To be honest with you all, it's not the weapons that Iran has in her arsenal that worries me.

It will be how the Iranian military will respond after the first 30 days of night and day bombing from coalition forces.

How will the average Joe Iranian army guy fight.

Is this person a tried and true Islamic psycho or will this fighter be a college student, farmer or businessman forced to fight?

I would say we will see some of both.

The Islamic psycho loyal fighter will be held in reserve protecting major sites and cities and forcing the average Joe to fight with a gun to their head, fight or die.

Sort of what SH did in Iraq with the Republican guard.

Something we all must remember that in Iran, not all of the people support the current administration, and over the past five years there have been some major student revolts against the Iranian administration.

We don't here to much about these rally's and anti government marches because the Mullahs suppress the demonstrations with a heavy hand.

Goggle the last Iranian election for stories on the unrest when the leading candidate for pres was removed from the vote because he did not follow the Mullahs rule of law, it was not pretty for the protestors.

Things are not all roses in Iran!

College students and younger people have tasted the western life via the internet and satellite TV, they are eager to explore and learn and do not want to be ruled by religion, especially the women in Iran, time will tell which fighter will show up.

We all see the propoganda from Iran showing the military in all it's glory and splendor with the latest gear and weapons but that won't mean a thing if the average Joe is forced to fight for a something they don't believe in.

In Los Angeles there is a satellite TV station that has been broadcasting from the US since the fall of the Shaw, these people who run the station are former Iranian citizens were forced to flee Iran.

This station broadcasts daily to Iran news of the world, news they would not get from Iranian Gov run news propaganda stations, they beam pro west programming that has the mullahs so pissed off they banned satellite dishes in Iran. The really crazy thing is that Iranian people call the US TV station using a toll free number or the net and correspond about changing Iran to a free country not run by religion.

When the bombing starts, it will be interesting to see if the Iranian forces split and fight each other for control of the country. I guess time will tell.

NG, I noticed in one of your earlier posts that Iran uses three rifles. M16 type weapons i.e. M16/M203 combo, G-3 7.62mm rifles, AK rifles as well as its new M16 Bullpup. Plenty of weaposn but it must play hell with the logistics side of things! Thats three different types of ammo along just for infantry weapons. Does the issue of rifles very from regiment to regiment. Is it like in the Israeli army for example where certain units favour the Ak over M16/Tavor and are allowed to use it, or are weapons issued depending on what is lying around.

From your posts it would appear that Iran has developed a lot of different military tech and while it may have backward engineered a lot of US stuff from the Shah days as well as Russian tech I find it nevertheless impressive compared to other middle eastern countries which have a very poor manufacturing/technology base. Just out of interest is this indicative of Iran as a whole i.e. is Iran trying to develop itself into a modern nation with a high tech base or is the leadership mearly building up its arms manufacturing capability becuase the leadership is wary of the fact that the US surrounds it on all sides i.e. Iraq, Afgahnistan etc etc? I read somewhere that unemplyment is rather high and that a lot of Iranian students who qualify in Iranian universities are moving abroad because there are no jobs. Is this true from your experience? (Sorry to go off track a bit, but Ive never had the chance to speak to an Iranian before)

Getting back to the Military side of things. While I don't consider Iran to be a threat to the US as I would expect and US action against iran to be airstrikes followed by limited ground assaults to try and destabilise the clerical regime I think that Iran would definately be able to hold its own against any neighbours. The major threat to Iran used to be Iraq and their Army was destroyed completely in Gulf War 2.

One thing I will say about the Iranian political leadership is that they are very astute. They have many many options to use against the US without having to involve themselves directly. I think that the leadership realises that while having new guns and missles will help in the long term its best bet is to outmanouver the US on a politcial front and I think they are doing that rather well at the moment.

The Iranians are bluffing as Saddam did before the US-British invasion of Iraq. I doubt that the Iranian army would fight the US army in a traditional way. They would vanish and start a guerilla.

Iraq : 1800 dead soldiers in 2.5 years

Iran : 6000-7000 dead soldiers in 2.5 years

I'm not even gonna start, anyways back to the topic.

