Turkey ended 2022 with a successful test firing of its locally-made Siper long-range air defense missile formula against a target 62 miles away. The test came less than two months after Iran unveiled an extended-range edition of its Bavar-373, which it said it controlled to destroy a target 186 miles away.
Ismail Demir, head of Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), praised the Siper check in a Dec. 30 tweet, calling it “a New Year’s gift for our country, as we kick off the Turkish century in our defense industry. “
The Siper has the longest diversity of the series of air defense missiles developed across Turkey in recent years. Other systems built across Ankara for this emerging national air defense come with the short- and medium-diversity Hisar-A and Hisar-O, as well as the long-diversity Hisar-U. The Sungur and Korkut systems, designed to have interaction targets within 8 kilometers, also offer low-diversity, low-altitude defense, suitable for protective infantrymen on the battlefield.
The Bavar-373, which entered service in August 2019, plays a similar role in Iran’s national air defense. In November 2022, Iranian state media reported that an improved edition had been developed and tested. In the test, the formula’s radar purportedly detected a target 280 miles away, tracked it 250 miles away, and destroyed it at a distance of 186 miles with its new Sayyad-4B missile. A senior Iranian commander even claimed that the formula could simply counter fifth-generation aircraft, though of course, that remains to be seen.
While Turkey demonstrated the Siper’s ability to hit targets more than 60 miles away, Iran demonstrated its multi-layered air defenses in the Zolfaqar 1401 military training it introduced on Dec. 29.
According to Iranian media, an Iranian-made Mersad formula tracked and shot down a drone operating at an altitude of 25,000 feet (93 miles) outside Iranian airspace during the exercise. The Mersad is based on the American MIM-23 Hawk formula acquired through Iran before the 1979 revolution (by the way, the US and Spain are supplying Ukraine with Hawk missiles to help Kiev shoot down Iranian-made drones that Russia is using against it).
Iran also used in this exercise its short-range, low-altitude Majid air defense, which is roughly in the same category as the Turkish Korkut and Sungur systems, as well as the Khordad 15 and Talash long-range systems.
In addition to pointing to their successful progression of multi-layered air defenses, Iran and Turkey have also continuously claimed that their Siper and Bavar-373 systems may even rival the Russian S-400.
The Turkish press invariably describes the Siper as a “rival” to the S-400. Similarly, when Iran introduced the Bavar-373 in 2019, it claimed that the formula was tougher than the S-300 and that it was in cahoots with the S. Iran operates a complex variant of the S-300 that it won in 2016. Turkey acquired the S-400 in 2019.
Ankara and Tehran plan to export variants of their local systems.
Iran reportedly provided Russia with one of its Bavar-373s at the start of the war in Ukraine. Several reports imply that Iran has at least tried to supply Syria with some of its advanced air defenses, Israel at most will probably preemptively save it. attempt to deploy Iranian air defenses on Syrian soil. Iran is heavily sanctioned, and its military aid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its violent domestic crackdown on protesters have made it even more unpopular and isolated. As a result, any consumer of exports that Iran gains for its domestic air defenses is very likely to remain pariah states.
Turkey, on the other hand, could capture a more general market for its local formulas in the coming years. In November, it signed a contract with Indonesia for the supply of Khan short-range ballistic missiles (the export edition of the Bora-1 that Turkey introduced in 2017) and an unspecified layered air defense formula: in all likelihood tailor-made export variants of the Hisar and Siper.
With Iran and Russia more isolated than ever, Turkey is likely to gain more consumers for its local systems in the coming years.