Iran Military Forum

Great News! 

M-ATF, as always you are the messenger of the joyful-hot-news.

Thanks bro.

Great video, video uploaded:

Iranian Missile Silo	Small | Large

iraniab terrain is perfect for silos. they wouldn't know what is where and its a great strategic advantage.

GREAT VIDEO!

I think they are placing liquid-fueled missiles in the silos as they need time to be fueled and prepared before they fire it.This will prevent from attacking it before firing.They will place solid-fuel missiles on mobile TELs.
What did the generals say in the video?

which matches up with the guessed dimensions of silos found by amateur satellite image observers give or take.

What an 'amateur satellite image observer' or an expert is seeing are decoys.

  How uncharacteristic of a military thinking observer Eagle.

YMJ,

But you don't know that and that's the point, because even the supposed decoy silos will have the same rough dimensions as the real ones or else they still be more easily identified as fakes. When it comes to Silos, the whole point is to make it impossible to tell whether they are real or fake so it is impossible to state as fact that the silos found by the IMINT blog are fakes since they could easily be real.

In fact decoys silos would actually look almost exactly like operational ones and likely would even have movable doors, the only difference would be they wouldn't have to be very deep but by making them look operational, they are perfect decoys. The only way to give a way a real Silo would be with Infared sensors.

Contrary to popular belief, SILOs aren't always easy to hide, just look at the first generation of missile silos designed by the US and Soviet Union, they didn't even try to hide them and can easily be found today with GE. This however was largely because the first SILO based missiles were rather large.

Something to note as well, for whatever reason, the IMINT blog's entry on two possible Iranian missile silo sites (both of which are confirmed missile bases) are no longer working on that site..They listed on the side but the link no longer works. Very curious.

Yes my first impression is that they intend to use these silos for bigger and more advanced missiles, but the silo doors do look a bit thin.

maby they have problem with door engine

when it comes to Silos, the whole point is to make it impossible to tell whether they are real or fake

Come on now eagle you sounded like a credible military analyst until you said something like this.

So Iran needs to expose its silos to meet your needs? How about Iran exposes decoys so you guys hit dummies?

This is chess, not checkers.

Contrary to popular belief, SILOs aren't always easy to hide, just look at the first generation of missile silos designed by the US and Soviet Union

That's first generation and the terrain of Iran is completely different and very mountainous with excellent locations to hide them.

In fact decoys silos would actually look almost exactly like operational ones and likely would even have movable doors, the only difference would be they wouldn't have to be very deep but by making them look operational, they are perfect decoys. The only way to give a way a real Silo would be with Infared sensors.

Yeah after a launch, not before one.

I've been thinking about the potential implications for Iran's nuclear program. I've heard that there are no non-nuclear countries deploy missiles in hardened silos like these; I can't think, off the top of my head, of any that do but I also don't have anywhere close to a comprehensive knowledge of other countries ballistic missile deployment patterns so I may be wrong on this count. The logic behind it is sound though, the static location means that it's tactical use on a battlefield would be limited and the expense of hardening it would seem to exceed the savings gained from protecting conventional weapons. The main advantage of such a silo system, namely split-second, precise reaction time also doesn't really apply to a conventional situation (at least not a significant amount). However when you have access to nuclear weapons, the advantages of hardening the target, and ensuring split-second reaction times become far more pronounced. The end result is far greater deterrence capability.

It's interesting that Eagle should mention the size of the silos - this is because silos are usually associated with ICBMs (again, to the best of my knowledge, I'm not sure about specifics) which would have tremendous political implications should Iran field them, especially in hardened silos like this one.

That being said, Iran is rather unique in that it does deploy non-nuclear ballistic missiles as a strategic weapon so these types of silos might actually offer some benefit that exist using conventional weapons. For instance, silos allow instant retaliation whereas before TELs would have had to have been erected, missiles fueled, etc.

Though given that Iran probably has specific "alert" units for exactly this purpose, I can't see the time difference being all that much. Let's say that using a silo saves half-an-hour versus the "alert" unit, what exactly is Iran going to do in that half hour that is so crucial; I can't see any realistic answer. In a nuclear situation, if your enemy launched nuclear missiles at you, you would hypothetically be able to launch a retaliatory wave in return, ensuring deterrence capability.

One possibility is that if these silos are in fact 15 years old, they were made during the period when Iran is believed to have been pursuing a nuclear weapon (as per the 2007 NIE which states that Iran halted their nuclear program in the early-2000's which implies that Iran did have a nuclear program in the 1990s).

what you say is true, but dont forget it allows to fire many at once this would be a must to overwhelm an anti missile system such as arrow. It seems to be more conveniant, efficient and safer in terms of defense. than putting 15 trucks in a line to shoot a specific target.

