyushin Il-76 AWACS and the Iranian air defenses are in a whole different league to Syria.

Secondly geography plays two big parts.

1) Any Israeli attack will give the Iranians plenty of warning. The intervening countries have to be passed through and most are not going to allow their airspace to be used and would almost certainly warn the Iranians. Syria gets no warning until the aircraft pass into their airspace. That said neither does Israel get a warning about a Syrian attack. It would not be outside the capabilities of Syria to launch a surprise attack to take out Israels Air force in much the same way as Israel took out Egypt's Air Force.

2) Iran is a much larger country

Syria is 185,180 km2 (88th) 71,479 sq mi

Iran is 1,648,195 km2 (18th) 636,372 sq mi

That is nearly 9 times the size of Syria. Lots of places to hide stuff. Add in underground tunnels probably miles long with train lines and locos and blast doors and blast channeling like the US Mobile Minuteman MX programs and chances of a successful hit are virtually nil even with a nuke. Also that much more enemy air space and air defenses to fly through. Fire up Google Earth you will see what I mean. Any losses Israel had would be 100% the pilot/copilot would not make it home.

Regards walker

[Bernadotte 0]

Iran has apparently conducted two tests!

Quote[/b] ](IsraelNN.com)

blah blah blah...

Follow link for the full report

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128151

Followed it.  This 3 month old report also warns "that two nuclear rockets are currently ready - and are intended for use against Israel in the coming months."  So... Any day now, huh?  

also

http://israelinsider.ning.com/profile....3A11698

As a geological engineer, I enjoyed the Israeli Insider version even more.  When I looked up their suspicious 25 October tremor at the USGS I noticed that it had occurred at a depth of 35 km.  Most nukes are tested at less than 1.5 km with the deepest ever being 4 km deep.  Considering that the deepest well ever drilled was 14 km I'd say that the Iranians have pulled off a significant scientific achievement if this wasn't actually a quake.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol....647.ece

And where exactly did you see mention of a quake in this Times article?  

The area where the tremor happened is on a fault line so as to mask the tests and is in close proximity to a site involved in Iranian Nuclear testing.

At the risk of being labelled a fake-quake-denier, I can think of at least one other reason why a tremor happened on a fault line.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to Bernadotte

Of course it could all just be a Mossad plan just to get America to attack Iran.

Or an Iranian plan to make the Israeli's think Iran has nukes; or an Iranian plan to have plausable deniability about having Nukes; or an Israeli plan to make the Iranians think that the Israeli's think the Iranians have Nukes; or Iranian plan to make the American's think there is an Israeli plan to make the Iranians think that the Israeli's think the Iranians have Nukes; an American plan to make Kadima think the Iranians have nukes; or American plan to make Kadima think the Israeli secret services want them to think the Iranians have nukes; or... and on to infinity

...and welcome to the looking glass Alice.

Kind Regards walker

[Bernadotte 0]

Or an Iranian plan to make the Israeli's think Iran has nukes; or an Iranian plan to have plausable deniability about having Nukes; or an Israeli plan to make the Iranians think that the Israeli's think the Iranians have Nukes; or Iranian plan to make the American's think there is an Israeli plan to make the Iranians think that the Israeli's think the Iranians have Nukes; an American plan to make Kadima think the Iranians have nukes; or American plan to make Kadima think the Israeli secret services want them to think the Iranians have nukes; or... and on to infinity

More likely a cynical plan to sell more Israeli newspapers to a readership blinded by Iran-hysteria*.

Just read a bit further down in the Israeli Insider article where they try to convince us that "a recent spike in [earthquake] activity in that specific area [of Iran] significantly deviates from historical trends".  I wonder how many of their readers compared the Israeli Insider's USGS graphic with the source data and discovered that the quake they referred to didn't even exist.

Israeli Insider version...

USGS version...

See that 1st quake on 10 September at the top of Israeli Insider's list?  Never happened.  Pure fiction.  Hysteria mongering.

