DEBKA reports that Tehran and the Russian Rosoboronexport arms group are about to sign a mammoth arms deal running into tens of billions of dollars for the sale to Tehran of 250 Su-30MKM warplanes and 20 IL-78 MKI fuel tankers. DEBKAfile’s military sources report Iran has stipulated delivery of the first aircraft before the end of 2007.
The transaction, Russia’s largest arms deal in 30 years, will endow Iran with a long-range aerial assault capability. The Sukhoi can sustain a four-and-a-half hour raid at its maximum range of 3,000 km against long-distance, marine and low-lying ground targets across the Persian Gulf and Middle East, including Israel and Lebanon.
The fuel tankers extends the Su-30MKM’s assault sustainability to 10 hours and its range to 8,000 km at altitudes of 11-13 km. The closest comparable plane in the West is the American F-15E fighter bomber. Iran’s acquisition of an exceptionally large fleet of the Russian fighter-bomber will elevate its air force to one of the two largest and most advanced in the region, alongside the Israeli Air Force.
Iranian air crews are already training on the new Sukhoi aircraft, ready to start flying them early next year with only a short delay after delivery. DEBKAfile’s sources report that Moscow is selling Tehran the same Sukhoi model as India received earlier this year. The Iranians leaned hard on New Delhi to let them have the Israeli avionics and electronics the Indian Air Force had installed in the Russian craft. India refused.
Russia began delivering the same craft in June to Malaysia, which also sought Israeli avionics without success. The Su-20MKM has won the nickname of “Islamic Version of Sukhoi.”
Its two-member crew shares the workload. The first pilot flies the aircraft, controls weapons and maneuvers the plane in a dogfight. The co-pilot employs BVR air-to-air and air-to-ground guided weapons in long-range engagements, sweeps the arena for enemy craft or missiles and performs as command-and-control in group missions.
Some of the plane’s systems are products of the French Thales Airborne Systems company. Moscow’s contract with Tehran for the sale of the Su-30MKM must therefore be cleared with Paris.
There is no decision in Jerusalem about asking Paris to withhold its consent to a deal which would substantially upgrade the long-range air assault capabilities of the Islamic Republic whose leaders want to wipe Israel off the map. However, President Nicolas Sarkozy is in mid-momentum of a diplomatic drive in the Arab and Muslim world and unlikely to be receptive to an Israeli approach. The only chance of aborting the Russian sale would be to route the approach through Washington.
(As usual, the problem with DEBKA is whether the info is correct, or whether this is just their way to add to the Neocon pressure on the USA to “act before it is too late”. In this case however, the nature of the alledged purchase would make perfect sense. Iran badly needs an almost complete modernization of its air force and a combination of Su-30 and tankers is definitely the best option in existance. The “wipe Israel off the map” part is, of course, utter nonsense. VS)
System price is $50 million for each of these planes. (The tankers at $35 million).
I seriously doubt that the Iranian air force will spend some $13 billion on new planes.
Tankers do not make much strategic sense for them at all.
Best guess. Iran has ordered some double digit number of SU’s and a few IL-76 general transporters and Debka is pushing that.
Nice “justification” for the Saudi arm deal and the $30 billion to Israel from the U.S. taxpayers …
How good could these planes be? It seems to me that trying to compete with the U.S. and Israel in air power is like buying very expensive scrap metal, made more tragic with the loss of good pilots. Building a top notch air force is awfully expensive and Iran doesn’t have that kind of money.
I don’t know a thing about military hardware, but wouldn’t Iran be better off spending a fraction of the cost on air defense systems and ballistic missiles as a deterent to attack?
They have both as on going big project.they have the money as well.
How good could these planes be?
Oh, way better than anything the USA or Israel has, but you are correct when you say that just getting some aircraft does not mean you know how to use it. And yes, integrating such a large amount of aircraft would be immensly costly and take a lot of time. You are also correct when you say that one can make a very good argument that there would be other priorities which Iran would need to take care of.
However, consider this: the Iranian air force is in bad shape and by now really needs a major modernization. These aircraft might not come in all at once, but are most likely a long term contract. lastly, thanks to the Neocon policies, the prices of oil have been high for so long now that countries like Russia, Venezuela and Iran are mkaing more money than before.
