Compare the two missiles here, top American, bottom “Iranian”
The Islamic Republic just announced the mass production of a guided missile, called “Qassed”, meaning Messenger in Persian/Arabic (see the pictures taken from the bomb). It is suggested that this is only a repainted version of the obsolete American bomb Rockwell GBU-15(V)/B. Well, they have a long history of making up “achievements”, don’t they?
Update: Brando is cautious, because this is not his field of expertise, but at the end he says, “As a layman I can say that those two bombs look precisely the same.”
Related: Have The Thunderbirds Defected?
That Thunderbird article was awesome.
Yeah, an optically guided bomb isn’t exactly an “invention”. About 20 years too late. Maybe longer if you want to count the German’s manually guided bomb in the 40’s.
Comment by brando — August 28, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
Baba ghodrat , in dast e rastyeh mano yaad e lona park e iran ya funfare e meydoon e vanak endakht savaresh meeshodeem ha .
Comment by hamdollah — August 28, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
I have some degree of familiarity with munitions of various kinds. The chasis is the same, or a very close rip-off. Internal guidance systems have been most likely refurbished, altered, or changed altogether, but not the explosive. In any case, no matter how much the guts have been changed, this isn’t an original bomb, not by a long shot. That it took the IRI so long to retrofit an old bomb is actually laughable.
Comment by Roman Kalik — August 29, 2007 @ 4:35 am
I’ll be fair though, reverse-engineering for local production takes longer than mere retrofitting. Still took too long, though.
Comment by Roman Kalik — August 29, 2007 @ 4:38 am