(Bloomberg) — The number of Iranian missile launchers has held steady after a week of unrelenting airstrikes, according to Israeli and western estimates, indicating the difficulty of finding small, mobile targets without having complete control of the skies.
Israeli Defense Forces officials said Thursday that two-thirds of the Islamic Republic’s launchers had been destroyed. That’s little changed from the 60% reported last week.
Two western estimates on Thursday also put the number of destroyed launchers at 60%, with one adding that as much as 80% of Iran’s total offensive capability had been destroyed.
The mobile launchers are key to Iran’s ability to fire its large supply of ballistic missiles. But finding the vehicles in such a large country, especially when some airspace is still dangerous for US and Israeli aircraft, poses a huge challenge. Meanwhile, Tehran has long been aware the launchers will be targeted.
“It’s likely that the Iranians are adapting tactics,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s quite possible that they’re just preserving launchers by slowing down operations and focusing more on Shaheds.”
Iran has fired more than 2,400 Shahed-136 rudimentary cruise missiles at targets around the region, compared with at least 789 ballistic missiles and 39 standard cruise missiles, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
An Israeli estimate put Iran’s arsenal at up to 2,500 ballistic missiles before the war started Feb. 28.
US and Israeli strikes have taken aim at those stockpiles while also prioritizing the destruction of launchers to create a bottleneck that prevents using whatever missiles remain.
That’s led to a more than 80% decrease in Iranian attacks with ballistic missiles and Shaheds, according to US Central Command.
The number of ballistic missiles fired at Gulf targets has stabilized at an average of about 21 a day over the last three days, said Becca Wasser, defense lead at Bloomberg Economics.
Although as much as 80% of Iran’s air defenses have been destroyed, according to Israeli estimates, hard-to-find weapons such as the 358 missile — capable of launching from small, easily concealed rail vehicles — complicate air operations.
The missiles, also used by Houthi fighters in Yemen, use infrared seekers and can fly a fixed pattern in the air until they spot a target. The lack of radar means aircraft could have little warning.
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