The number of troops in the Iranian armed forces is gigantic. This does not guarantee at all that they will be competitive on an operational level in the event of a frontal war with an enemy country. Although their capabilities in drones and missiles are notable and allow them to carry out long-distance attacks, such as the one carried out against Israel on April 13, the ground forces – the most numerous – have little mobility and are equipped with very old weapons, such as the miraculously operational American M47/48 Patton tanks manufactured in the 1950s, of which they still have 168 units, to give an example. The M47Patton were manufactured during the Korean War, although they ultimately did not see combat in that war scenario.
The Iranian armed forces are made up of about 600,000 troops, in addition, the country has another 40,000 members of the gendarmerie and paramilitary units, without forgetting a body of about 350,000 reservists. They are astronomical figures, but these numbers are not a reflection of operability.
Its armored forces are made up of 1,531 armored cars, according to data from The Military Balance 2024, among which 540 T-54/T-55 stand out by number, as old as or older than the M47/48 Patton, and 480 T-72S, of the 80s of the last century. “You can have many armored cars but they are useless if you can’t get them out of the warehouses?” asked conflict theory professor Luis V. Pérez Gil, from the University of La Laguna.
After the triumph of the Ayatollahs in 1979, the war against Iraq (1980-1988) did not take long to arrive and the Islamists had no choice but to trust in the structures of the army of the dethroned Shah and in the mainly North American material that the army had. of the Persian monarch. Hence, for example, the 150 North American M60A1 tanks that it still has – the armored vehicles that they have acquired over time have been mainly Russian -, and the exoticism of the 40 F-14 A Tomcat fighters, retired from all the air forces. in the world and that the Iranian company still manages to fly despite the fact that, obviously, the United States does not sell them spare parts.
“Iran was left without an army after the war against Iraq, to ??a large extent that is why they have such obsolete materials and cannot resort to their regular army,” explains defense analyst and doctoral student in Strategic Studies, Guillermo Pulido, an expert in recent Iranian history.
“It is true that they have a very considerable ground force, but they are there more to support the regime than to defend themselves. “Who is going to attack them by land?” explains analyst Juan Chulilla, executive director of Red Team Shield (RTS), a company that provides consulting services for the protection of critical or sensitive infrastructure from attacks with commercial drones or lethal domestics.
Furthermore, both experts explain, the internal deployment of the land forces has a very archaic structure in that it is created around almost regional nuclei with very little interconnection and built to resist sieges “as castles from the Middle Ages would do, but with very little offensive capacity,” says Pulido.
“In any case they have been very resilient and very creative. They have been able to maintain old capabilities. Although largely inherited from the United States, they have managed to build a miraculous arms industry capable of manufacturing parts for an F-14,” says Juan Chulilla.
However, and in parallel to the obsolescence of the land army that continued to draw on the traditions and codes of the previous monarchical regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, a military body outside the armed forces created by Ayatollah Khomeini, gradually gained size and capacity. strategic until becoming a powerful actor for defense and militia training. Iran’s entire drone and missile force is under its control. That gives them a lot of power within the structure of the State.
It was approximately 2010 when the Government of Tehran made the big bet of promoting and entrusting its defensive/offensive strategy to missiles and drones. “Most of the resources began to be dedicated to it,” says Pulido.
It is estimated that Iran has about 1,000 cruise and ballistic missiles, although there is no concrete data in this regard, so such figures can vary greatly depending on the sources. Some of these projectiles are the Fateh 110 or the Shahab 1 or the Shahab 3, a kind of giant Scud “that the Iranians adopted and began to manufacture thousands of versions and variations of,” says Pulido.
“They are great specialists in reverse engineering,” Chulilla remarks. In the Iranian case, the aforementioned reverse engineering is the process of designing a component from the fully finished original to which it is subjected to study to find out its properties and finally either copy it shamelessly or make it and improve it.
“They are very fond of technology and have very good engineering schools. They greatly promote the national industry and that is why they are even capable of replicating parts for the F-14 fighters,” adds Pulido.
And in the air domain, the other great weapon that Iran has in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is the self-made drones that have been widely exported. “Iran invented the cheap and lethal drone and has achieved remarkable success with it. Until now, in that category they had world hegemony, but now it has been taken away by Ukraine and then Russia.
Regarding its air force, it also has 40 Soviet Mig-29s, which added to the other 40 F-14A Tomcats, would provide a fixed-wing combat set insufficient to stop an air offensive, according to most experts. .
Regarding the Iranian navy, it is known that for about five years they have been carrying out international patrols in their area of ??influence. They are warships whose response in the event of naval combat is widely distrusted. There is also talk of a flotilla of midget submarines, “but very little is known about them, whether they work or are just models,” concludes Juan Chulilla from the firm Red Team Shield (RTS).
