Can Iranian air defence systems compete for exports?
An Iranian AD-08 mobile air defence system deployed with four IR homing missiles in the ready-to-launch position. (Photo: Islamic Republic of Iran)
Iran’s defence industry is now producing a range of surface-to-air missile systems and has begun to market them internationally. Using what appears to be a mixture of original and reverse-engineered elements, how do they stack up compared to other countries’ offerings?
For some time, Iran has been manufacturing numerous different antitank guided weapons and long-range surface-to-surface rockets, which have been exported in significant numbers, particularly to other countries in the Middle East.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has expanded into other areas of missile technology including mobile surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and it remains to be seen whether these will start to be sold abroad en masse as well.
A range of SAMs is now being promoted by the Iranian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics: the AD family, where the first part of the designation, AD, stands for air defence
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