Also you then have best of both worlds, static defense and mobile.
Radio for a hit near the front line, they fire from silo instead of mobile unit.

That's first generation and the terrain of Iran is completely different and very mountainous with excellent locations to hide them.

Yeah after a launch, not before one.

There are quite a bit more ways to tell decoys from the real thing. The majority of these ways come from gradual observation over time. Decoys don't usually involve extensive excavations and construction of support facilities, nor do they usually have continuing activity and maintenance.

While it is possible that a decoy facility could be constructed and fully manned for the purposes of deception that's making a very large assumption because it's not guaranteed that Iran would conceal all of their silos. For instance, a number of their major missile facilities aren't hidden at all like the one's in Khorromabad and Kermanshah. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Iran has facilities that we have no idea about, but it's also a mistake in my mind to say that ALL of them are like this.

Actually, in the HQ videos, you can see that the entry is actually camouflaged with netting and in the shot of the door opening, there appears to be brush around the doors, i.e. not a huge concrete pad.

There are quite a bit more ways to tell decoys from the real thing. The majority of these ways come from gradual observation over time. Decoys don't usually involve extensive excavations and construction of support facilities, nor do they usually have continuing activity and maintenance.

Its called a decoy for a reason. You think the people who set up decoys don't think of these things?

PLEASE!

Iran is one large construction site since they are building legitimate infrastructure, buildings and military sites simultaneously.

While it is possible that a decoy facility could be constructed and fully manned for the purposes of deception that's making a very large assumption because it's not guaranteed that Iran would conceal all of their silos.

Not conceal all. Conceal most and throw the enemy off using decoys.

I'm sure Iran has facilities that we have no idea about, but it's also a mistake in my mind to say that ALL of them are like this.

The ones that are known probably get the most air defense protection.

Its called a decoy for a reason. You think the people who set up decoys don't think of these things?

PLEASE!

Iran is one large construction site since they are building legitimate infrastructure, buildings and military sites simultaneously.

Not conceal all. Conceal most and throw the enemy off using decoys.

The ones that are known probably get the most air defense protection.

Undoubtedly all possible, but you'd be surprised the capabilities of modern IMINT especially with regard to spectrum's other then normal cameras. It may not be possible to scan ALL of Iran with this level of precision but with regard to suspected sites (like in Tabriz, Kermanshah, Khorromabad, etc) many different level of analysis can be made. This certainly isn't a guarantee of success but visual decoys are only so effective as they usually cannot replicate use and upkeep of an actual facility for any number of reasons.

Obviously this kind of analysis is mostly out of the reach of the "amateurs" like us.

But let's return to the specific example we're talking about which is the purported Tabriz missile silos, and to a lesser extend the facilities in places like Kermanshah and Khorromabad.

We can observe sites that we can tell, to the best of our abilities, are missile silos. This is because they are located adjacent to known missile storage locations and military depots and because they externally have physical features that would characterize them as such.IMO, it is a reasonable assumption that since they appear to be missile silos, they probably are missile silos. This isn't to say that we should rule out the possibility of them being decoys, they very well may be. But at this point, the physical evidence points to the former.

The problem with your logic that I see is that you're using an additional level of assumptions. What I mean by this is that when I see the evidence (which is the physical imagery of the sites) my position only lies on inferring one thing from that imagery. The point you're defending sees the same imagery, concedes that they look outwardly like missile silos (if they are in fact decoys, they would have to look like silos) and then goes a step further with the assumption that they must be decoys. The problem is that while this is a distinct possibility, there is no actual physical evidence for this in the imagery.


For instance, lets look at two other examples:

What if we found a military base on GE that had a motor pool, barracks, a mosque, garages and vehicles sitting on pavement. The logical conclusion would be that it is a garrison since it bears all the physical properties of one. It is possible that it could be a decoy using empty buildings and inflatable vehicles. However, like the missile silos, we can't make that assumption because there's no evidence for it. We can only observe the facility, acknowledge that it may be a decoy and conclude that it's most likely a garrison facility.

Or how about if we were looking at a row of beige, unremarkable buildings lined up in the middle of Tehran. There could be hidden missile silos below the building or any number of things. While this may be possible it's not something that we can simply "assume" based on the possibility alone because if this were the case, then literally every single house in Iran could conceal a nuclear weapon; a precedent I'm sure no one in Iran would care to establish.