* To be fair, 3 of the 20 comments following the Israeli Insider article questioned the nuke claim.  One of them even linked to a very interesting article on distinguishing quake seismics from explosions.

[Spetz 0]

The news is alarming because all Iran gotta do with these rockets is add a guidance system and take a war-head from North-Korea or Pakistan(or develop its own) it got itself an IRBM

[Baff1 0]

Wouldn't Iran let everyone know that they have the bomb now?

Yes they would. A nuke is a deterrent weapon.

It makes no sense to keep it quiet, unless you were planning a first strike capable of defeating all the rest of the worlds nuclear powers in one blow.

Iran is on a faultline. They have earthquakes. Big ones. Just like it's neighbour Turkey does.

@Walker

With regards to the Syrian airforce, are you suggesting that the recent incursions by Israeli airforce were not detected by Syrian radar?

Syria operates a state of the art Russian made integrated radar system, not a forty year old American fighter plane one.

It is the same Radar system that Iran owns.

If they can jam Syrian Radar, they can Jam Iranian Radar. Particlualrly as the Iranians F 14's are using systems that the Israeli's own themselves.

The F14 may have had a significant radar advantage over the iraqi's airforce in the Iran Iraq War, 30 years ago, but they don't have one over the Israeli's today.

By the way, they didn't use it as an awacs, they used it as a fighter.

If the Iranians are using 30 year old fighter radars for awacs, then they are going to be in a world of hurt when the Israeli's show up with real Awacs and newer gen fighters with newer gen radars and air to air missiles with 3 times the range.

It makes no difference if they have aerial radar if the fighter planes are not able to scramble in time to intercept an incoming raid. Detecting your enemy on radar is just the start of it.

With the increased size of Iran the scramble times are even longer. Awacs or no awac's the Iranian's are not able to concentrate their interceptions at anything like the force level Syria can.

I also agree that with the dispersed targets over Iran and their re-inforced nature that nothing short of a sustained bombardment would do the trick. A quick in and out raid "just accross the border" isn't a great option for Israeli's airforce against Iran.

A quick in an out raid, won't cut it.

Currently of course Israel's airforce don't have the range to even reach Natanz. Let alone bomb it. Which is why they just bought tankers I suspect.

Will all the Israeli pilots die if they raid Iran? No.

Iran has the same sort of defences as Syria.

As long as they just raid, not stick around they have a good chance of operating with impunity.

Israeli airfields however are in range of Iran's rocket Artillery.

I do not agree that intermediate countries will warn Iran of any Israeli attack. The Americans control Iraqi airpsace. I cannot imagine them making that phonecall at all.

Quite the opposite.

I expect Israel to recieve the covert support of many of Iran's neighbours who don't want Iran to go nuclear either.

[Commando84 0]

Wouldn't Iran let everyone know that they have the bomb now?

Hi all

It did.

It was an Iranian scientist who confirmed it. The Israeli government has never confirmed it has nukes. So there is no requirement for the Iranian government to confirm it.

Of course it could all just be a Mossad plan just to get America to attack Iran.

In reply to Baff1's point about Syria.

Actually the Syrian Air Force, while it has comparable numbers of fighters, has nothing to match the Iranians 20 x F-14A Tomcats. These are used in the same role as AWACS in the Iranian air defense guiding their other aircraft onto attacking air units. Thus forcing them to fly low and into the anti air missile system the Iranians have.

Add in those 12 Su-30s and the 6 J-10s and possibly two Ilyushin Il-76 AWACS and the Iranian air defenses are in a whole different league to Syria.

Secondly geography plays two big parts.

1) Any Israeli attack will give the Iranians plenty of warning. The intervening countries have to be passed through and most are not going to allow their airspace to be used and would almost certainly warn the Iranians. Syria gets no warning until the aircraft pass into their airspace. That said neither does Israel get a warning about a Syrian attack. It would not be outside the capabilities of Syria to launch a surprise attack to take out Israels Air force in much the same way as Israel took out Egypt's Air Force.

