Do you know there are 5 Weapons Trump Could Strike Iran With ?

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5 Weapons Trump Could Strike Iran

5 Weapons Trump Could Strike Iran

The Islamic State of Iran was born in enmity toward the US. It didn’t take long for this animosity to turn kinetic.

Because the Iran-Iraq War intensified throughout 1984, the 2 combatants began targeting each other’s oil shipments as how to realize a military advantage.

According to Global Security : "71 merchant ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with 48 within the first three years of the Iran-Iraq war"

This drew the ire of global powers, none more so than the United States, who sent in a naval task force to escort oil tankers and merchant ships through the Persian Gulf. This led the U.S. and Iran to exchange fire on a number of occasions. Not surprisingly, the U.S. came out on top in most of those exchanges. This helped cement the US as a public enemy favorite within the minds of the many Iranian leaders, including those within the military. Since that point, Iran has sought to develop asymmetric military capabilities to offset America’s insurmountable conventional superiority.

Five U.S. weapons should be foremost in their minds:

F-22 Raptor :

Add F-22 Raptor

When Iranian aircraft began targeting U.S. drones conducting surveillance over Iran in 2013, Washington responding by providing the UAVs with High-Value Air Asset Escorts. These escorts often took the shape of the F-22 Raptor.

And permanently reason, as Iran’s American-made F-4 Phantom fighters are not any match for the U.S. fifth-generation fighter. In fact, the F-22 pilots frequently toyed with their Iranian counterparts. As the Air Force Chief of Staff explained of one incident :

He (the Raptor pilot) flew under their aircraft (the F-4s) to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there, and then pulled up on their left-wing and then called them and said : "you really ought to go home"

In the event of an armed conflict with Iran, the single-seat, twin-engine F-22 would be integral within the opening minutes as the U.S. sought to gain air superiority over Iranian skies. Fortunately, this is the exact type of mission for which the F-22 was built. Iran’s military would have little effective recourse against the F-22.

After helping the U.S. gain air superiority, the F-22 might be put to use for any number of various missions, including attacking ground targets, EW and collecting SIGINT. It’s no wonder that when tensions heat up with Iran, the U.S. deploys additional F-22s to airbases within the Persian Gulf.

B-2 Stealth Bomber:

B-2 bomber 

No threat from Iran terrifies the US more than its burgeoning nuclear program. it's for this reason that each American president has said that when it involves Iran’s nuclear program, all options remain on the table.

Should the U.S. need to resort to the military option against Iran’s nuclear program, the B-2 bomber would figure prominently within the operations. one among Iran’s best defenses is its massive and unforgiving geography. The country is 3 times larger than Iraq and roughly like the dimensions of all of Western Europe. Most of its major nuclear facilities, as well as some of its important military sites, are located deep inside the country. a number of these also are located near important cities, like the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant that's located near the important religious city of Qom.

This is what makes the B-2 bomber so key to any American attack on Iran’s nuclear program. As Northrop Grumman, who makes the plane, explains, the B-2 is “a key component of the nation’s long-range strike arsenal and one of the most survivable aircraft in the world.” Not only can it penetrate heavily defended areas, and elude sophisticated anti-air defense systems, but it boasts incredible range with the power to fly “6,000 nautical miles unrefueled and 10,000 nautical miles with only one aerial refueling.”

The B-2 stealth bomber can also carry an extensive payload, and deliver precision strikes, both of which might be necessary to make sure the U.S. destroyed the nuclear facilities in as few waves of attacks as possible. As Northrup again explains, each B-2 can “carry quite 20 plenty of conventional and nuclear ordnance and deliver it precisely under any weather conditions.”

GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator:

GBU-57A/B   MOP

The B-2 bomber is additionally crucial to a U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear program in another regard. Namely, it's the sole aircraft capable of carrying the Air Force’s GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

While the U.S. has sought to deny the operational concept formerly referred to as Air-Sea Battle was directed at China, it's been less coy about the aim of the huge bunker-buster. If the U.S. decided to attack Iran’s nuclear program, it might almost certainly use the MOP to destroy Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment site, which is buried deep inside a mountain.

At 30,000-pounds (13,600-kilograms), 31.5 inches in diameter and 20.5 feet long, the Boeing-made MOP is around sixfold the dimensions of the next biggest bunker-buster in the U.S. or Israel.

