Deputy Commander of the Iranian Army Air Defense Force General Mehdi Saqafifar recently announced his country plans to manufacture more advanced versions of the home-made Bavar 373 missile shield to cover longer ranges, Fars News Agency (FNA) reported.

“Bavar 373 has a deadly range of 200km and given our country’s vastness, certainly our next steps have been taken towards building systems with longer ranges to destroy the threats,” General Saqafifar said.

 He added that studies for the construction of higher-range defense shields have started and are in the final stages, adding that the country aims to make newer versions of Bavar 373 too.

 General Saqafifar underlined that Iran paved a 10-year-long path to construct Bavar 373, while the developed countries spent 70 years to build such a missile system.

 Iran has made good progress in building different home-made air defense systems.

 Last month Iran unveiled its home-made version of the sophisticated Russian S-300 missile defense system, dubbed as Bavar (Belief) 373 with the capability to target ballistic missiles.

 Bavar 373 was unveiled in a ceremony participated by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami.

 “Bavar 373 is the most important indigenized missile defense system whose design and manufacturing started a few years ago and can engage multiple targets in high altitudes,” General Hatami said.

 He added that the Iranian defense industry experts have gone through the reverse engineering phase and designed and manufactured the parts relying on domestic capacities.

 The anti-air defense system can detect 60 targets, identify 13 targets and engage 6 targets.

 The system is much more powerful than the Russian S-300 and some of its features could be compared with S-400.