2) Iran is a much larger country

Syria is 185,180 km2 (88th) 71,479 sq mi

Iran is 1,648,195 km2 (18th) 636,372 sq mi

That is nearly 9 times the size of Syria. Lots of places to hide stuff. Add in underground tunnels probably miles long with train lines and locos and blast doors and blast channeling like the US Mobile Minuteman MX programs and chances of a successful hit are virtually nil even with a nuke. Also that much more enemy air space and air defenses to fly through. Fire up Google Earth you will see what I mean. Any losses Israel had would be 100% the pilot/copilot would not make it home.

Regards walker

Nah America will send in its airwolf!!!   A few apaches hitting tab and left clicking out hellfires against their ground tanks before they get off a shot, I doubt Obama will get america to war if not attacked directly.  

But wouldn't 10 F-22's just wipe everything out in a day or two?

Nah joking aside I don't think these guys could defend themselves if america was going serious and invited israel to the server for a joint forces coop the thing is its a  bigger country so it would take longer time to cap it..

The hard part would be fighting ground battles and ambushes and stuff really.

And do america really need to put troops on the ground or air? can't they just launch a a few hundred tomahawks from the sea or something like that?

If the Iranians made a counter air strike whatever they would mass everything up and go for one big kamikaze sort of strike?

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to Baff1

Every country in the world conducts exersizes. When your border buts up against another you cannot tell if they intend a raid or an exersize; hense Syrian and Israeli forces can conduct surprise raids on each other at any time. In fact Israel did that last year; Syria could conduct a raid on Israel's Nuclear bunkers if it wanted too and could be certain where they were.

Iraq does not share a border with Israel. To get to Iraq and then from there on to Iran requires not one muslim country to keep quiet but a minimum of two.

Your assumption that America could control whether Iraqi's would warn a fellow muslim nation is so incorrect on so many levels that it is impossible to list them all but here are a few:

1) Iraq's current government is Shia and considers Iran a potential and past friend; many of the current government spent their exile there.

2) There would be so many people in the loop that an Iranian agent would almost inevitable

3) Many Iraqi's in their millitary had training in in Iran and were refugees in Iran during the Saddam era see the last two notes.

4) The Iranians and their Iraqi alies will have SOPs for communications black outs that include getting up the CAP

5) Err America would not want to upset its oil surpliers that much even Cheney and Bush would not consider it, hense their vito of it in the first place

6) Err Iraqi's are muslims, Israel is considered their enemy in fact it is the one thing the Shia and the Sunni would unite on and no Muslim nation in the current climate could allow its population to believe it had been complicit with Israel on attacking a fellow muslim nation.

I could go on but the last one gives the general concept.

You continue to equate the Syrian air force with the Iranian Air force. Plane fact the Iranians destroyed the Iraqi airforce in the Iran Iraq war; so much so that Saddam sent his aircraft (the same as Syria's current air force) to Syria and Jordan to protect it.

As I pointed out Iran has 4.5 gen aircraft and an industry to maintain it. The best Syrian aircraft are only just 4th gen aircraft. Those export SU30's were tested in a recent exersize in India against US F15 Strike Eagles (reduced to the export version capabilities ie Iraeli version), the SU30's won.

Iran almost certainly has a watch on Israeli Airfields and knows excatly what they are doing. In fact if I were them I would have an open watch as well as a multi point covert watch. The open watch is there as warning level; it gets caught/eliminated/fails to report in you know some thing is up and it triggers an SOP.

Your failure to understand the strategic geographical technical competance issues is astounding. Because of their geography, the Iranians will literaly have hours to prepare. Even their own geography gives them that. It is the same defense in depth issues that the German air force experienced in WWII during the London blitz and their army experieced in Russia. The Iranians have an educated and technicaly competant aerospace industry. The Iranian airforce is competant well trained and experienced. These are fundamental strategic concepts that negate and even trump many of Israel's traditional advantages.

I sure hope Israel is not convinced by such incorrect strategic assesments as you are making.

