Air Mines to Insecure Iranian Airspace for Enemy Aircrafts

Enemy Aircrafts Highly Insecure due to Air Mine Innovation

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Spokesman of the extensive 'Blow of Zolfaqar' war games said Iran has innovated an air mine system which could be utilized at all the different low, medium and high altitudes, stressing that the system makes Iran's airspace highly insecure for enemy planes.

He further pointed to air dominance specially in the area above the battleground as one of the capabilities of the air force of such powers, and added, "In line with the aforesaid goal, the Islamic Republic ground force has provided systems which can turn the air space of the country highly insecure for the enemies in all the different low, medium and high altitudes.

The General also referred to another one of the Iranian defense industries' products, called air mine system, devised for posing counter-threats.

"The air mine could also be deployed at the different low, medium and high altitudes in order to counter enemy threats via air," he stated, saying that the Iranian army's innovation can make the country's airspace highly insecure for enemy planes.

from the pictures I saw on another forum, i think Iranian Air Mine is nothing but a Small balloon filled with hydrogen gas attached to a cable.

It is very likely that these balloons will be placed in the blind spots of iranian radar coverage in low and medium altitudes so that when planes fy low in Wild Weasel operations during night, they fly into these radar avoiding air mines.

Also, Helis have to fly higher to avoid the aerial mines.

Any thoughts?

Keep It Real

This is a possible candidate but someone back there, said that these are target balloons for manpads.



Keep It Real

proprog me thinks you would need a hell of a lot of barreage ballons to make iranian airspace insecure for us fighters. the british used them in ww2 and thwey didnt kill that many i dont think so why would they be effective now. also a barrage ballon couldnt be used at high altitude. imagine the weight of the wires nessecery to attach this balloon to the ground. or imagine if there was a strong wind. it just wouldnt work.

The idea of air mines seems retarded to me.

justin

They could have proximity fuses on the balloon/warhead - instead of relying on skin-skin contact, anything entering a 100 metre radius will be destroyed.

If 20 balloons were mounted at 150 and 350 metres it virtually covers an altitude from 50m to 450m across a front of 1 km.


Depending on how cheap they are they could cover likely valley approaches for low-level attacks quite well.

A mine is traditionally a self-contained explosive device that is activated by the proximity of a target.

The fact that he said "air-mine system" hints that these are not stand-alone devices, but rather a system of weapons designed specifically to eliminate intruding aircraft. Most likely they would not be impact-activated, because you would need a ridiculous amount of them to make any such system effective, plus the things would impede the movement of your own aircraft.

But I'm really not sure what it could be. The only thing that can really stay in one place for a long time is a SAM site, but why not just say SAM site instead of air-mining system?



Or:

UrbanDictionary.com

Quite simply a highly toxic fart left in a room when its main occupant is not present, to be discovered later when the occupant returns. This form of warfare has been outlawed by NATO but is still in use in many urban office engagement zones.

It might be effective in forcing hostile aircrafts to fly higher or go around them because the mooring wires will be just as lethal to a low flying aircraft (combat helos?) and if you criss-cross wires between the balloons and mooring points it's a pretty effective low level route denial system (ie a mining system)

It may not destroy any planes, but if it forces the attacker to fly in SAM target zones it has done it's job.

Small drones. Small Charge. Accoustic recognition with delay, and command set.

Kind of like WWII sea mines.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
They could have proximity fuses on the balloon/warhead - instead of relying on skin-skin contact, anything entering a 100 metre radius will be destroyed.

Proximity fuse eh? What’s to stop a high alt aircraft from dropping a whole lot of chaff/decoys over these balloons and causing them to go off like popcorn?

Westpoint, nothing stops you from taking these out. But along with the balloons goes your element of suprise and the plane that Chaffs the mines has to fly in threath zone... These ain't war winners, but may cause some disturbance at least to operational planners.

This action would no more ruin your element of surprise then a swarm of cruise missiles being launched ahead of friendly aircraft to destroy key instillations. Then there’s the attacking platform, I only said plane to give you an idea of what I had in mind but we are by no means limited to just aircraft. A cruise missile delivery system carrying decoys instead of sub munitions detonating and low to medium altitude can be just as effective. And they can be part of a larger spear head missile strike which I believe will be part of any plan to attack Iran.

