Iran, a military threat for Middle East?
Iranian F-14s may be old but could still provide surprises.
A few days ago, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi declared that Israel would be able to strike Iran without the help of the United States and in general to strike countries even far from its borders and that in the coming years Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would significantly strengthen its capabilities to attack any enemy country in particular Iran, thus inflaming the already rather heated situation between the two countries.The response, however, of Iran’s army chief, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, was not long in coming, arguing that an Israeli attack could only be on a scale comparable to the upgraded scale of one of the many military operations Iran conducted during eight years of war in the 1980s. Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi also added that the state of Israel is too small to be considered a threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran. These statements were said in a particularly tense climate between the two countries, consider the fact that last week the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the IRGC, announced the killing of Milad Heidari, one of its military advisers, in an Israeli airstrike on Syria and that another military adviser, Miqdad Mahqani, has been wounded. Following this, the IRGC, therefore, promised to respond accordingly.
Abdolrahim Mousavi plays an extremely important role in the hierarchies of the Islamic Republic of Iran just think of the photos published a few weeks ago to coincide with the anniversary of the Khomeinist revolution. Indeed, on this occasion, in the presence of the country’s top military authorities, including Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Hossein Bagheri from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Pasdaran), and precisely the aforementioned commander-in-chief of the Regular Armed Forces (“Artesh”) Major General (“Amir”) Sayyed Abdolrahim Mousavi, coming instead from the Artesh Ground Forces (NEZAJA) the presentation ceremony of Oghab-44 has been presided over. The presentation of Oghab-44, whose translation from Farsi means Eagle while the number 44 refers to the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, was certainly not a minor event this in fact has been broadcast on national channels.
But what is Oghab-44?
Oghab 44 is the new Iranian underground tactical base and is located 120 kilometers north of Bandar Abbas in a remote area of Hormozgan province, according to Israeli analysts. The inspiration for the name seems quite clear in fact despite its backward location, the facility guards and keeps a close eye on strategic shipping routes in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. In this new eagle’s nest the Iranian authorities have high hopes. During the inauguration ceremony, senior Revolutionary Guards officer Gholamreza Jalali reported that the structure could revolutionize the country’s military posture and force the enemy to reconsider its military calculations. The underground base in question consists of various sections, such as a combat service area, a command post, hangars for combat aircraft, a repair and maintenance center, navigation and airfield equipment and fuel storage facilities.
Commander Mohammad Hossein Bagheri also added during the presentation that Oghab-44, along with other unspecified underground air bases, such as the one at Badr 313 delegated specifically for the use of drones, could expand Iranian deterrent power beyond its known missile capabilities by putting the air force back in the field. Aware that Iran’s air force has always had considerably less funding than the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and other branches of the regular armed forces, Bagheri assured that this and other future sister initiatives would shore up the weakness of the country’s air fleet by housing new jets and protecting them from enemy attacks.
The country’s topography, with mountain ranges to the north and south, in itself discourages air and missile attacks, but likewise, the heavy blast portals protecting the facility’s four entrances have little chance of withstanding any tactical nuclear attack, and the same aircraft housed in the armored bunkers must still take off and land on exposed runways where they remain vulnerable to enemy artillery. The base in question, however, appears to have been purpose-built to withstand even GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) bombs, which are U.S. anti-bunker guided bombs that with a weight of 13,600 kilograms are considered to have the highest penetration capacity, reaching as far as 60 m inside the concrete and are dropped by U.S. B-2 Spirit strategic bombers.
The images released by government broadcasters show that the underground military compound is still incomplete, in fact for now the large tunnels connecting the areas of the structure dedicated to the maintenance and arming of aircraft and fuel storage are not equipped with fire-fighting devices or to promote ventilation, and this could be a further vulnerability of the base. Viewing the frames published by the Persian state media, one can recognize, among others, the F-4 Phantom II jets of the Air Force (updated according to the “Dowran” program that aims to make the Phantoms competitive until 2040 and the Arash-2 kamikaze drones that are supposed to be under the control of the Pasdaran instead. All of the aircraft that could be seen from the transmitted images are new or at least upgraded, for example, it suffices to look at the armaments docked on the outer pylons (Yasir glide bombs and Nasr-1 anti-ship missiles, among others, are noted) and by the fact that they are all decorated with the Iran Aircraft Industries logo.
The new planes that will take off from Oghab-44, thus armed with long-range anti-ship missiles and modern munitions capable of engaging moving targets, could launch surprise preemptive strikes against large U.S. Navy battleships sailing in the Gulf (especially aircraft carriers and amphibious groups) but also against U.S. military bases on the opposite shore. It can therefore now be said with some certainty, given the fact that for at least the past nine years Iran has been investing heavily (with more than likely technical input from North Korea) in the construction of these large underground bases, that the country has fully embraced the tactical-strategic dictates that, should the day come for the outbreak of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East, the country would rely heavily on its asymmetric military capabilities to hold its own against far more technologically advanced enemies, for example, especially Israel.
By Michele Brunori