Kind Regards walker

[MehMan 0]

As I pointed out Iran has 4.5 gen aircraft and an industry to maintain it. The best Syrian aircraft are only just 4th gen aircraft. Those export SU30's were tested in a recent exersize in India against US F15 Strike Eagles (reduced to the export version capabilities ie Iraeli version), the SU30's won.

Can you give me a source for that?

I recall some big talk about Indian Su-27s or Su-30s winning in a simulated air battle against the f-15s, but when somebody dragged up the article it showed clearly that it wasn't as simple as that. The F-15s were outnumbered 3 to 1 and I believe some of their electronic gear was disabled. In those conditions the Su-27s won. Now I don't know if you mean the same exercise or a more recent one, if so, I'd be glad to hear the full story.

[Baff1 0]

How many Su 30's does Iran have then? None.

It's a gen 4.5 airframe that Iran hasn't got.

(I think you might have mistaken what they have ordered for what they have actually received. They also have S300 AA batteries on order).

The most advanced air defence it has is the Tor AA tank systems. Of which I think it has at least 1 with a total of 29 ordered. It's the same thing as Syria has.

Those things are dangerous. You can't cruise missile them or send a planned firststrike team for them because you can't predict where they are.

Iraq doesn't control Iraqi airspace. America does.

Iraqi's haven't got a clue who is in the aeroplanes flying above them and the American's expressly don't want them to.

Iraq is by no means the only country in the region that doesn't want Iran to get a bomb. None of it's neighbours do.

Who in their right mind is going to tip them off?

Hamas? Hesbollah?

Do they even have radar stations? I doubt it very highly.

Iran had 20 sabotaged F14's with enough spares to maintain them for 10 years in 1970.

Even if those planes are still airworthy, the idea that their radars are some great battle winner against Israel's is laughable.

Isreals are better.

Israels ECM>Iranian Radar.

Half of Saddams Airforce went to Iran.

Syria and Iran use predominantly the same systems bought from the same supplier and have similar numbers of them.

In WW2, the RAF had radar, they knew when the Germans were coming and where they were at all times. Using this advantage, it was able to intercept the Luftwafe in significant numbers despite having a smaller force in totality.

In 2008 Syria had the same Radar as Iran and although it knew the Israeli's were coming, that radar was jammed and it had no idea which of the thousands of blips it was seeing was a plane.

The Israeli's on the otherhand had unjammed radars and knew exactly which blips were enemy planes and simply avoided them.

In a complete reverse of the RAF's experience against the Luftwafe, the Syrian airforce failed to engage it's aggressors entirely.

What we don't know is whether or not any Tor systems were present and hence if the ECM defeated them or not.

Quote[/b] ]The Iranian airforce is competant well trained and experienced.

No mate, the Israeli airforce is competant well trained and experienced.

At best the Iranian airforce is well trained and competant. At best.

They most certainly are not experienced.

Not unless the pilots are all old grandad's. Veterans of a war 3 decades ago.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Actually the USA delivered 60 F14s to Iran of which conservative estimates say 20 are operational and other less conservative sources say 25. FAS says 25 are operational but I tend toward the conservative estimates and say 20 are operational.

There have been several tests of Indian SU30's against F15s downgraded to export capability going back to February 2004 with the Cope India exercise.

The REDFLAG air battle I think mehman is talking about is at a ratio of 3 Bluefor against 1 Redfor. The Indians were part of the Bluefor in the recent REFLAG but were not part of the Bluefor Data net (they were using Russian tech so could not interface with the AWACS and other bluefor assets) essentially they fought without AWACS, just old fashioned radar and talk on to target. Yet the SU30's of the Indian Air Force caused the same ratio of casualties among the Redfor as the other Bluefor Elements armed with F22 Raptors, and Euro fighters and Better tech F15s and full access to AWACS and a working Data net. The 4.5th gen plus aircraft all saw a 90% win ratio over their 4th gen opfor.

