Like their MANPADs, Arash is operated by two man motorcycle teams following classic Iranian “shoot and scoot” doctrine. The Arash is capable of taking out tanks and armored personnel carriers according to a U.S. Army soldier stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas who commented on the report. Pictured here a two man team on the back of a motorcycle on a search and destroy mission for tanks.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) unveiled a new weapons today including a new shoulder-launched weapon named ‘Arash’ and a home-made sniper rifle dubbed ‘Siyavash’.
“The Arash is a 20mm shoulder-launched weapon. Arash is an anti-helicopter weapon system, but it can also destroy land and logistic targets with maximum precision. The weapon system can destroy targets within the range of 1,800 meters. The high-precision rocket-launcher is a semi-automatic weapon and has no foreign rival, meaning that it is unique in type”, according to the report, dated December 25 2013 Christmas.
Like their MANPADs, Arash is operated by two man motorcycle teams following classic Iranian “shoot and scoot” doctrine. “the weapon is capable of taking out tanks and armored personnel carriers, according to a Ft. Riley soldier with the 1st Mechanized Infantry unit “Big Red One”, 2nd 5-16th Infantry – who declined to be named in this report for fear or retaliation by senior military officers for speaking with “unauthorized” media sources, who indicated he would share the information with members of his unit and military intelligence analysts at Ft. Riley, Kansas. “Helicopters are another thing entirely”, said the soldier, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It would be hard as hell to engage a Blackhawk helicopter with this thing, I don’t care how good you are – but that is not saying such a thing would be impossible”, he said.
The ammunition appears to be either a 20x102mm HEI (High Explosive Incendiary round (or a similarly sized 20mm caliber HEI round) – See more at: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/03/07/irans-new-arash-20mm-shoulder-fired-anti-material-rifle-with-barrett-bors-clone/#sthash.fEcO9lDb.dpuf
Siyavash is a very light weight sniper rifle designed.
It weighs 6.5 kilograms while fully loaded with its five-bullet magazine. The rifle is now being manufactured on a limited industrial scale, according to the report.
The report goes on to quote leaders in the Iranian Army who indicate the weapons will help Iran’s asymmetric capabilities http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13921004001024
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