The Iranian Defense Ministry has equipped its Qadr H and Qiam ballistic missiles with its newly developed Multiple Reentry Vehicle (MRV) payloads, a military hi-tech owned only by a handful of the world’s states.
The two missiles are capable of carrying different types of “Blast” and “MRV” payloads, and can destroy a wide range of targets. The new version of Qadr H and Qiam can be launched from mobile platforms or silos in different positions and can escape missile defense shields due to their radar-evading capability.
Qadr is a 2000km-range, liquid-fuel and ballistic missile which can reach territories as far as Israel. Qiam is also a new type of surface to surface and cruise missile of Iran.
A Multiple Reentry Vehicle payload for a ballistic missile deploys multiple warheads in a pattern against a single target (as opposed to Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, which deploys multiple warheads against multiple targets). The advantage of an MRV over a single warhead is that the damage produced in the center of the pattern is far greater than the damage possible from any single warhead in the MRV cluster, this makes for an efficient area attack weapon. Also, the sheer number of Warheads make interception by Anti-ballistic missiles unlikely.
Improved warhead designs allow smaller warheads for a given yield, while better electronics and guidance systems allowed greater accuracy. As a result MIRV technology has proven more attractive than MRV for advanced nations. Because of the larger amount of nuclear material consumed by MRVs and MIRVs, single warhead missiles are more attractive for nations with less advanced technology. The United States deployed an MRV payload on the Polaris A-3. The Soviet Union deployed MRVs on the SS-9 Mod 4 ICBM. Refer to atmospheric reentry for more details.
Iran announced on February 10 that it had successfully tested two new missiles, including a laser-guided surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile and a new generation of long-range ballistic missiles carrying Multiple Reentry Vehicle payloads.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan then noted his country’s newly developed ballistic missile with MRV payload, and said it has been designed and produced for destroying enemy’s military hardware and all types of enemy military equipment.
“Evading enemy’s anti-missile defense systems, the capability of destroying massive targets and destroying multiple targets are specifications of this missile,” the Iranian Defense Minister said, but did not name the new weapon.
Source: FNA
