Iranian Javelin: New Badr Anti-Tank Missile System Provides Asymmetric Solution to Armoured Offensives

The Iranian Armed Forces have demonstrated the capabilities of the Badr man-portable anti-tank missile system in its first publicly documented test. The missile is intended to provide ground units with the ability to threaten enemy armour at long ranges, and has many common features with the Chinese HJ-10 and American Javelin, the latter which has seen widespread use in the Ukrainian theatre. The system was designed to strike enemy vehicles from their top armour, which is usually much less well protected, while providing advanced fire-and-forget capabilities. Iran previously deployed the 130mm Almas missile with such features, although the 110mm Badr’s lighter weight allows a a single soldier to carry and deploy it without additional personnel or setup. Developed in the 2010s, the older Almas system was long speculated to have comparable capabilities to the Israeli Spike, and is thought to have seen its development benefit from study of Spike systems captured by the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah during its month long war with Israel in 2006. Hezbollah was first observed making effective use of a missile with similar capabilities, possibly the Almas, in January 2024, during engagements with Israeli forces. It has been speculated that Iran received support from China or North Korea, which have developed highly sophisticated similar systems, in reverse engineering the Spike.

Iran’s ground forces notably lack modern main battle tanks, with the bulk of its forces made up of American M60 and British Chieftain tanks procured in the 1970s which have long since been considered obsolete. Both tank classes were overwhelmingly outmatched by the Iraqi Army’s T-62s and T-72s during the Iran-Iraq War, as confirmed by accounts from both sides. Iran in the 1980s and 1990s did procure T-62 tanks from North Korea and T-72s from the Soviet Union and Russia, although the numbers in which they were acquired were limited, and the variants acquired are considered far from cutting edge today. The lack of modern tanks makes the deployment of sophisticated anti-tank missile systems particularly valuable for Iranian ground forces’ ability to mount an effective defence, with the effectiveness of the Javelin when utilised by Ukrainian forces in early 2022 thought to have increased interest in similar systems. Widespread procurement of the Badr system may thus be seen to provide a more cost effective means of defending Iranian territory than investment in modern main battle tanks, despite longstanding speculation that Iran could make large scale orders for tanks such as the Chinese VT-4 or North Korean Chonma 2 to phase out its Cold War era inventories.