March 31, 2006
Iranian Stealth Missile
This is interesting. We talk of 700-ton bombs that will never get off the ground (an M-1 Abrams main battle tank, by comparison weighs 65 tons), and the very next day, the Iranians counter in the bluster war with this:
Iran successfully test-fired a locally made missile with the ability to carry a warhead and avoid radar, the airforce chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Friday."Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defence forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," Gen. Hossein Salami said on state-run television.
The missile, while locally made, is of American design.
I'd translate the last part about “greater technical and tactical capabilities” to mean they're now using B4-4 rocket engines instead of their earlier designs using A8-3s.
The 700-ton bomb isn't being tested for use itself; it's to see what a 1 kiloton detonation does to a buried structure. If the effect is sufficient, then development will procede on a 1 kiloton penetrator nuke.
At least, that's the best speculation I've read. You're absolutely right that there's no way to deliver 700 tons of explosive.
Posted by: Robert Crawford at March 31, 2006 09:08 AMLOL.....love the estes rockets. Maybe they have a silkworm in the catalog now. But I bet they are counting on the heavy lift capability of the tried and true "Big Bertha". guffaw.....
Posted by: Specter at March 31, 2006 09:14 AM
