Dezful MRBM
During the joint cooperation of the IRGC Aerospace Force and the IRGC Navy, a long-range ballistic missile was successfully fired 12 February 2024 from a IRGC Navy ship. According to ISNA, this new achievement increased the range of influence and naval power to any desired point because ocean-going ships can appear anywhere in the world. This is the first time that a ballistic missile from the Zulfiqar family was fired from the Shahid Mahdavi ship of the IRGC Navy and successfully hit its target in the central desert of Iran. This missile, with a range of more than 750 kilometers, is the latest achievement of the IRGC Navy, which was obtained in a joint collaboration with the IRGC Aerospace Force. From now on, IRGC naval ships can carry all kinds of ballistic missiles with a range of up to 1750 km using this capability.
In this regard, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC, also said that a long-range ballistic missile was successfully fired from a military float of the IRGC Navy during the joint cooperation of the IRGC Aerospace Force and the IRGC Navy. Sardar Salami said about this exercise: This new achievement increased the range of influence and our naval power to any desired point because our ocean-going ships can appear anywhere in the world and when we can fire missiles from them, there is no safe place for any power. It does not create insecurity for us.
One of the new missiles with outstanding capabilities in Iran's missile arsenal is the Dezful [also Romanized as Dezful and Dezfool] ballistic missile, which was unveiled in a ceremony on 07 February 2019 in the presence of Major General Jafari, former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, and Brigadier General Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force.
Dezful city in the southwestern province of Khuzestan is situated close to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains and borders the city of Khoramabad in the north, Shushtar and Masjed Soleiman in the east, Dehloran and Dasht-e Azadegan in the west and Ahvaz in the south. The history of the city dates to the Sassanid era (224-651 CE). Shapur I (241-272 CE), the second of the Sassanid kings, founded Gundeshapur, as the intellectual center of his empire and a garrison town to house the Romans he had taken captive after defeating Emperor Valerian (reign 253–260 CE), 14 kilometers from what is known today as Dezful. Shapur I used the Romans to built a bridge over the Dez River to connect Gundeshapur and Shushtar. This led to the establishment of a city named Dezhpol, which means fortified bridge in the Persian language. Over time and after the Arab attack on the Persian Empire, the name of the city was changed to Dezful.
The Old Bridge of Dezful is a Sassanid era (224-651 CE) structure, built in 263 CE by some of the 70,000 Roman soldiers and engineers who were taken into captivity along with Emperor Valerian (reign 253–260 CE) after his defeat by Shapur I (241-272 CE). The bridge is made of Sarooj (mix of lime and clay) and limestone and has 14 water arches. The bridge was renovated during the Dailamite, Safavid (1501-1722) and Pahlavi (1925-1979) eras and is still in use today. The bridge was registered as a National Heritage Site in 1932.
Dezful missile is a smart ground-to-ground ballistic missile that was said to be "considered as a family of Fateh missiles, which is very similar to Fateh 110 and Zulfiqar missiles." All missiles of the Fateh family and its newer generations, namely Zulfiqar and Dezful, are capable of guiding the target until the last moment. Due to the accuracy of this missile hitting the target, it can be considered as one of the most powerful surface-to-surface missiles. In fact, the two Zulfiqar and Dezful missiles can be divided into one generation, which can be confirmed by comparing the appearance and differences between the two with other members of the Fateh 110 missile family.
Dezful missile with a weight of 1.5 tons has a length of more than 12 meters and 68 centimeters in diameter, which has increased in length compared to the Zulfiqar missile. Increasing the length of Dezful in the fuselage area has only increased the amount of fuel in the solid fuel propellants and has increased its range to 1000 km, while the range of the Zulfiqar missile is about 700 km. However, the Dezful missile is generally very close to the Zulfiqar missile in the body configuration. It seems that the diameter of the fuselage in Dezful is similar to that of Zulfiqar, but the length of the missile has slightly increased compared to it, which is especially evident in the war zone.
The shape of the nose of the Dezful missile is more curved than the Zulfiqar missile, which is due to the use of conventional methods in physics to reduce the heat produced in hypersonic or ultrasonic missiles to reduce the heat generated and transferred to other components of the missile body. The same changes can be seen in the control wing of the Dezful missile, which has changed compared to the control wing of the Fateh 110 missile. Also, the stabilization wing of the Dezful missile shows that this missile is more stable at higher speeds. For this reason, it seems that the speed of the Dezful missile is faster than the Zulfiqar missile and other members of the Fateh missile family. Of course, the Dezful missile warhead probably has separate propulsion.
Another point is that the front part of the Dezful missile is more elongated than the Zulfiqar missile, which means that there are more explosives in the warhead of this missile. Thus, the destructive power of the Dezful missile has doubled compared to Zulfiqar. Also, the paint used in the body of the Dezful missile is one of the colors that absorb radar waves, which creates this advantage for it to be protected from enemy radars and to destroy it and be safe from enemy anti-missile systems.
Another advantage of Dezful is the short preparation time, which is estimated at about 5 or 6 minutes. In addition to conventional single-propellant launchers, the Dezful missile will likely use a dual-propeller and four-axis launcher developed for Zulfiqar. The last point is that the Dezful missile warhead is designed in such a way that it separates from the fuselage after a distance in the landing stage, which has advantages such as reducing the negative effects of connecting the fuselage to the warhead in the final phase of attacking the missile warhead and reduces the possibility of enemy missiles hitting the missile warhead. In fact, it is similar to medium- and long-range ballistic missiles in this respect.
The accuracy of the Dezful missile is increased by using the ability to detach the warhead from the fuselage, and its circular error (CEP) is reduced to less than 10 meters. In some sources, the final speed of the Dezful missile is mentioned as 9 Mach.
In the first phase of the Prophet-(PBUH) 15 exercise in January 2017, a large number of new generation ballistic missiles of the IRGC, including the "Dezful" missile, were fired at designated targets and dealt fatal blows to the hypothetical enemy base. Thus, the Dezful missile was tested in a large exercise. The Dezful missile with a range of 1,000 km has about 42% more range than the Zulfiqar missile, and thus can easily hit occupied Palestine, including the strategic city of Haifa, and if its range is a little more than 1,000 km, it can hit Tel Aviv as well.
At the same time, if the Dezful missile reaches a range of 1118 km, "it will be able to cover all of occupied Palestine if fired from the western borders" of Iran. Iranian sources predicted that in the future, anti-ship capabilities with the optical detector as well as anti-radar and anti-ship capabilities of Hormoz 1 and 2 missiles will be implemented in Zulfiqar and Dezful missiles, with the development of anti-ship and anti-radar missiles with a range of 700 and 1000 km.
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