Poor Deterrent: Why Iran’s Large Fleet of Over 300 Fighters Isn’t Well Equipped to Stop Israel

Following the initiation of Israeli air strikes on a wide range of Iranian targets on June 13, which singled out the country’s military leadership, high level scientists, military bases and nuclear facilities, the capabilities of the Iranian Air Force have gained growing attention from defence analysts across the world. Confirmation that hostile fighter aircraft launched bombing operations inside Iranian airspace for the first time since the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 has placed the fighter fleet to the test for the first time in a generation, with much regarding its performance during recent hostilities remaining unconfirmed. Although Iran is one of very few countries in the world which can boast a fighter fleet of over 300 aircraft, its capabilities remain constrained by the age of its equipment, particularly if engaging modern fighter units in air-to-air combat. The vast majority of Iranian squadrons are equipped with fighters procured in the 1970s, at a time of disproportionately high defence spending in the final years of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Since the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979, Iran has only purchased three and a half squadrons worth of new fighters, namely two squadrons’ worth of Soviet MiG-29s, one of Chinese J-7s and half a squadrons’ worth of Soviet Su-24M strike fighters. These aircraft were all purchased in the late 1980s.

The Iranian Air Force currently operates fifteen fighter squadrons, including five squadrons of the F-4D/E Phantom II, three squadrons of the F-5E/F Tiger II, two squadrons each of the F-14 Tomcat and MiG-29A/UB and one squadron each of the J-7M and the Su-24MK. A fifteenth mixed squadron is comprised of Mirage F-1E and F-5E/F jets. A seventeenth squadron serves in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is comprised of modernised Su-22 strike fighters relied on for close air support. The Iranian Defence Ministry made considerable efforts to procure modern fighter aircraft in the 1990s, and after rapprochement with the Soviet Union in 1989, procurements of MiG-29s and Su-24s were expected to be only the beginning of a larger scale and much more comprehensive fleet modernisation program. Intervention by the United States to place pressure on Russia and other Soviet successor states to deny Iran access to modern armaments in the 1990s, including pulling out of existing contracts, prevented the Iranian Air Force from realising its ambitions. Plans had included very large scale procurements of enhanced MiG-29s to replace the much less capable F-4 as the backbone of the fleet, and procurement of MiG-31 interceptors to equip elite units.

A primary restriction faced by Iranian fighter units is their reliance on obsolete mechanically scanned array radars. Only four squadrons of Iranian fighters configured for air-to-air combat are equipped with post-Vietnam War era radar technologies, namely its two squadrons each of MiG-29s and F-14s. The extensive compromising of both the MiG-29A and the F-14 to Iran’s Western adversaries, the former through the absorption of the Warsaw Pact fleets into NATO in the 1990s, and the latter due to its American origin, mean that jamming of their sensors and development of other countermeasures is expected to be particularly straightforward. The R-27 missiles relied on by Iran’s MiG-29s for beyond visual range engagements are considered compromised for the same reasons. Iran’s F-14s are its only fighters with active radar guided air-to-air missiles, which have become increasingly standard for modern fighter units since the 2000s. Although most Israeli F-15 units notably are not equipped with such missiles, all frontline U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy fighter squadrons are, as are Israel’s newer F-15I, F-16I and F-35 squadrons. The F-14’s AIM-54 active radar guided missile is considered effectively obsolete today, and proved far from reliable when used in combat in the 1980s and 1990s. Although Iran has developed a new active radar guided long range missile class to equip the fighter, the Fakour 90, its capabilities remain highly uncertain.

Despite its limitations, the Iranian fighter fleet has the potential to complicate Israeli or Western air offensives, with its sheer size forcing adversaries to devote resources to striking multiple airbases, and to equipping a large portion of fighters with air-to-air missiles when seeking to operate in or near Iranian airspace, in addition to the added weight of external fuel tanks. Nevertheless, Iran has come to rely very heavily on ground-based air defence systems, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, and a wide range of drone classes for its defence, with fighter aircraft thought to have only a minor role in military planning even for air defence operations. Although obsolete for air defence, the fighter fleet is still relied on heavily for maritime strike missions, and remains a potent force for such operations, with the license production of Chinese cruise missile classes to equip F-4D/E jets having revolutionised their combat potentials. It has long been speculated that the Iranian Air Force will procure modern fighters on a significant scale to re-equip its squadrons, which may not only be a game changer for the regional balance of power, but will also very likely reduce the fleet’s operational costs due to the high costs of maintaining airframes that are close to half a century old.

Iranian opportunities to modernise its fighter fleet grew after the expiry of a UN arms embargo on the country in 2020, and increased further following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian War in February 2022. Russia’s heavy reliance on procuring Iranian drones, and reduced susceptibility to Western pressure, placed Tehran in a strong position to request to procure fighters from its embattled neighbour. With Iranian confirmed in January 2025 to have placed orders for Russian Su-35 fighters, unconfirmed reports indicate that a procurement of 64 of the aircraft has been planned. Although the Su-35 is far from the most capable fighter in the world today, and suffers a number of limitations when compared to the F-35 or Chinese fighters such as the J-20 and J-16, it is decades ahead of any of Iran’s previous fighters in terms of its sophistication, and is heavily optimised for high intensity air-to-air engagements with stealth fighters. The very large size of the Iranian fleet leaves considerable capacity to absorb more fighters from other classes, with future procurements having been widely speculated. Iran’s perceived slowness in moving to make new procurements, however, has contributed to its vulnerability at a time of high tensions with Israel and countries across the Western world, and has ensured that planning for offensives against the country has been considerably less complicated than would otherwise have been the case.