Could Iran pull off a military upset against the US?

I dont know if any of you have heard of Super Power (called Global Power outside of the US) but it can be interesting for seeing the world from the strategic viewpoint of often ignored nations.

I've not only heard of it, but actually own it, and after playing through many different situations in it, I could do no less than completely agree with you on that. Out of all the games I've had, that is definitely the one I liked the most. It came out a while ago, so if one can still find it, I would recommend it to anyone. There are so many different situations that one can play through. It never gets boring.

I can't find my cd for it at the moment, but when I do, I will definitely be playing it again.

reply to post by The Vagabond



[edit on 3-4-2008 by musselwhite]

Make no mistake about this fact and it's a proven fact. Man with all his intelligence and materials at his disposal, is still a limited entity as compared to the knowledge of the Almighty God. If it is willed that Man will destroy Mankind with the weapons invented by Man himself, than...so be it, it will happen and there are no winners in this folly. Can Wisdom Prevail among Men.

Stunning thread ATS at its best. Kudos to you Vagabond

I see the usual mix of responses here - reasoned thought, chest thumping patriotism and sheer fantasist replies and it makes for fascinating reading.

People seem to forget the human element in all of this, and how realtively easy it is to take down some of the systems that the US deploys using more simple means.

Stick a three person team in a concealed position outside an airbase perimeter with - of all things - a simple mortar mounted on a truck flatbed. Drop some shells on a runway and flight ops will HAVE to be suspended until the area is proven to be clear. The shelling doesn't have to be accurate. Rinse and repeat those actions with hit and run tactics and suddenly troop deployment becomes a nightmare. The IRA used that tactic on numerous occasions at Heathrow and Gatwick. Believe me, it works.

Equip that same team with two or three hand held SAMS and blow a C-5 or C-17 out of the sky on takeoff or landing. They don't even have to be NEAR to the base - they can sit on the approach paths 2/3 miles away.

Clear out some nearer fields and deployments have to be re-routed, re-assembled and re-packaged. You can deny an enemy 50/60 miles of ground simply by denying their deployment fields. Do it in a sustained manner across the region and suddenly moral drops and everyone wants to be on Diego Garcia. No land offensive is going to be launched from there.

Show me a Phalanx or Vulcan or any system that can handle 15 supersonic sea skimming missiles heading for a carrier at the same time as other inbounds are engaging the escorts. More than one or two are going to get through. Sink one or two carriers and thats upwards of 100 airframes, naval aviators and several billion dollars worth of non-easily replaceable tech down the pan. Hows that for a bloody nose?

And whilst the USAF is the most advanced airforce in the world, I would agree that apart from Korea in the 50's, its never faced a determined opposition that actually shot back at it. In fact in some respects - if you permit me the use of an analogy - the USAF is the Luftwaffe sitting on the other side of the channel just before the Battle Britain in this situation. It looks easy, but a determined adversary with a home-field advantage is no pushover. The key word there is determined.

Then there's politics in this situation. The arab nations would condemn the Iranian Actions, but probably declare themselves neutral in the opening phases, but one set of bombs missing a target and hitting a school/residential area/hospital and suddenly the picture changes. One scuttled tanker in the middle of the Suez Canal and suddenly supplying the region by sea becomes a nightmare. Israels involvement in a conflict would not be tolerated by its Arab neighbours and suddenly another front would open up.

See - its not as easy as it sounds for the US to pull this off - especially after the folly in Iraq and years of a middle eastern foreign policy that has been single minded in its support for Isreal.

reply to post by neformore


What you seem to forget is the relatively easy romp the US Army had in both conflicts with Iraq. In all out military conflicts the US tends to do rather well in the last couple decades. What comes after the initial combat is always harder, but the US defeated the Iraqi military in relative days.

Depending on the actual objective, a potential conflict with Iran doesn't even have to involve a ground invasion. There is ample room to stage large numbers of Troops and equipment on Iran's border with relative safety. It' all depends on what your actual objective is regarding Iran. Do you want to destroy it's nuclear capability or occupy the country? Either dictate different degrees of operations to achieve the stated goal.

The weak spot of any army is it's supply and command and control. That being said, the US usually takes the overkill route when it comes to it's supply lines and communications. People seem to forget that some of the first things the US would do in a conflict is decapitate the head of the opponents military from the body. Front line troops will be without resupply and communications as they get pummeled from the air by jets and missiles.

Carriers will not be anywhere near the Iranian coast, please look at how we deploy those ships in the start of conflict. CBG have a very long reach, especially with local based aircraft refueling capability. The actual ships stay beyond reach of most weapons systems at all times.

