Author Topic: IRGC Air Force missile silos with + pictures (Read 2957 times)

Pasdar · « **Reply #25 on:** June 30, 2011, 07:01:10 AM »

I don't agree:
¤ The thickness is not against the heat, it's there mostly for the pressure.
e.g. A 10cm thick bronze door will melt (or 'decay') just as much as a 100cm one, but the amount of pressure it can handle is much more.

¤ US silos are very old , we don't know what alloys they used and what they thought they needed.

¤ This silo will easilly launch a heavy US missile. You might have a problem if the missile explodes in the silo. Especially if the launch hatch is closed.

farbod · « **Reply #26 on:** June 30, 2011, 01:02:11 PM »

how many silos do you think we have? also i dont think iran will show all of them as we need to keep them hidden.

also i dont get it, why cant we just jam the us satelite so they cant see s**t?

Pasdar · « **Reply #27 on:** June 30, 2011, 07:53:15 PM »

IMO this revelation, the announcement that Iran will move its 20% enrichment to Qom, and etc are all part of the same warning to the US to not take it too far.

Eagle2009 · « **Reply #28 on:** June 30, 2011, 07:55:25 PM »

YMJ,

If you want to the silos to remain hidden then yes logically you should have them connected somehow to a nearby missile base or depot where the missile can be assembled underground away from prying eyes.

Pasdar,

Also, normally missile silos have an exhaust vent of somesort to allow the engine exhaust (and with it a great deal of the heat and pressure) to escape which would also limited the amount of heat and pressure placed on any access doors.

However American silos aren't that old in that I believe they were built when the missiles that occupy them were built, i.e. the late 1970's and early 1980's. I don't think they reused old Titan missile silos but I could be wrong. As such, the silo's access doors are that thick for a reason, and I believe it is both heat and the pressure from the engine exhaust.

Then again comparing US missile silos to Iranian silos is problematic for another reason. American missile silos aren't really hidden, I would bet my life the Russians know exactly where they are. Also many of Russia's surviving missile silos are also not trully hidden. Their locations may technically be classified but they are not "hidden" and likely are fairly well know to the US just as our silo locations are to them. This is why the US largely today relies on our Ohio class SSBN to carry out missile strikes since they are much more survivable. In fact neither Russia nor the US relies heavily on silo-based missiles anymore as the Russians (and myself) prefer their cross-country TELs.

mamdali · « **Reply #29 on:** July 01, 2011, 12:14:59 AM »

Quote from: Pasdar on June 30, 2011, 07:53:15 PM

IMO this revelation, the announcement that Iran will move its 20% enrichment to Qom, and etc are all part of the same warning to the US to not take it too far.

100% agreed. Although everything the IRI is doing can be shown to be not intended for weapons development, one can argue there are enough indicators to point to the POSSIBILITY it is or it will.

This is extremely interesting strategically. Israel might have 'nuclear ambiguity' as it's strategy, but here we have the IRI with a strategy of 'nuclear plausible deniabllity'. You heard it here first folks!...

Mamdali

YMJ · « **Reply #30 on:** July 01, 2011, 07:03:26 AM »

Quote from: Eagle2009 on June 30, 2011, 07:55:25 PM

YMJ,

If you want to the silos to remain hidden then yes logically you should have them connected somehow to a nearby missile base or depot where the missile can be assembled underground away from prying eyes.

That's what i thought the point of a silo was. To remain hidden and shoot. ?

There has to be a loading mechanism from beneath. Maybe modified missiles that can be assembled underground and fueled?

This can be done and i hope Iranian engineers were creative enough to do this.

aryana · « **Reply #31 on:** July 01, 2011, 04:08:33 PM »

Quote from: YMJ on July 01, 2011, 07:03:26 AM

That's what i thought the point of a silo was. To remain hidden and shoot. ?

There has to be a loading mechanism from beneath. Maybe modified missiles that can be assembled underground and fueled?

This can be done and i hope Iranian engineers were creative enough to do this.

me too but none nuclear missiles would be ineffective to have som much facality they should have sajjil instead.

mat111 · « **Reply #32 on:** July 01, 2011, 04:30:47 PM »

hi all,

judging by the width of the door (as pointed out by other senior members), i think it is an experimental silo. For comparison look at the minuteman silo here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minuteman_II_in_silo_1980.jpg

- Matt

mamdali · « **Reply #33 on:** July 01, 2011, 05:07:06 PM »

I seriously doubt they would show the operational silo.

Mamdali

ahriman46 · « **Reply #34 on:** July 01, 2011, 05:48:54 PM »

OMG i searched american missile silos and look what i found.. i think this one is atleast 20-30 times larger than the iranian one.. thats why im saying we have to be improved.

aryana · « **Reply #35 on:** July 01, 2011, 05:53:29 PM »

Quote from: ahriman46 on July 01, 2011, 05:48:54 PM

OMG i searched american missile silos and look what i found.. i think this one is atleast 20-30 times larger than the iranian one.. thats why im saying we have to be improved.

is it economic to have 1000s of these?

Nightstrike · « **Reply #36 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:17:15 PM »

Quote from: ahriman46 on July 01, 2011, 05:48:54 PM

OMG i searched american missile silos and look what i found.. i think this one is atleast 20-30 times larger than the iranian one.. thats why im saying we have to be improved.