The GBU-57A/B MOP project began as early as 2004, and picked up steam under DARPA’s direction within the years that followed. Testing began under DARPA in 2008, and in February 2010, the program was transferred to the Air Force. In 2012, the Air Force ordered upgrades to the MOP and commenced conducting tests of the upgraded bomb in 2013.

The MOP reportedly packs some “5,300 pounds of explosive material and will deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the BLU-109.” this enables it to burrow through some 60 feet of ferroconcrete, and explode 200 feet underground, allowing it to destroy even the most hard-to-reach targets underneath the earth.

Amphibious Combat Vehicle:

Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) 1.1.

Beyond nuclear weapons, Iran threatens the U.S. with its anti-access/area-denial capabilities. Like China, anti-ship missiles figure prominently into Iran’s A2/AD strategy. Unlike China, Iran features a less sophisticated arsenal of medium-range and over-the-horizon precision-guided missiles.

To compensate, Iran would wish to rely on its geographical advantages to execute any A2/AD strategy in the Persian Gulf against the US. Fortunately for Tehran, Iran has the largest coastline inside the Strait of Hormuz at some 1,356 miles (to go with 480 kilometers of Arabian Sea coastline property). Moreover, geographical features like “bays, inlets, coves and islands” along Iran’s coastline are excellent for concealing weapon systems at close range to the United States naval assets operating in the Persian Gulf.

As such, within the event on an Iranian-U.S. conflict in the Persian Gulf—such as Iran trying to pack up the Strait of Hormuz—the United States might find it necessary to seize some of Iran’s coastal property, including the three Persian Gulf islands of Greater and Abu Musa and Lesser Tunb. this may require the United States to execute amphibious landings, which became increasingly difficult in light of the proliferation of precision-guided munitions.

Fortunately, the United States Marine Corps has just the solution in the form of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) 1.1. 

The Amphibious Combat Vehicle could self-deploy from amphibious shipping and deliver a reinforced Marine infantry squad (17 Marines) from a launch distance at or beyond 12 miles with a speed of not less than 8 knots.” Crucially for the present context, the Marines demanded that the vehicle must be “able to protect against direct and indirect fire and mines and improvised explosive device (IED) threats.”

Since then, the Marines have signaled they're scaling back a number of the ACV 1.1 requirements primarily because of cost, and therefore the program has come under considerable criticism internally. Furthermore, for the time being, the Marines may rely more on an upgraded version of the present AAV-7. A version of the ACV 1.1 remains is still in the works, which is predicted to succeed in initial performance capability around 2020. this may be followed by a good more formidable ACV 2.0 when the available technology reaches envisioned needs. None of this bodes well for Iran.

“Lasers” :

military laser systems

While still in the early part of their development, military laser systems are quickly becoming a reality. consistent with various news reports, recent tests of the Navy’s Laser Weapons System (LaWS), “surpassed their expectations in how effectively and quickly it tracked and destroyed ever harder targets.”

This is bad news for Iran and its A2/AD strategy. one of Tehran’s most vital A2/AD capabilities is that the use of massive fleets of lightly armed speedboats to “swarm” American naval vessels operating in the Persian Gulf. additionally , Iran has also invested heavily in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). While these are going to be utilized for multiple ends, there's good reason to think Iran may use a number of them to swarm US platforms.

In both cases, Iran seeks to use the cheap and many to beat the few and expensive. That is, swarming seeks to use basic arithmetic to overwhelm America’s superior military systems. to try to do this successfully, swarming must mirror missiles in being overwhelmingly cheaper to use offensively than to defend against.

Laser systems seek to deny swarming tactics this advantage. rather than defending against swarming tactics with expensive anti-ship and anti-air missiles, lasers will allow America to destroy large swarms of speedboats or drones cheaply. At $1 per shot of a directed energy source, the Navy has said the value of those laser systems is about 1/100th of existing missile systems. Equally important, unlike missiles—where space constraints limit the amount warships they will carry—lasers never run out. As Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder said of lasers last year, "This may be a revolutionary capability…. this very affordable technology goes to vary the way we fight and save lives."

Not surprisingly, the Navy is currently testing the (LaWS) within the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Ponce. That ship features a gun that uses “electromagnetic force to send a missile to a variety of 125 miles at 7.5 times the speed of sound.” Although lasers still face crucial limitations, like their ability to work in less than perfect weather conditions, expect the Navy to work out the kinks in the years ahead.

When it does, Iran’s day of reckoning could also be near.