Of course Cyrus the Great was well before the rise of Islam. Getting your asses handed to you by Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Arabs, the Turks, etc. Iran is a nation that just loves to be punished. And yet you follow the practive of buying expensive and useless military equipment. You guys really want to get the crap beaten out of you?
No empire ever managed to take the Persian culture away from us and that’s what matters . And why is a Jewish Israeli talking about being punished? You guys don’t even have a rightful claim to your land , at least we have land , and we have the largest country in the Middle East , while Israel is the size of Iran’s smallest providence . And Jews have been punished throughout history , and you guys are lucky there were some great leaders like Cyrus the Great who helped the Jews. Why are you even brining this subject up ? Your country just lost a war to bunch of idiots called Hezbullah who’s weapons are no better then a plastic guns .
Here is a picture of the Qassed 2,000 pound precision guided bunker buster bomb. The bomb works like an unmanned aircraft itself, or like an aerial cruise missile, and once released by an aircraft flying far away from its intended target, it can travel the rest of the path and destroy heavily protected enemy facilities.
Do you even know anything about history? The Turks? The Romans? Shapur I, the Shah of Persia: "He [Roman Emperor Valerian] had with him [troops from] Germania, Rhaetia…[follow the names of some 29 Roman provinces], a force of 70,000 men. Beyond Carrhae and Edessa there was a great battle between the emperor Valerian and us. We made the emperor Valerian prisoner with our own hands; and the commanders of that army, the praefectus praetorii, senators and officers, we made them all prisoner, and we transported them to Persia. We burned, devastated and plundered Cilicia and Cappadocia…[follow the names of 36 Roman cities]." Roman Emperors Valerian and Philip the Arab abase themselves before Shapur I, begging the Shah of Persia to spare their lives.
First, there is no snow on the ground in any of those pics. These maneuvers are watched by dozens of reporters and extended footage from their manuevers was shown on Iranian tv. And the F-14s not only participated in the just concluded Zolfaqar war games, but fired newly designed air launched missiles. Including modified Hawk anti air missiles, modified to be fired from an aircraft and hitting targets from a far extended range than the systems the US uses on its planes. Second, there is no issue even among the US military today as to whether Iran is capable of flying at least some of its F-14s! The US claims around 25 of Iran's F-14s are air worthy and no more than 10 that can be flown in combat at any one time. Iran maintains that it builds the necessary spare parts for the F-14s itself and that its F-14 fleet is operational, that fleet consisting of more than 50 F-14 Tomcats. The US assertions regarding the number of F-14s that are still operational is based on tracking closely those which fly regularly. Basically, the US can track the serial number of around 25 of these planes having flown in recent years, with around 10 which have flown large enough number of sorties. The ones the US has not been able to track in flight are all assumed by the US to be not operational. There is a problem with the methodology used by the US, but I let them figure it out themselves.
The platforms used such as tanks, aircraft, and ships, are increasingly vulnerable to advanced guided missiles fired from afar. That makes heavy investment in such platforms not prudent, especially if you have a defensive posture. For a country like Iran, it makes more sense to invest heavily on developing advanced systems, such as missiles and the like. However, Hezbollah's ability to defeat Israel was itself premised on very advanced systems at their disposal, most notably its anti tank missiles which halted Israeli ground advances. Similarly, a network of advanced bunkers built for Hezbollah played an important role in protecting its forces from Israeli attacks. Let me conclude by saying that Iran invests enough in platforms to have a decent enough armor, air force and navy. But its focus is on systems such as missiles and it does not spend its money on buying foreign equipment to just show off in parades. Even the foreign equipment Iran does purchase, it often sets out to replicate and reverse enginer, to learn from them, and to modify and improve them to meet its actual defense needs. That is true even of its Russian equipment, such as the Mig29s and the T-72 tanks. The ones Iran has in its arsenal are not comparable to the export versions sold to it origninally or to what is sold to other countries. The export version of the Mig29, for instance, has a very limited range. That range makes it far easier to identify and destroy. Iran has vastly increased the range of the Mig29 by several folds, making it far more difficult to hit on the ground since the planes can be dispersed in farther away airfields than just a few airfields around the theater of battle. BTW, in terms of platforms, as opposed to the systems on the plane, the Mig29 is still one of the best air superiority planes in the world with great maneuver capabilities. Alas, dog fights are increasingly a thing of the past and what is important is the systems on these planes. The good thing is that Iran is rather proficient in the necessary systems and munitions to modify them as necessary.
