During its massive war drills in the south, Iran has test fired what it calls a “buried” ballistic missile.
The Iranian military has been engaged for several days in military drills that combined the regular armed forces with the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its air and naval forces as it practices fending off a massive naval assault by the United States.
“During the recent drills, we managed to fire ballistic missiles from deep underground for the first time in the world,” Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC's aerospace division, told PressTV on Wednesday. “In other words, without using launch pads and other conventional equipment, the buried missiles crack the ground and hit their targets with precision.”
It's unclear what “crack the ground” means here. It's possible they are launched from silos that have been covered by earth and which do not have top doors that open prior to launch. One feature of note is that, contrary to other silo-launched missiles, those observed in Wednesday's drills didn't perform a “dynamic launch” that propelled them above ground level using gases before their main rocket engines ignited. Instead, they're seen erupting from the ground with their main engines already on at full blast. This could be key to their unique method of launch.
IRGC Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri told the weekly publication Sobh-e Sadeq earlier this month that Iran's missile cities would be a…
