Iran to conduct final test of Bavar 373 air defense missile system

 According to Xinhua News Agency echoed by Lin Congyi in China Military, a top Iranian military commander said on September 9 that the country will carry out the final test of its upgraded homegrown missile defense system, dubbed Bavar (Belief) 373, in the coming days, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Alireza Sabahi-Fard, commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Defense Force, said in a televised interview that the system has successfully completed all its initial tests. He stressed that all Iranian air defense systems have been equipped with cutting-edge technologies, with Bavar 373 being the army’s flagship.

Bavar-373 (meaning Belief, and 373 being Abjad for messenger of Allah!) is an Iranian long-range road-mobile surface-to-air missile system unveiled in August 2016. Iran describes it as a competitor with the S-300 missile system. It is manufactured by the Iranian Defence Ministry in cooperation with unspecified local manufacturers and universities. The system was formally unveiled during a ceremony attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on 22 August 2019, and was declared operational the same day.

In April 2015, Iran unveiled some of Bavar’s subsystems, which include the Fakour commanding and smart control system which has the ability to collect information from all sources relevant to air defense, including passive and active military radars (such as the Mersad), signal surveillance, missile systems and commanding and control systems. The Rasoul advanced communications system is for encoding information, connecting the country’s infrastructure and transferring radar information from the battle scene to command centers.

Bavar-373 utilizes Sayyad-4 missiles, which are contained in two rectangular launch canisters. No formal information is given about this missile but it appears from news photos that Sayyad-4 is similar to Sayyad-3 in wings and control surfaces, however it varies lightly in frontal shape. The canisters containing the Sayyad-4 missiles are to be carried on the Zoljanah 10×10 truck.

Bavar-373 uses a phased array radar for tracking aerodynamic targets and ballistic missiles in medium to long ranges, mounted on the Zafar heavy truck.[ One of the radars used in Bavar-373 is Meraj-4 (Ascension), a phased array radar with a range of 450 km which uses fuzzy logic techniques to spot targets. Meraj can track up to 200 targets simultaneously.

Bavar 373 system is capable of detecting up to 100 targets, tracking 60 of them and engaging with six concurrently. Bavar has an S-band acquisition radar for detection, and a (shorter-range) X-Band fire control radar for missile guidance. Both are Active Electronically Scanned Array radars. Bavar can hit targets up to an altitude of 30,000 meters.