It’s truly remarkable! The footage of Iran’s “Kheibar Shekan” missile executing terminal maneuver corrections has been captured for the first time. In the early hours of the 14th local time, Iran launched a large number of missiles and drones towards Israel, drawing significant attention from the world’s military community due to the unusual ballistic missile technologies employed.
Despite the successful interception of numerous suicide drones, cruise missiles, and older ballistic missiles by Israel, Iran’s deployment of medium-range ballistic missiles with new technologies achieved a high probability of penetration. These include maneuverable re-entry vehicles, cluster munitions, and hypersonic missiles. Many military experts believe that Iran’s missile capabilities were previously underestimated and require a reassessment.
Firstly, the footage of the terminal correction maneuvers of ballistic missile re-entry vehicles with high penetration probability and precision is believed to be the first of its kind captured in actual combat.
In the footage of Iran’s missile strikes, the missile’s warhead appears to undergo a noticeable lift, likely indicating the final terminal correction maneuver, demonstrating the corrective capability of the missile’s high-speed maneuvering warhead, improving precision to within 10 meters.
“Kheibar Shekan” (Destroyer of Fortresses), also known as “Fortress Destroyer,” is Iran’s third-generation medium-range ballistic missile, powered by two-stage solid-fuel rocket engines with a range of approximately 1500 kilometers.
“Kheibar Shekan” features a separable warhead, greater re-entry speed, aerodynamic control fins, and a elongated double-cone warhead. According to target practice videos released by Iran, “Kheibar Shekan” demonstrates extremely high terminal accuracy, with a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of around 10 meters.
Furthermore, Iran surprisingly employed cluster munition-equipped medium-range ballistic missiles, causing confusion in Israel’s missile defense systems. In addition to launching medium-range ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles for the first time in this round of missile strikes, Iran also used ballistic missiles with cluster munition warheads.
During Iran’s missile strikes, it was observed that some ballistic missiles released multiple warheads during the re-entry phase, leading some to believe these were missile debris fragments intercepted by anti-missile systems. However, these falling objects exhibited high velocity, density, and some showed signs of acceleration, resembling cluster munition warheads.
There is speculation that this may be Iran’s “Khorramshahr-4” medium-range ballistic missile. This missile is one of Iran’s most advanced ballistic missiles, with a range of 2000 kilometers and a warhead of 1500 kilograms, featuring a large warhead approximately 4 meters long.
“Khorramshahr-4” can be equipped with two types of cluster munition warheads, one being a smaller submunition. Similar to the U.S. “Penguin-2” missile, which features a conventional runway penetration submunition in its warhead compartment, capable of carrying 76 small runway penetration submunitions, capable of penetrating 0.6 meters of concrete, suitable for attacking airport runways.
The other type is a larger submunition with its own propulsion system, capable of terminal acceleration, providing greater power, and the warhead compartment can accommodate 6 to 8 of these submunitions.
These two types of submunitions can be mixed, with the smaller submunitions serving as decoys released simultaneously, overwhelming Israel’s missile defense system.
Cluster munition warheads greatly increase the pressure on atmospheric intercept systems like the Patriot-3, significantly reducing interception rates. The best method is to use the “Arrow-3” missile defense system for high-altitude interception, intercepting incoming missiles outside the atmosphere.
Surprisingly, Iran announced the launch of hypersonic missiles at Israel, all hitting their targets. According to Iranian state television reports, Iran used some hypersonic missiles during its military strikes on Israel, launching a total of 7 hypersonic missiles, all of which penetrated Israel’s missile defense systems and accurately hit their targets.
As early as June 2023, Iran unveiled the “self-developed” “Fateh” (Conqueror) hypersonic missile. With this, Iran became the fourth country after China, Russia, and North Korea to possess independently developed hypersonic missiles (the United States has not succeeded yet), making it arguably the fourth strongest hypersonic missile power in the world.
Iran claims that the “Fateh” hypersonic missile can reach speeds of up to Mach 15, equivalent to 15 times the speed of sound, or 18,360 kilometers per hour, with a maximum range of 1400 kilometers, claiming to reach Israel in 400 seconds (6 minutes). The missile can maneuver both inside and outside Earth’s atmosphere, changing trajectory during flight, with complex and irregular trajectories making it difficult for enemy missile defense systems to intercept.
Iran’s “Fateh” (Conqueror) hypersonic missile comprises two missile models adopting different technological paths. The “Conqueror-1” missile adopts a double-cone warhead structure with four movable fin wings at the rear of the warhead, using the solid rocket motor of the “Conqueror”-110/313 series ballistic missile.
The “Conqueror-2” missile, on the other hand, employs an advanced waverider configuration with stronger hypersonic maneuverability, capable of significant lateral maneuvering, executing high-difficulty complex maneuvers such as steep turns, variable-range barrel rolls, and lateral breakthroughs. However, the “Conqueror-2” missile displayed by Iran is only a simple structural model and not a live missile.
Nevertheless, the design difficulty of hypersonic weapons with a waverider configuration is extremely high. It remains a mystery how Iran managed to overcome key technological challenges and conquer aerodynamic layout design without access to any hypersonic wind tunnels, perhaps indicating expert guidance behind the scenes?
Furthermore, Iran claims a maximum speed of 15 Mach for the “Fateh” (Conqueror) hypersonic missile, which may be somewhat exaggerated. Because the maximum speed (engine shutdown point) of a ballistic missile with a range of 1400 kilometers does not exceed 10 Mach.
Therefore, the “hypersonic missiles” used by Iran in this strike against Israel are likely the “Conqueror-1” missiles. Iran’s definition of hypersonic weapons may be similar to Russia’s “Dagger hypersonic missile,” referring to short- or medium-range ballistic missiles with double-cone maneuverable warheads and terminal guidance, with a shutdown speed of 5 to 8 Mach (achievable with a range of 600 kilometers) and a final speed of around 3 to 4 Mach. This configuration of ballistic missiles includes the U.S. Penguin II and Chinese Dongfeng-16/21C/26.
Iran also employed some medium-range ballistic missiles with longer ranges, exceeding 2000 kilometers, with a shutdown speed of approximately 11 Mach and a final speed potentially exceeding 5 Mach. These missiles can also be broadly classified as “hypersonic” because the general definition of hypersonic weapons refers to missile weapons with speeds exceeding 5 Mach.