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| A Kh-55 missile, the basis for the Soumar design. (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Franz-Stefan Gady
However, there is still considerable debate over the true capabilities of Tehran’s new weapon.
On March 8, Iran’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) unveiled a new ground-launched cruise missile produced by Tehran’s Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO). The new surface-to-surface missile, designated the Soumar (after a city destroyed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War), is based on the Russian Kh-55 — the backbone of the Russian air-launched nuclear deterrent.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan praised the new missile as an “effective step” in strengthening the country’s deterrence capabilities. Dehghan noted the missile is capable of hitting long-range targets with “high accuracy, while evading enemy counter-measures.”
According to Western intelligence agencies, the missile is not capable of carrying a nuclear device due the small size of the weapon’s payload. The missile allegedly has a range of 2,500 to 3,000 km. In the West, this puts all of Turkey, Greece, the Balkan Peninsula, Ukraine, and large parts of Russia within striking distance. In the east, the new weapon’s range extends to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and parts of Kazakhstan, India and China.
However, IHS Janes’s Defence Weekly is skeptical of the above quoted range of the weapon, which is estimated to have a maximum cruise speed of Mach 0.7. “The assumption that Iran’s Soumar cruise missile has a range of 2,500 km almost certainly overstates the weapon’s performance. Iran would have to use a turbojet engine to power a long-range cruise missile that could be produced without relying on smuggling more efficient turbofans into the country,” their analysis states.
Read the full story at The Diplomat