Titan missile is a whole different ball game and requires a much much better silo design. That doesnt mean the Iranian SILO shown isnt a testbed for further development though.

aryana · « **Reply #37 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:20:03 PM »

Quote from: Nightstrike on July 01, 2011, 06:17:15 PM

Titan missile is a whole different ball game and requires a much much better silo design. That doesnt mean the Iranian SILO shown isnt a testbed for further development though.

they should think about submarines instead.

Nightstrike · « **Reply #38 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:26:26 PM »

Priority number one is a missile deterrent. when you have the capability to target most bases , you restrict an attackers ability to use their full conventional power.

aryana · « **Reply #39 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:28:11 PM »

Quote from: Nightstrike on July 01, 2011, 06:26:26 PM

They're trying ,

but priority number one is a missile deterrent.

submarines can shot missiles.

Nightstrike · « **Reply #40 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:30:07 PM »

Quote from: aryana on July 01, 2011, 06:28:11 PM

submarines can shot missiles.

Ya , non-Iranian submarines can.

aryana · « **Reply #41 on:** July 01, 2011, 06:54:48 PM »

Quote from: Nightstrike on July 01, 2011, 06:30:07 PM

Ya , non-Iranian submarines can.

we should build a sub that can. thats my point.

Nightstrike · « **Reply #42 on:** July 01, 2011, 08:16:53 PM »

Not easy. thats my point.

Eagle2009 · « **Reply #43 on:** July 02, 2011, 04:42:58 AM »

ahriman46,

Well for one thing, that is a Titan missile which has a diameter more than twice that of the Shahab-3 so the silo is bound to be larger on the inside.

Also, you have to remember US missile silos in theory are designed to survive practically anything short of a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.

For these reasons alone, the old Titan silos are going to be much larger on the inside with thicker walls and doors.

YMJ,

From what I know, all silos are designed to be almost completely self-contained. The missiles are often kept fully assembled in the launch tube unfuelled (in the case of liquid fuel rockets only of course) with warheads already attached. However that is in the case of nuclear-armed missiles.

But the missile bodies, warheads, and fuel are normally all contained in the same underground complex so that in times of war the missile silos can operate without the help of the outside, which gives them the greatest amount of survivability and increases readiness.

However, the point of having the entire process underground is not so much because of secrecy but because of practicality. Yes, you don't necessarily want the enemy to know if your silos have missiles in them or not or what their readiness is (though they will logically assume there are missiles in all of them) but with today's technology hiding silos is not so easy anymore.

For example, Synthetic Apperture Radars are capable of "seeing" under the surface, including in mountainous terrain. Now there are limits to how deep SAR can "see" underground but considering they were designed to be able to detect underground structures in the first place (along with being able to provide very accurate radar maps of rough terrain), it's likely the "stealth" quality of missile silos have faded a good deal in the last few decades as SAR technology has spread around the world.

Eagle2009 · « **Reply #44 on:** July 02, 2011, 04:50:34 AM »

Personally, the hardest part about analyising Iran's missile silos is because they are the first nation non-nuclear nation to do so and as such the same rules and rational that drove the creation and perfection of missile silo technology and construction by the US and Russia do not necessarily apply to Iran.

Missile silos in the US, Russia, and China today were designed to not just survive a conventional attack but also an indirect nuclear attack so as to maintain at least some element of a nuclear deterant.

Iran's missiles silos however don't necessarily have to built to be that strong and as such can afford to be smaller, requiring less logistical support which in theory allows them to be more well hidden, whereas survivability is the main driving force today in US, Russian, and Chinese missile silos.

alhadji · « **Reply #45 on:** July 02, 2011, 08:20:02 AM »

Eagle. Even though Iran is, as you state, the only non nuclear state, as far as we know, to have a missile silo system, wouldn't the same nuclear deterrent rationale apply to Iran if Iran considers its missile force, even though non nuclear, as a strategic force, and is therefore bound by some of the same strategic decisions that originally committed the US and the former USSR to develop the missile silo system in the first place?

Eagle2009 · « **Reply #46 on:** July 02, 2011, 10:42:47 PM »

Except that Iran's ballistic missiles don't hold the same deterant as nuclear armed missiles. They do hold some strategic value but it is limited because of their conventional warheads.

Lets say Iran builds say, 50 silos big enough for Shahab-3s and Sejils to fire from (which i think is a bit high but I am just using it as an example). If Iran was attacked, those 50 missiles IMO isn't going to change the course of a war unless the enemy has no BMD (ballistic missile defenses). For a nation like Israel who in the next decade plans to have arguably the most extensive layered BMD in the world (to consist of 4 different and connected systems), the threat of 50 MRBMs is likely an acceptable risk. Even today the Israelis have at least twice that many ABMs ready-to-fire which gives them even better odds of defeating most of them (since they could vector more than one interceptor for each target).

However US, Russian, and Chinese silos carry ICBMs for which there are few systems that even claim to be able to stop an ICBM and therefore even if a few silos survive attack, the nuclear threat is still there since most nations have no defense against ICBMs

So I am still a bit on the fence on how useful these silos are..But that is strictly my opinion.

Pasdar · « **Reply #47 on:** July 03, 2011, 08:34:16 AM »

Quote from: ahriman46 on July 01, 2011, 05:48:54 PM

OMG i searched american missile silos and look what i found.. i think this one is atleast 20-30 times larger than the iranian one.. thats why im saying we have to be improved.

When talking about US missile silos, this is what it is:

Not the titan rocket.

Eagle2009 · « **Reply #48 on:** July 04, 2011, 12:52:27 AM »

Yea..Now adays you can buy and live in the old Titan and Atlas missile silos!