Iranian Army Test-Fires New Anti-Armor Rocket

The Iranian Army has successfully test-fired its new anti-tank rocket along with a series of other weapons, Ground Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan announced on Sunday.

General Pourdastan pointed to the Ground Force’s recent wargames codenamed Qamar-e Bani Hashem, and said, “In the recent wargames, the Ground Force’s new anti-tank rockets and the new weapons supplied to the Ground Force by the Defense Ministry were successfully tested.”

He explained that the Qamar-e Bani Hashem military drills were successfully conducted in an area of 250,000 square kilometers in the Southeastern parts of the country, and said, “The drills have been conducted in a more different manner than the previous military exercises.”

In July 2012, former Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi inaugurated the production line of a new home-made anti-armor missile system named 'Dehlaviyeh'.

"The Dehlaviyeh missile is one of the most hi-tech anti-armor missiles designed for destroying different advanced tanks which are equipped with reactive armor," Vahidi said at the inauguration ceremony of the missile system.

He also reiterated that the missile has been equipped with a special guiding system (which is resistant to different types of enemy's electronic warfare), a warhead and a missile-launcher and a portable engine-propeller.

"The missile system has been designed in a way that it can hit both fix ground targets and mobile armored targets," Vahidi said.

Last August 2012, the Iranian Defense Ministry started mass-production of 73-mm anti-armor rockets capable of piercing and destroying armored vehicles from a 1,300-meter distance.

"The weapon is mobile and due to its low weight, it can be carried by an individual trooper," Vahidi told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony held to launch the production line of the rocket at the time.

Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes.

Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.

The Iranian Army recently test-fired different types of newly-developed missiles and torpedoes and tested a large number of its home-made weapons, tools and equipments, including submarines, military ships, artillery, choppers, aircraft, UAVs and air defense and electronic systems, in a series of massive military drills.

Defense analysts and military observers say that Iran's wargames and its advancements in weapons production have proved as a deterrent factor, specially at a time of heightened threats by the US. [via]