Iran’s Zolfaqar surface-to-surface missile, whose production line was inaugurated Sept 25, is reported to have a range of 700 km, but other missiles also developed in-country are said to have ranges of up to 2,000 km. (FAN photo)
"The new Zolfaqar missile is being supplied to the IRGC Aerospace Force and a large number of this missile will be supplied to our units by the yearend," General Hajizadeh told FNA on Tuesday.
Asked if Iran has any plans to develop missiles to hit targets more than 2,000km in range, he said, "Our target is Israel and we don’t need missiles with a range of more than 2,000km."
Iran on Sunday started mass-production of home-made Zolfaqar missile that can destroy targets in distances up to 700km in range with a zero margin of error.
The production line of Zolfaqar was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and General Hajizadeh.
Zolfaqar, the latest generation of Iran's mid-range missiles, was unveiled during the nationwide parades of Armed Forces on Wednesday.
Iran has made giant advancements in developing long-range missiles in recent years.
The IRGC fired 2 home-made 'Qadr H' ballistic missiles from the Eastern Alborz Mountains at a target in Iran's Southeastern Makran seashore some 1,400km away in March.
The missiles were fired on the sidelines of the main stage of the IRGC drills in Central Iran and various parts of the country.
One missile had a message written on it that said in Hebrew: "Israel should be wiped off the Earth".
Qadr is a 2000km-range, liquid-fuel and ballistic missile which can reach territories as far as Israel.
The missile can carry different types of ‘Blast’ and ‘MRV’ payloads to destroy a range of targets. The new version of Qadr H can be launched from mobile platforms or silos in different positions and can escape missile defense shields due to their radar-evading capability.
A Multiple Reentry Vehicle payload for a ballistic missile deploys multiple warheads in a pattern against a single target. (As opposed to Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, which deploys multiple warheads against multiple targets.) The advantage of an MRV over a single warhead is that the damage produced in the center of the pattern is far greater than the damage possible from any single warhead in the MRV cluster, this makes for an efficient area attack weapon. Also, the sheer number of warheads make interception by Anti-ballistic missiles unlikely.
Improved warhead designs allow smaller warheads for a given yield, while better electronics and guidance systems allowed greater accuracy. As a result, MIRV technology has proven more attractive than MRV for advanced nations. Because of the larger amount of nuclear material consumed by MRVs and MIRVs, single warhead missiles are more attractive for nations with less advanced technology. The United States deployed an MRV payload on the Polaris A-3. The Soviet Union deployed MRVs on the SS-9 Mod 4 ICBM.
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from Defense Aerospace - Press releases http://ift.tt/2cA4P2d
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