Iran Optimizes Hawk Missile Defense Shield

Iran has doubled the range of the area covered by the radar systems of its mid-range Hawk air defense missile shield and improved its tracking and targeting capability by 40%, Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli announced on Sunday.
“Today, we are witnessing that the detection power of this (Hawk) system has doubled which provides it with extensive possibilities, meaning that it can detect and trace targets two times farther than the past and this provides us with an increased time span for decision-making and reaction, and this is an advantage,” Esmayeeli told FNA.

He said that the trace and tracking radar system of the Hawk missile shield has also been developed, and this has improved the tracking and targeting capability of the system by up to 40%.

Esmayeeli underlined that the radar system of the missile defense shield is now capable of tracing low-altitude targets with the same doubled range, adding that the air defense unit in joint cooperation with Iranian univesities have also removed the weakpoints of the Hawk missile system in electronic warfare.

Late 2012, Iranian air defense units exercised targeting Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with anti-aircraft Hawk missiles during the massive military drills in the Eastern parts of the country.

On the second day of the exercises, the air defense units fired a Hawk missile at a drone and destroyed it.

The missile was fired by a mobile air defense system on a missile-launching vehicle.

Also at the time, Esmayeeli announced that Iran has optimized the mid-range Hawk air defense missiles.

“The Hawk missiles which are good for medium altitudes have been optimized and indigenized in the country,” Esmayeeli told reporters on the sidelines of “Modafe’an-e Aseman-e Velayat 4 (Defenders of Velayat Skies 4)” air defense drills in November 2102.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in the defense sector and gained self-sufficiency in essential military hardware and defense systems.

The country has repeatedly made it clear that its military might is merely based on the state’s defense doctrine of deterrence and that it poses no threat to other countries.