In-Depth Analysis: Back to Iran!

In this extended article, we examine how Israeli and US airpower systematically destroyed Iran’s remaining over-the-horizon ground-based air surveillance radar coverage from 28th February.

In December 2025, Armada published an in-depth report examining the Israeli military’s Destruction/Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (D/SEAD) campaign during the so-called ‘Twelve Day War’. Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran fought each other between 13th and 24th June 2025. We produced our report in association with MAIAR. The company provided us with significant open-source intelligence on Iranian Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) and Ground-Based Air Defence (GBAD) targets struck by Israeli and American airpower. The United States entered the war on 22nd June 2025 launching Operation Midnight Hammer against Iranian targets associated with the latter’s clandestine Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programme.

Radar attrition

According to our assessment, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Defence Force (IRIADF), part of the Iranian Army responsible for the country’s IADS and GBAD, possessed at least 13 High Frequency (HF: three megahertz/MHz to 30MHz) Over-The-Horizon (OTH) radars as of June 2025. These Ghadir systems, with a reported range of circa 594 nautical miles/nm (1,100 kilometres/km), provided the IRIADF with the ability to detect, identify, locate and track, henceforth known as process, incoming air threats at the operational/theatre level. Of the 13 OTH radars identified, we assessed that at least seven were destroyed during the conflict. A further two were assessed as probably destroyed, and the remaining balance of four were presumed intact.

Hostilities between Israel and the United States on one side, and Iran on the other, recommenced on 28th February. According to the US Department of Defence, as of 13th March US and Israeli airstrikes had hit 15,000 targets in Iran. As per the 2025 conflict, these targets included IADS and GBAD targets. These targets were engaged in accordance with Israeli and US efforts to employ and sustain operational D/SEAD efforts as part of a wider Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) effort to win and sustain air superiority over Iran.

Sepehr targeted

Sources have informed Armada that several of the D/SEAD targets struck during renewed hostilities have included Iranian OTH radars that do not appear to have been hit during the June 2025 conflict. These radars appear to be additional Ghadir systems and Sepehr OTH examples. The key difference between the Ghadir and Sepehr is the latter’s instrumented range of circa 1,619nm (3,000km) according to Armada’s proprietary information.

The concept of operations for the two radars is for the Sepehr to perform the initial strategic processing of incoming air targets at range. These targets are then handed off to Ghadirs for processing once they fall within the instrumented range of the latter. The Ghadirs then pass these targets to tactical GBAD and fighters for processing and engagement. It appears that Israeli and US airpower has not had to contend with any air-to-air threats from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. The IRIADF’s integrated air defence system networks all these air defence assets and provides overarching strategic, operational and tactical command and control. The table below details the radars which are believed to have been operational before Israeli and US operations commenced on 28th February:

Iranian OTH radars believed to have been operational prior to the commencement of hostilities on 28th February

The image below illustrates the footprint of the total, combined coverage provided by all the Sepehr and Ghadir radars listed in the table prior to the commencement of US and Israeli operations. This map includes the balance of four Ghadirs believed to have been left undamaged from the previous conflict.

Information gathered by the interactive map of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran shows that most of Iran’s OTH ground-based air surveillance radars were attacked within the first week of the renewed conflict. It is important to note that an attacked radar does not necessarily mean the radar has been destroyed. Nonetheless, we will assume, for the purpose of this analysis, that these radars have been taken out of the fight. Initial strikes targeted the Ghadir radars at Albaji, southwestern Iran and at Chabahar east of the Strait of Hormuz. The loss of both these systems would have degraded radar coverage of strike packages approaching Iran from the west and southwest respectively. Destroying the Chabahar radar would have been particularly important for US Navy aircraft operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, notably the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford respective ‘Nimitz’ and eponymous class aircraft carriers. Long range coverage over the Persian Gulf and into the Arabian Peninsula was degraded on 1st March with an attack on the Sepehr radar at Dasht Arjan, southern Iran. This radar would have been a priority given US sorties mounted from airbases in the Arabian Peninsula.

Attentions of the D/SEAD campaign switched north and northeast from 4th March as the Ghadirs at Kuh-e Shah Nakhijir and Nur Ed Dinabad were targeted. That same day Iran’s only other Sepehr, this one located at Qarah Bolagh, was attacked. Assuming both Sepehrs were now destroyed, Iran effectively no longer possessed any strategic radar coverage. One outstanding question of the conflict is why the Sepehrs were destroyed now, and not during the conflict in 2025? Did the larger involvement of US airpower demand these systems were taken out of the fight?

Although Ghadir coverage of the Persian Gulf would have been badly degraded with the loss of the Ghadir at Chabahar on 28th February, further damage was inflicted on 4th March when the Ghadir at Jask, which acted as gatekeeper to the Strait of Hormuz was engaged. The attrition of Persian Gulf Ghadir coverage was all but complete by 5th March with the attack of the Ghadir radar in Bushehr. What might have been Iran’s last surviving Ghadir, the system located at Khanuj, was attacked on 22nd March.

Iranian OTH radars to have been destroyed as of 28th March

Conclusions

It could be tempting to say that the IRIADF’s OTH ground-based air surveillance radar coverage is now non-existent, but these were conclusions that Armada reached following the end of the June 2025 war. Our assessment was that Iran effectively had no meaningful strategic and operational level radar coverage. Details which have come to light during current hostilities indicate that we were wrong in this initial assumption. Nonetheless, the attrition that Iranian radar coverage experienced during the June 2025 war will undoubtedly have influenced the conduct of the US-Israeli air campaign so far. As of 27th March, neither side has reportedly lost any inhabited aircraft to hostile action. This is arguably testament not only to the D/SEAD operations mounted by both nations during current hostilities, but also because of OCA work done during previous conflicts.

by Dr. Thomas Withington