You guys forget wars are not winning by weapons but by people. People is the most critical factor to win a war.
A couple of points before I post some pics from what was shown by other services during the Zolfagar war games, namely the navy and army. (1) The reason I am posting these pics is the same reason why practically every major and minor news agency around the world provided coverage of Iran's war games. Namely, Iran is facing threats and the ability of its armed forces to counter those threats could play an important role in disuading those who are itching for a war with Iran to think twice. Before these war mongers take the US to another war, folks should realize what such a war would entail. Its costs: militarily, economically, politically, geopolitically and morally. (2) The age of the platforms used to fire advanced systems is not as relevant as the systems being used on the planes. As long as Iran is able to modify its old US planes to equip them with modern radar as well as modern munitions, these platforms will do. Similarily, a simple old truck that is used to fire off a missile is not as relevant as the missile (UAV in the pic below) that is being lauched from it. Indeed, the fact that a cheap truck is being used only means that even if the platform used to fire off the missile (or UAV) is detected after launch and destroyed by an enemy, the loss sustained is less than it would be otherwise if a more expensive platform was used instead.
No I have not forgotten that, and I can tell you from exp. that the US Military is by far the best trained in the World. And we have the best equipment to go with it. A mistake I see people around making is that they think the US Military is getting beaten in Iraq. This is not the case. In the actual war, in 91 and Gulf II the US Military steamrolled over the Iraqi's. What is going on now is a combination occupation, police action, rebuilding with insurgents attacking. Resistence is easy to keep going so long as you have people, a source for supplies and a reason to resist. Hell WWII showed that with the French, they got their asses handed to them by the Germans, yet it didn't stop them from having a solid resistence until the Germans were forced out of France. The point being, if iran and the US were to have a war, the US would easily win outright in any military confrontation. However a major problem would be in trying to occupy iran, which for the US to beat iran would not be required. We only need to remove their nuclear program, or rather heavily damage it, and lets face it, their navy, and air force pose little if any real threat to US Forces already in the region. As for their army, what are they going to do? Invade iraq or Afghanistan? If they tried that they wouldn't make it past the border before the US Armed Forces wiped them out. Lastly one aspect that seems to be forgotten here is that we have combat proven troops and systems, something iran does not have. If iran is stupid enough to start any war with the US they will see quickly that they wasted alot of money on their planes and other toys.
You probably know that I had military background. US military is best equipped but I am not sure if it is best trained. For example, British troops are better trained and prepared in Iraq mission than US troops. What I call best training is not just including the training for general war making, but also specifics on a specific war. For example, does our troops trained on Islam and Iraqi customs, cultures, and languages? Another issue is military displine. Do you think that our troops have better displine than British? For example, do you heard any personal wrongdoing out of British soldiers (such as rape case)? Another issue is that our troops have a bad reputation about happy trigger--like fire first, ask later. People may say that it is in Iraq with suicide bomber, etc., but our troops have that reputation in Somalia, or even very early, during Korean War there were many South Korean civilians were shot due to this issue. I tell you that even British troops a not as best displined troops in the world. There are some armies are better than Britishes. I think Golf I is a good war plan executed but not Golf II. General Frank's fast moving without much protection on the sides and supply line can lose those troops very easily. He was lucky Iraqi troops and generals are useless.