As for tankers not making strategic sense I do not agree, they can make a great deal of sense for many purposes besides reach: they can be used to change the profile of any flown mission (speed, altitude), they can be used to maintain aircraft on station longer (although the SU-30 already has a fantastic range/time capability).
But yeah – DEBKA probably inflates any real facts to make arming the Saudis or Israelis more “defensive”…
Ok – I have tracked this back now.
DEBKA, just in time for the new U.S: tacpayer gift, repeated an industry rumour that came up during the Paris Air show. They added the tankers to “brighten” the threat.
The usual propaganda …
More at my site:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/07/to-push-through.html
yep. all the points you make are very valid. maybe ten a year is a little on the low side (Iran really needs to beef up its air force and ten a year ain’t gonna do the job), but yeah – a multi year contract with some tankers thrown in (-: they can be used for other things besides bombing Berlin :-) is probably the basis for all this.
Thanks for dropping by!
Perhaps this is just Israeli propaganda meant to imply that Iran is developing a capability of striking Israel. Propaganda like this is essential to justifying a preemptive strike against Iran.
Russian arms dealer denies plans to sell fighters to Syria, Iran
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070619/67480943.html
Yeah, Iran is diehard in procuring advanced flying birds either from Russia or China or from both. They are in very bad shape which they must overcome by any means. But at the same time they should procure s 4000 sam other than s 3000. Israel has already learnt how to deal with s300. Iranians must not forget what israel did to the Sytian sam syetem in the Beka valley in Lebenon in 1982. S 400 will be formidable for at least for six years untill f 35 comes the the hand if the Israelies.
Is that the reason Israel lost 100 of latest and best tanks to hizbolah few years ago .
Quote: “The “wipe Israel off the map” part is, of course, utter nonsense. VS)”
On the contrary, it makes one heck of a lot of sense. Israel is small and heavily industrialized. Just three nukes, one each on Jerusalem, Tel Avi, and Haifa, would the close enough to wiping out Israel, the difference would not matter.
Nor will Israel’s Iron Dome system provide much protection to supersonic fighters screaming in at wave-top level. With 250 fighters to choose from, Iran could send ten at each city and still have 220 of them left behind in Iran. Would all have nukes? Maybe not, but how is Israel, with mere seconds to react, to know which to attack?
Keep in mind that Iran’s leaders are not stupid. They could use the same tankers-refueling-tankers technique that the Brits pioneeered in the Falklands war with one additional advantage. With suicide pilots in the fighters and tankers, they need not plan for the aircraft to return. That essentially doubles the range of their attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJ99bIhAVk
Unfortunately, the less likely the pundits regard this sort of attack, the more likely it is. And don’t forget that, while those fighters are coming in, popping up just offshore, the IAF is likely to be devoting its attention to incoming missiles.
Lets make sense “how is a non nuclear country going to wipe israel off the face of the earth when they have over 300 nukes?”
More israeli lies, with inflated numbers, to get more military help from USA and EU.
Someone or thing is always going to attack and destroy israel, i wish it were true.
Most likely this is intended to lay down a disinfo back story for an attack by the US on Iran later this year. Unfortunately, both Hillary’s largest sponsor, (Haim Saban) as well as Trump’s (Sheldon Adelson) have been determined to proceed with this. For political expediency, Hillary claims to support Obama’s deal with Iran. However, since Saban and Netanyahu are both strong opponents she will need stories such as this to justify changing her position.
The story does have many bizarre features which make it easy to refute. Of course, as others have pointed out, Israel is a heavily armed nuclear power with a strategic triad of forces. They would certainly have their Sampson Option if Iran tried such an attack.
I truly fell bad for American people they are very nice generous loving people they don’t deserve to be slaved in there own country
The fact that in the report suggesting that Royal Malaysian Air Force requesting the installation of Israeli avionics system similar to IAF are highly inaccurate as the Malaysian preliminary request before agreeing to purchased Su 30 MKM was that every details of Israeli avionics or any components of Israeli origin must be discarded and replaced with others of Malaysian Air Force specification. Never during the preliminary negotiation the matters of as prescribed by DEBKA occurs. This delusional and hallucination based report are in total contradiction with Malaysian Government policy regarding Israeli transgression of Palestinian people. Its never interests us and in the long run our prediction on this engagement are proven correct.