Iran Military Forum

Here’s my take on the dimensions.

Going by the Borna News Image:
There are three persons standing to the right of the missile who are roughly the same distance away from the camera, the guy in the white baseball cap(1), the two guys to his immediate right (2 and 3) and the man wearing the orange safety vest (4)

1, 3, and 4 are in the best positions, not being more then ~.5m closer to the camera, 2 is a bit closer, but still relatively close.

According to wikipedia, the average height of Iranian males is 1.7 m.

Going by this, they result in a missile height of, respectively, 8.52 m, 8.89 m, 8.74 m, and 8.39 m. With an average of 8.63 m. Of course, it will be slightly higher due to the distortion that results from the camera looking up at the top of the missile.

For the diameter, using the same numbers, i got .69, .72, .71 and .69 m respectively, with an average of .70 m.

Yep, i’m measuring pretty much the same numbers – if i a) neglect the effects of perspective (if i’d measure strictly like this, then the fire truck in the background to the right would only be a ~40cm high kid’s toy) and b) neglect that this picture is slightly distorted height-wise by a factor of ~1.08:1 (see the felloe at the left lower corner of that picture – shouldn’t that one be round, not slightly oval?).

Please notice that according to my interpretation, the missile is SIGNIFICANTLY farther away from the camera than the persons. Consider if this can be correct. You’re welcome to do your own estimations on this issue, but please do me a favor and try to be as realistic as possible (e.g. assuming that the MEL is based on a commercial semitrailer only 1m broad is NOT realistic!).

So let’s try to compensate for perspective first, by means of simple mathematical dilation. As i already explicated before, i think that the camera will be ~8-15m away from the missile. I also think that all of the persons will be approximately 1.5m closer to the camera than the missile (again, please check if this estimate CAN be in a realistic range – and please don’t simply NEGATE my assumption and substitute it with your own, but honestly consider if this can be anywhere near correct). Thus we’ll have to multiply these 8.39-8.89m with a factor of 1.11-1.23, which results in a real length of the missile of 9.3-10.9m (10.1m on average – my guess is that the Qiam-1 is ~10.6m in reality, which is within the given bandwidth). So by now, it’s a diameter of 0.77-0.89m (~0.82m on average).
Next, we’ll have to additionally compensate for the height-wise stretching of that picture, so the diameter of the missile will additionally have to be multiplied by a factor of ~1.08 (or maybe a little bit less; i’ve rounded that one up for simplicity). This results in a measured diameter of 0.83-0.96m (~0.89m on average – isn’t this ASTONISHINGLY close to the Scud’s 0.88m?). Please note the rather broad bandwith of these estimations due to the uncertainties involved in the estimating/measuring/calculation process, and that i’ve most of the time multiplied rounded figures with rounded figures.

Last but not least, let me again warn against using people as a yardstick – technical details of known or easily estimated dimension and position (like the aforementioned felloe) will offer a MUCH better reliability (and you don’t have to additionally correct for distortion – a further possible source of error – if you can measure parallel to the to-be-estimated dimension)!