Russia's Dagger Reveals Potential in Iran's Zolfaqar

Just yesterday, Russia revealed a stunning anti-ship missile in the form of the Khinzal, or Dagger. A Mach 10, 2000 km ranged, air launched ASBM.

Like I said. The King of A2/AD.

Khinzal being launched from a MiG-31

So what has this got to do with Iran?

Well, while I was writing my previous post about how Iran could implement an A2/AD strategy, I was thinking it may be a good idea to modify the Zolfaqar missile into an air launched ASBM. After all, it is slightly smaller and lighter than the Sunburn, and would likely be faster, have a longer range, and be easier to develop as far as the actual missile is developed. The Russian Dagger is also suspected to be based on the Iskander TBM, which has a 500 km range. 

There have been air launched ballistic missiles before. The Americans even dropped a Minuteman ICBM out of a C-5 Galaxy. But I reckoned that there is no precedent of any nation deploying such weapons, nor developing an anti-ship version of such a missile. Furthermore, I thought it would be difficult and expensive to make a small vessel carry VLS cells for a surface variant of this ballistic missile.

Then Russia made headlines with this missile. Not only does it have incredible capabilities and statistics, it has already been deployed near the Black Sea. It is within Iran's missile capabilities. It is launched from a tactical aircraft, not a strategic bomber. It is probably cheaper to design, develop and manufacture than a ramjet powered, supersonic ASCM.

Zolfaqar

Surely, these are all worth the costs? In fact, it may be cheaper than developing a Ramjet powered missile of similar range. 

Of course, there are some caveats. That 2000 km range is dependent on how the MiG-31 carrier aircraft is flying. And it may actually be a theoretical estimate. Another caveat that Iran doesn't have and isn't going to have a MiG-31 like aircraft. The best we can realistically have is an Su-30SM, which is 0.8 mach slower than a MiG-31 and flies about 10,000 ft lower. Furthermore, we don't know what modifications the Russians have made to the Iskander to turn it into an ASBM - the modifications may have made it far more capable than the standard version.

Having said all this, it is likely Iran would still be able to get at least a 1000 km range out of such a missile (if we're being optimistic, 1500 km), and it would not be an outrageously difficult modification. It could prove to be a potent option. Iran could even have a mix of air launched Zolfaqar ASBMs, and surface launched supersonic ASCMs, in keeping with my earlier point that having mixed threats would be better at overwhelming and confusing enemy defences.