Keeping America Out of Iran’s Airspace: China Delivering New Man-Portable Air Defences - Reports

Informed sources cited by Reuters have reported that Iran is preparing to receive its first shipment of up to 400 Chinese man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) within the coming weeks. The reported transfer of an estimated $60-70 million worth of air defence systems would significantly strengthen Iran's short-range air defence network, at a time when the lower tiers of the country’s air defence network have already proven highly capable and shot down several dozen U.S. and Israeli aircraft. According to Reuters, the shipment is expected to include 300 to 400 missiles from the QW and FN series of systems.

The QW family first appeared publicly in the mid-1990s as a new generation of infrared-guided shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, with the QW-2, unveiled publicly during the 2003 Zhuhai Airshow having served for many years as one of the People's Liberation Army's principal man-portable systems, before gradually being replaced by more advanced systems. The newer QW-12 represents a substantial advance over earlier QW variants, and employs a dual-band infrared seeker to facilitate improved discrimination between targets and infrared decoys. During a publicly released live-fire demonstration in 2022, Chinese officials claimed the missile successfully ignored eight decoy flares released by a target drone before accurately striking the aircraft, highlighting significant advances in seeker technology compared to earlier generations.

Chinese forces have increasingly shifted towards the more modern FN-6 and FN-16 as its principal shoulder-fired air defence weapon. The FN-16 incorporates improvements including a more sophisticated seeker and a titanium alloy pre-formed fragmentation warhead, intended to increase lethality against modern aircraft and cruise missiles. Although official specifications remain limited, the missile is widely believed to offer improved resistance to infrared countermeasures and greater effectiveness against manoeuvring targets.

In February Russian government documents indicated that the Iranian Defence Ministry had singed an arms deal valued at $580 million to procure 500 9K333 Verba man-portable short range surface-to-air missile launchers and 2,500 associated 9M336 missiles over three years. This followed the placing of orders for Russian Su-35 air superiority fighters, which have yet to be delivered, as well as Mi-28 attack helicopters which began deliveries in January. Having been brought into service only in 2014, the Verba is widely considered the world’s most capable man-portable air defence system, and while far more costly than preceding Russian systems, it has very significant performance advantages. Most notably, it is the only known man-portable system with a three-spectral seeker, giving it a qualitative edge against modern countermeasures. Procuring both Chinese and Russian man-portable systems in parallel could make operations in Iranian airspace considerably more complex.