How many missiles does Iran have? Overview of the IRGC's missile arsenal

Iran has the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East. Iran has "more than 2022" ballistic missiles in 3000, according to the commander of US Central Command, General Kenneth McKenzie. This does not include the country's growing arsenal of land-based cruise missiles.

Iran's Opportunities

Over the past decade, Iran has made significant improvements in the accuracy of its missiles, making them an increasingly serious threat in a conventional sense. At the same time, Iran independently limited the range of its missiles to 2000 km, first officially recognized in 2015. However, Iran can waive this restriction at any time, and has already deployed the Khorramshahr system, which, with a smaller warhead, is capable of hitting targets at a greater distance.

Iran missile range

Despite its initial dependence on liquid-propellant rockets, Iran has recently paid more attention to the development of solid-fuel rockets. This trend is likely to continue in the future.

Iranian missile capabilities

Many Iranian missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, causing international concern. For example, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 called on Iran not to undertake any activities related to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles for eight years. This period expired in October 2023.

However, even with these restrictions in place, Iran continued to develop a wide range of missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, as well as space-based launch vehicles (SVVs) using many of the same technologies as longer-range missiles.

Combat use of Iranian missiles

Iran has repeatedly used missiles in combat since 2017, including a missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops in 2020. In addition, Iran has transferred missiles to its proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen, who have used them to attack civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as to harass commercial ships passing through the Red Sea.

Currently, Iran's missile arsenal includes several types of medium- and short-range ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles and space launch vehicles. Some of them are listed in the table below, along with their characteristics.

[1] Estimating the number of missiles in Iran's arsenal is difficult due to the lack of reliable information on the number of missiles. The US Air Force and some non-governmental organizations have published estimates in the past, but they are not specific enough and tend to only estimate the number of launchers, not the missiles themselves, since launchers are easier to track and count.

[2] Rockets can be classified depending on whether they are liquid propellant or solid propellant. A liquid rocket motor can typically produce more thrust per pound of fuel than a solid rocket motor, but it is more complex and may require many precision machined and moving parts. Some types of liquid-propellant rockets also must be fueled directly at the launch site, making them more vulnerable to enemy detection and destruction. Solid propellant rocket engines are more economical and easier to maintain and store. Solid fuel also allows for faster starting. Solid propellant missiles are therefore generally less vulnerable in combat. Iranian engineers do not appear to be able to design and build a liquid rocket motor from scratch, but they have this ability for solid rocket motors. The ability to create new systems to meet Iran's military needs, coupled with operational advantages, helps explain Iran's growing preference for solid-fuel missiles.

[3] The table does not include missiles or artillery rocket systems with a maximum range of less than 300 km, missiles that were presented only as mock-ups, anti-aircraft missiles or anti-ship cruise missiles. Additionally, it does not include derivatives, variants or renamed copies of Iranian missiles used by Iran's regional proxies such as the Houthis. The capabilities of these missiles can be better assessed by reference to the Iranian missiles on which they are modeled. For example, the Houthi Burkan-2H ballistic missile is close in characteristics to the Iranian Qiam-1. Likewise, the Iranian Rezvan is likely a copy of the Houthi Zulfiqar, which itself is a modified Qiam.

[4] Ballistic missiles can be divided into five classes depending on their range: short-range (less than 300 km), short-range (300 to 1000 km), intermediate range (1000 to 3000 km), intermediate range (3000 to 5500 km). 5500 km) and intercontinental (more than XNUMX km). Iran's ballistic missile arsenal consists primarily of short-range missiles (SRBMs) and intermediate-range missiles (MRBMs), although work on longer-range missiles is suspected to be underway. Space Launch Vehicles (SLVs) are designed to launch satellites into orbit, but could potentially be reconfigured into ballistic missiles due to similar characteristics. Land-launched cruise missiles (LACMs) function effectively as unmanned aerial vehicles and do not fly on a ballistic trajectory, making them difficult to intercept by missile defense systems.

[5] A missile's accuracy is typically measured by circular error probable (CEP): the radius within which, on average, half of all missiles fired will hit the target. For example, if a missile has a CEP of ten meters, then out of a hundred fired at a target, on average fifty will hit within ten meters of the target.

[6] Although the original Qiam likely had a CEP of several hundred meters, a modified version with a guided warhead likely improved this figure. This new edition is believed to have been among the missiles used in the January 2020 attack on US troops in Iraq.

[7] The modified Qiam-1 is called Qiam-2 by some independent experts, but not by official Iranian sources.

[8] The Khalij Fars is an anti-ship variant of the Fateh-110, while the Hormuz is an anti-radar variant.

[9] Iran has reportedly developed a control suite for the Fateh-110 that, when attached, could reduce its CEP to 30 meters or less.

[10] Based on anticipated use in the January 2020 ballistic missile attack against US forces and damage estimates from that attack.

[11] The Zolfaghar Basir is an anti-ship variant of the Zolfaghar.

[12] Based on anticipated use in the January 2020 ballistic missile attack against US forces and damage estimates from that attack. Also based on similar assessments following the Great Prophet 17 military exercise in December 2021.

[13] Based on Great Prophet 17 used in military exercises, suggesting accuracy comparable to Zolfaghar.

[14] Iran has demonstrated at least four different variants of the Khorramshahr missile, each potentially with its own characteristics in terms of range, warhead size, and accuracy. Iran has consistently claimed that the missile has a maximum range of 2000 km and a warhead weighing 1500 kg or more. However, France, Germany and the UK said in 2019 that one version of the missile has a nose fairing, the size of which would limit the mass of the warhead to about 750 kg. Additionally, they argued that modeling of such a missile gives a range of approximately 3000 km, which would classify it as an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).

[15] Iran markets the Fattah-1 as a "hypersonic" missile. Hypersonic missiles are typically defined not only by the ability to reach speeds in excess of Mach 5, but also by the ability to maintain those speeds through significant maneuvers in the atmosphere during flight. While the Fattah missile may fit this description, it is largely in a class of its own with regard to the way it achieves this: the two main types of hypersonic missiles in development around the world are hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles, and the Fattah, a ballistic missile with an additional solid propellant engine in the head, does not apply to any of them.

[16] The Fattah-1 missile consists of a large solid rocket booster (developed from the Kheibar Shekan design) plus a small solid rocket motor located inside the reentry vehicle for terminal maneuvering. The latter is a post-acceleration recovery system and they are not traditionally considered "stages". For example, the Minuteman III is considered a three-stage rocket, even though it consists of three solid rocket motors plus liquid propellant. Thus, Fattah can be considered as a single-stage rocket.

[17] In 2001, Iran illegally acquired six Soviet Kh-55 air-launched cruise missiles, which have a range of up to 2500 km. In 2012, an Iranian official said that Iran's upcoming copy of the Kh-55, modified to be launched from the ground using a solid rocket booster, would have a range of over 2000 km. However, in 2019, an official said that the missile's range was only 700 km. There are insufficient public sources to confirm any of these claims, but it is unlikely that Iran has successfully copied a turbofan engine with capabilities matching those of the original Soviet type.

[18] Paveh is the Iranian name for a missile that Yemen's Houthis have demonstrated as Quds. By all indications, these two types of missiles are identical. The Quds, also called the "351" missile by various sources, was used in an attack on Saudi Aramco facilities in September 2019, long before Iran admitted to having the missile in its arsenal. Although the Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen provided evidence in a 2020 report that the missile components were manufactured in Iran and that the attack could not have been launched from Houthi-controlled territory. The Houthis displayed several variants of the Quds.

[19] Based on visual similarity to Quds-1.

[20] Evaluation during reconfiguration into a ballistic missile.