Edit: I said carry decoys instead of sub munitions but now that I think about it a cruise missile might be just as effective with the original sub munitions against these "air mines".


[edit on 22-8-2006 by WestPoint23]

sort of makes you wonder what effect an AESA radar with a signal strong enough to nearly instantaneously cook birds in it's path might have on such balloons, particularly if they are lofting a payload of high explosives.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
The fact that he said "air-mine system" hints that these are not stand-alone devices, but rather a system of weapons designed specifically to eliminate intruding aircraft. Most likely they would not be impact-activated, because you would need a ridiculous amount of them to make any such system effective, plus the things would impede the movement of your own aircraft.

But I'm really not sure what it could be. The only thing that can really stay in one place for a long time is a SAM site, but why not just say SAM site instead of air-mining system?

maybe these ballons have a radar inside. which would provide a larger range agaisnt aircraft (particularly low flying aircraft) due to the curvature of the earth. andf then maybe there would be a long range sam site underneath it. thats the only way i can see this ballon being effective especially against high flying aircraft.

justin

The biggest difference between these weapons (if they do exist) and the traditional sea mine is the density of medium in which they operate. Undersea mines are significantly more effective as the water surrounding them is a much better conductor of shock waves, allowing an undersea mine to deliver a lethal shock wave across a pretty descent distance. Air is thin, by nature and the shock wave from a detonated "air mine" would be dispersed relatively quickly, limiting such a mine's "kill zone."

Ultimately, this whole thing sounds like a gunless Flak system designed to fill an area of airspace with a bunch of nearly-simultaneous explosions which may not score direct hits, but still cause a bunch of damage through proximity detonation. I don't see how balloons would be able to achieve the density of a Flak system, however, so the "Big Sky Theory" should win out in the end. Sure, you might score a nice little PR victory by saying that you downed a bomber or fighter-bomber or two, but you're going to get the crap smacked out of you in the process and that's a defeat in the end.

Has anyone bothered to consider that this is all disinformation on the part of the Irainian Government. The Fars news agency is after all the voice of the government. Trying to scare off any pre-emptive strikes maybe?

I would also think these 'air mines' would be easily located in satellite photos and could be avoided. The number needed to protect even a small target area would probably make any attempt to defend the area useless. Espically, if all you need to do is fly higher and use stealth to avoid the mines, or just find a route through them.

You could make a cheap 'air mine' out of hundreds of helium baloons with washers attached to strings released into an area if you know a strike is coming. I doubt that they would be effective, but could they be considered mines?

Originally posted by intelgurl
sort of makes you wonder what effect an AESA radar with a signal strong enough to nearly instantaneously cook birds in it's path might have on such balloons, particularly if they are lofting a payload of high explosives.

My question exactly.

not to burst into the conversation or anything,
but arent these the target blimps/balloons the iranians use for their missiles and so on?

Tis might be a minor point, but could not someone use small UAV's with machine guns to "down" any ballons in the way?

and A-10 might also do a good job, as it can fly low and slow-relitive to a jet-and take out a lot of them also.

This being done with F-16/18/22 on top guarding the a-10's.

Simple cost effective paln by Iran, simple cost effective plan by the US/Allies

Originally posted by mrmonsoon
Tis might be a minor point, but could not someone use small UAV's with machine guns to "down" any ballons in the way?

and A-10 might also do a good job, as it can fly low and slow-relitive to a jet-and take out a lot of them also.

This being done with F-16/18/22 on top guarding the a-10's.

Simple cost effective plan by Iran, simple cost effective plan by the US/Allies

Well you have a point. UAVs could be good to take them down. Myself I wouldn't order fighters on missions like that. It would be waste of resources.

This idea is completely ridiculous. It is much more effective to use flaks and hide them in forrest/urban area. Air mines are sitting ducks, nowhere to hide and easily visible by radar/visually, few aircrafts or even helicopters with canons can take them down.

For the cost of one jet fighter you could release 100,000 balloons containing large radar reflectors, 100 balloons containing GPS and comm jammers, and 1000 balloons containing 200 feet of piano wire coupled to an explosive. This would deny airspace quite effectively.