If it comes to an actual conflict we will see who is right. The experience, training, equipment edge all go to one side, plus that side will have the numerical advantage as well.

Yes I agree with some of the posters here that the US would use air power to our extreme advantage. Why play by the rules and strengths of your enemy? If the enemy has ground forces and strength, cruise missiles etc, don't even engage till later, after softening.

So for your simulation, you would need an advanced and large contingent of surface to air missiles capable of at least some successes of target kills around key radar, communication and other strategic areas.

Thats just one thing to worry about, keeping a blockade would be an issue as well. I don't think Iran, although having some capability at sea, would be able to fend off the might and tech of the US. Their only chance at even a glimmer of success is to strike fast and hard at multiple location, a coordinated offensive putting at risk 80-90% of their hardware.

If successful in the offensive, it would cripple the US for a temporary time, then all of the other worries need to be addressed as well, in the end...well..possibly the best option is to engage the US in asymmetrical warfare (guerrilla warfare), quite what the Iraqis are doing.



[edit on 4-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

Looking at links for the game came across an "interesting link", a link for
SuperPower 2 (the new version) hosted by website called IranDownload.

www.download.ir...

Pretty ironic since we're talking about this scenario now is hypothetical terms. I didn't even search for iran, just "Superpower game rapidshare" was my search.


[edit on 4-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

Iran would certainly be able to initially inflict damage on both the USAF and Navy (unlike Iraq) but the tied would turn quickly, and Iran would be shut down in a few days to a few weeks.

It would be really stupid for the US to put ground troops in Iran though. You just cannot defeat a culture with War without taking lots of casualties and spendingg 20 or more years force teaching them western ways of life so that the new generations would be largely different from their parents.

I do not see a benefit in doing a ground war this for anyone unless you intend to just make it a new state.

Originally posted by pavil
What you seem to forget is the relatively easy romp the US Army had in both conflicts with Iraq. In all out military conflicts the US tends to do rather well in the last couple decades. What comes after the initial combat is always harder, but the US defeated the Iraqi military in relative days.

Not forgotten it. Discounted it. As has been pointed out this will not be open desert warfare. It will not be the same. You wouldn't get A-10's and Apaches literally massacaring an enemy on open ground, which is what happened against the Iraq's - those pictures you saw on TV from the Gulf War, they were taken of an army in retreat that got shot to pieces. They had no will to fight at all. They were in it for Kuwait because it was easy to roll over and they most certainly were not equipped - or had the heart - to take on the allies.

And lets back off the propaganda a little. The US has faced what are tantamount to third world powers with poor equipment. It has not faced a properly organised military force.

Like I said, the key word is determined

Depending on the actual objective, a potential conflict with Iran doesn't even have to involve a ground invasion.

We're talking about the scenario in the initial post aren't we?

Nah, they would not have much of a chance in a conventional war with the US, as stated in above post, their best option is to fight asymetrically. Meaning suicide bombs in trucks, cars and on chests.

Using more advanced and more numerous deployment of IED's, some sporadic missile launches (ship/air/land targets) may also be employed. However a sustained launch location would not live long, would have to use mobile launchers, gun n' run techniques.

Also blockading the gulf would not last long as that would be conventional warfare, the US pretty much pwns () conventional tactics.

As far as anti-ship missiles I believe they may have some of their own junk missiles (based on other countries, basically copies), some Chinese silkworms (outdated tech), some Russian ones, all in all not too impressive.

It's the same questions people were asking with Iraq and the 'feared' Republican Guard, the 'elite' ground troops they had massed, along with the large regular army. That all came to pass fairly quickly, the most effective strategy now is guerrilla warfare, terrorist tactics and blending in with the civilians before and after an attack.

[edit on 4-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

The US will pull off a military upset against itself if it attacks Iran. It would be the end of the USA.

reply to post by neformore


Iran's military is a total question mark. They have neither the actual combat experience nor the continual training to give them a track record as to how they would perform. The last war they were in, they showed tactics reminiscent of WWI. Hardly impressive that they could barely beat back Iraq with it's Soviet style tactics. Their hardware while modernizing, is nowhere near where it could sufficiently take on the US military. Sorry, I am not impressed by their military capabilities, they will lose any head on clash with the US. Sure they can inflict some asymmetrical warfare losses, but not enough to change the end story. All those attacks will do is infuriate the US to the point of making sure Iran is totally defeated.