[edit on 29-8-2005 by NR]

While Iran is able to produce indigenous weapons, they are still not "top of the shelf" hardware. To go against a well trained, well equipped, well supplied battlle tested army, navy, airforce and marines that have superior battle tested weapons, Iran would need to be able to match them in quality, quantity, tactics and replacement. Frankly they would not be much of a fight in a purely military vs military conventional war. The airpower and precision munitions advantage the U.S. has would be decisive if there were to be any hostilities. Urban warfare would bog down as it does in any military engagement, but the U.S. would not procede with land operations until Iran's infrastructure and major concentrations of armed forces were throughly degraded by airpower and guided munitions. Hopefully we will have to debate this rather then see it played out on our tv's.

What a supportive thing to say cw..

No seriously, I hope the US doesn't make another blunder with Iran, and if it does I hope the other countries do something to stop this..Esp the SCO, South Asia and Europe.. (Old Europe )

I think the US can only do airstrikes against Iran. Unless the situation in iraq improves really much and quikly.

I don't think the US will ever attack Iran. At the moment they are far too overstretched. Israel won't do anything either because of Hezbullah who happen to have a rather large ammount of rockets available to them, all of which are pointed at Northan Israel.

I have not problem with Iran developing these sorts of weapons because who at the moment are they gonna go up against? The Iranians aren't renound for starting wars. Like I said before, Iran is moving to manoever against the US politically and is doing a very good job. Its all a big game of chess and so far Iran seems to have covered all its pieces well.

Oh and I don't think the Iranians are bluffing either as someone said earlier. They have the oil, they have the tech an from what Ive seen in this post have already developed the home made capabilities to produce armaments which is more than Iraq ever did which got most of its stuff from USSR/Russia. Besides, I doubt there will be another war anytime soon, unless things wind up in Iraq quickly and another neocon gets in. Even then I really doubt it.

Tell me how is our Air Force and Navy overstretched? That’s all we would need for air strikes and probably some SF on the ground which we also have.


[edit on 30-8-2005 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Tell me how is our Air Force and Navy overstretched? That’s all we would need for air strikes and probably some SF on the ground which we also have.


[edit on 30-8-2005 by WestPoint23]

It's just a catch phrase. Let's look at the numbers:
US Soldiers Deployed:
Iraq:approx. 138,000
Afghanistan:18,000
Africa:2000
Asia:Approx.97,000
Australia:200
Europe:116,000! There are 75,600 US soldiers in Germany alone!
Former Soviet States:1812
Misc. Middle East:6000
Western Hemisphere sans USA:2,200

And here is the kicker

Active duty units IN the USA still (or afloat near her shores):1,168,195

It's not an issue of manpower, maybe it's logistics. I for one believe that could swing into action if needed though. Hopefully it won't be.

As to not hijack the thread though, Iran is pretty impressive with its self-sustained weapons programs.


[edit on 8/30/2005 by Wiley_Wonka]

Wiley_Wonka,
Umm ok firstly a soldier is a person in the army.
A sailor is the navy.
An airman is airforce.

The US has just over a tenth of its men and women on deployment...
46% of its fleet is "away from home port" and 36% of it is in "home port" I hardly call that "over stretched"..

I'm no military expert, but I think iran would have to worry about the decapitation techniques we have refined since afghanistan and Iraq. I don't mean literally decapitating people, but cutting the leaders off from their generals.

All that fancy hardware dosn't mean doo diddly if they don't know what their orders are. Plain and simple.

4 hours into this thang, and they are in a communications black out, and all they know is we are coming, and they don't know how to stop it.

seriously, the one thing that shocked me about Iraq is that they couldn't fly at night. Does Iran have this capability ? If not, they won't last 3 days

seriously, the one thing that shocked me about Iraq is that they couldn't fly at night. Does Iran have this capability ? If not, they won't last 3 days

Of course Iran has the capability bro, if you look at the first page in this thread and watch the video, you can see their F-4's flying at night time along with our tanks and other military equipment which saddam didnt have, our other aircrafts can do it as well. I also wanted to post way more pics but due to admin telling me to stop it had to come to an end.

[edit on 30-8-2005 by NR]

Originally posted by devilwasp
Wiley_Wonka,
Umm ok firstly a soldier is a person in the army.
A sailor is the navy.
An airman is airforce.

The US has just over a tenth of its men and women on deployment...
46% of its fleet is "away from home port" and 36% of it is in "home port" I hardly call that "over stretched"..

I realize that, it was the whole point of my post. Perhaps you misunderstood me.