I personally think the example is indicative of the results of 4th gen v 4.5th gen plus air assets. Essentially the ratios are similar to those of any generationally technically superior weapons system over its predecessor, ie Longbow against mounted knights, Machine Guns against breach loading rifle armed infantry, Tanks against MGs and trenches. It is the approximate ratio you will see all through history where a once superior military is up against a strategic technical innovation.

And I also think that the F22s and Euro-fighters would gain similar ratios over the SU30s and that 4.5 gen equipped F15s would be on a par with the SU30s.

As I pointed out the tech that is available to the US Air Force is not available to Israel (and owing to the Israeli tedency to sell US air force tech to China, unlikely ever to be available to Israel) client states only get the good toys when they play nice.

Turning off that tech on the US air force F15s reduced the Redfor to the same technical capabilities as the export model F15s that Israel has; so the test was in theatre Israeli air assets against in theatre Iranian assets.

So what we have is export SU30s fighting export F15s and in equal battle the SU30s knocked down 90% of their opponents.

By the way from what I hear the Russians were very ticked off with India it gave the US Intel on their air-crafts capabilities but as they already have 4th ++ gen SU-33 and SU-35s and the much rumoured 5th gen test planes like the SU37 for the SU4~ s and Mikoyan Project 1.44 to look forward to I think we can assume they are just playing to the gallery.

Kind Regards walker

[Baff1 0]

Thanks for the correction on the numbers of F14's.

While I concur with your assesments of the Su30 vs the F15 this is still a red herring.

Iran does not have a single Su30.

And the tech the U.S. exported to Iran is in no way superior to the newer Tech the U.S. exported Israel.

Israel is a significant exporter of advanced military technology itself. The U.S. buys Israeli tech as well as selling to them.

One of those things Israel has been attempting to sell to China is it's Awacs. A system it devised in collusion with the Russians.

Compared to the Iranian's 20 fighter "awacs" every single Israeli fighter is an awacs. And then it has the real Awacs too.

You spoke of the advantage to be gained in war by newer technology, it is time for you to recognise that Israel holds that very substantial advantage over Iran.

[Prydain 1]

How many lines of wikipedia do I have to CP to be part of this discussion? Seriously lads, three pages of rubbish and then there was this sentence:

Quote[/b] ]Compared to the Iranian's 20 fighter "awacs" every single Israeli fighter is an awacs. And then it has the real Awacs too.

.

If you don't know what you are talking about, give it a rest.

Oh Baff1, in reference for your first post; search Skynet or Bowman in google.

[Spetz 0]

the Indian SU-30MKI has alot of Israeli input it, it supposed to be a big gap between a normal Su-30MK and MKI,

the airframe and radar is Russian the rest of the electronic gear is Isreali imported.

The Radar isn't that bad either its supposed to have a detection range of like 200+km for fighter sized target, though the only weapon that can reach that is a AWACS-killer missile (un-maneuverable), the next best thing would be like a R-77 which has like 120km range.

[Baff1 0]

How many lines of wikipedia do I have to CP to be part of this discussion? Seriously lads, three pages of rubbish and then there was this sentence:

Quote[/b] ]Compared to the Iranian's 20 fighter "awacs" every single Israeli fighter is an awacs. And then it has the real Awacs too.

.

If you don't know what you are talking about, give it a rest.

Oh Baff1, in reference for your first post; search Skynet or Bowman in google.

If you develop some common sense, you will not need to understand all the tiny details of a subject to understand it.

The U.S. sold Israel their fighters around the same time too. The radars will be comparable. This is quite simply, obvious.

Israeli fighter planes use APG 70 radars, they are in every way comparable to the AWG 9's in the F 14.

In fact they are more than comparable. U.S. operated F-14's updated their AWG 9 radar to APG 70's (the same one the Israeli fighters are fitted with).

Given the choice of both, the U.S. Navy prefered the ones the Israeli's use over the ones the Iranians use.

That said I don't think there is a lot in it.

Skynet is the computer that takes over the world, and Bowman is the infantry radio used by the British army.