The control of the air will be key, the USN and the USAF will take control of that in the first few days, after that it's just cherry picking the targets you want to get rid of first. Once Iran cedes control of the sky to the US, the game is over. You don't think the Iranians can fend off the US dominance of the air do you?

Please stop dreaming that America will be beat by Iran, the U.S.A would beat Iran/

Iran loses in a shooting war no matter what. Even if they embarrass the US, they are sure to have their nuclear facillities destroyed as well as having missed out on a negotiated economic package. They just pissed off everyone and for what gain? Nothing. . .

Iran's military exists for the purpose of saying, "hey, you had best negotiate because our military is strong enough to mess things up in the Gulf." It is deterrence--if a shooting war errupts, then Iran's strategy has failed.

That being said--the US would be stupid to mount a ground war in Iran. Although air/cruise missle power has its limits, I think it would be sufficient enough to destroy the nuclear sites as well has mess up the Iranian military enough for Iran realize it screwed up.

If hostilities ignited. . .
Iran's best defense would be to expand the war into Iraq and Gulf. If successfull they could stand back and say, "see why the US does not belong here. . ." Expanding the war could very easily backfire. If the US emerges strong, the US will argue to isolate Iran and/or future regime change maybe a prepared ground war.

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Air War

People always bring up the successes of the Serbian air defense. What people fail to realize is that the allied forces were denied the use of cluster based munitions. Cluster based munitions are supperior to HARMS in that radars turn off to bust HARMS. Once you know the vicinity of a SAM site, you can just bust up the valley with an air launched cluster weapon.

The SAM that got the F-117 was no ghost. The allies could never get a HARM to knock it out.

Whether Iran has great pilots, or lousy pilots. It's airfields are vulnerable. With air refueling, the US can operate out of harms reach.

Even if Iran shot down 100 US planes. . . 1st, the public would not find out right away. 2nd the US would simply say that, "those heroic pilots gave their lives so that we could live in a world without nuclear catastrophe.

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Iranian Silkworms

They pose a threat to the Gulf and deter an amphibous invasion so long as they're intact.

US carriers do not need to operate within range of the Silkworms.

If war started, Iran would be firing Silkworms all over the Gulf trying to hit the US. This will result in many casualties for other Gulf countries and make Iran more enemies.

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Once a shooting war starts, it would end before China or Russia could sell Iran any additional weapons in significant amounts.

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If Iran threatened Israel with nuclear weapons you can be sure, Israel would respond wih her weapons pre-emptively probably with tacit US aproval. Don't mess with coutries which have shown a willingness to respond to agression with war.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
I'm calling the DEA- you are obviously on crack if you think that the US is going to intentionally massacre civilians in a nation as outmatched as Iran. Such an act would DEMAND internatonal intervention, and the Chinese would have a blank check to move any amount of their own airpower, pilots, and airdefenses that they wanted into Iran.

Actually, if Iran were to launch an attack on U.S. forces in Iraq, I think the American public would demand blood. Now, I am not talking about an insurgent type of attack, but rather a plain view of the Iranian military taking action. The war in Iraq doesn’t have such images; all we (the public) see are people in civilian garb that could be very well defending their home, or they could be a terrorist. The American public chooses to believe the former (not a bad thing, just in our nature to give the benefit of doubt). Vietnam and Iraq have the same thing in common; disapproval of the American public. Why? It’s hard to put a face on the enemy when we are not so naïve to stereotype everyone.

I think it is also safe to assume that if Iran were to take out 20,000 troops, the gloves would come off and you would see a rather large mobilization of U.S. forces from around the world. Our economy would then become a “war time economy” which we have not seen since WW2. Fuel and other materials that have potential to be short in supply would be rationed, which would spur entrepreneurs to meet energy as well as other demands with alternative solutions.

America’s deteriorated Industrial base would be revitalized as it would be called upon to craft the much need tools of war, trade deficits would shrink as we would ship less of what we need to foreign nations for use here at home. Finally, the ranks of our military would swell much in the same manner they did after 9/11.

This is just a brief summary of what would happen. I won’t play arm chair general, but I can tell you this is a war that we would indeed win. The losses have the potential to be very high, something not seen since Vietnam. But after the war comes to a conclusion, here is the America that would emerge:

1. Debt Free
2. Less reliant on foreign oil
3. Renewed Industrial Base
4. Economy stronger due to diversity (currently service based)
5. Stronger ties with Allies
6. Larger, more powerful Military
7. World’s first Hyper Power


This is just what I can think of in the 10 minutes I had free. I'll be back later and check on this topic.

[edit on 8-7-2008 by crisko]