The Fajr-3 (rarely Fadjr-3) ( fa, فجر-۳) is an Iranian heavy 240 mm intermediate-range
multiple-launch artillery rocket (MLRS).
The Fajr-3 is a
license-built copy, with slight modifications, of a
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
n MLRS called the M-1985. The Fajr-3 was introduced in the 1990s and has since been exported to Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Fajr-3 launcher fires twelve 5.2 meter long, 240 millimeter-calibre Fajr-3 artillery rockets, with a range of 43 kilometres, weighing 407 kilograms each and carrying 90-kilogram fragmentation
warhead
A warhead is the forward section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket, torpedo, or bomb.
Classification
Types of warheads include:
* Expl ...
s with 45 kg of
high explosive
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...
(HE). ''
Fajr'' means 'dawn' in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
.
History
![M-1985 MLRS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/M-1985_MLRS.jpg)
During the
Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Counci ...
, around 100 North Korean M-1985 MLRS systems were exported to Iran. The North Korean M-1985 was derived from Soviet
Katyushas
The Katyusha ( rus, Катю́ша, p=kɐˈtʲuʂə, a=Ru-Катюша.ogg) is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver explosives to a target area ...
, and so the Fajr-3 is sometimes considered a Katyusha too.
With North Korean assistance, Iran's state-run Shahid Bagheri Industries later began to produce the system
under license.
[''Iran's Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment''. The International Institute for Strategic Studies. 2010.]
A minority of sources report that the Fajr-3 is built by Parchin Missile Industries.
Dates for the production of the Fajr-3 are very unclear.
Iranian Defense Minister
Akbar Torkan
Akbar Torkan ( fa, اکبر ترکان; 1952–2021) was an Iranian mechanical engineer and politician, who was the President Hassan Rouhani's chief adviser from 2013 to 2018. He served as the CEO of Iran's Construction Engineering Organization fr ...
announced in March 1990 that mass production of the Fajr-3 had started.
Analysts in Abu Dhabi learned about the development less than a month later and described it as "one of the most important new weapons" entering production in Iran.
![Fajr-3 launch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Fajr-3_MLRS_launch.jpg)
However, it was not until November 6, 1996 that Iran announced that they had actually built a Fajr-3 system.
The system was tested that same month
and entered service that year.
This discrepancy in start date may be the difference between first building a copy, and then an improved version of the system.
The development program for the Fajr-3 might have been run in conjunction with the development of the
Oghab.
Early versions of the Fajr-3 apparently had reduced range and it was not until December 1998 that Iran tested a rocket with the full 43 km range. Fajr-3 rockets are known to have still been in production in 2006.
Description
A complete Fajr-3 system is manned by a crew of five and also includes one dedicated resupply vehicle with a crane.
Launcher
The Fajr-3 launcher has twelve tubes in two groups of six.
The Fajr-3 system was first installed on the same Japanese Izuzu chassis used by the North Korean M-1985.
It was later installed on Mercedes-Benz 2624 series chassis, and today is uniformly used on Mercedes-Benz 2631 chassis.
[Galen Wright (March 15th 2011) ''Iranian Military Capability 2011 - Ground Forces''] Apart from the chassis differences, which are trivial, there are no Fajr-3 variants.
The launcher is unarmored and weighs 15000 kg when unloaded.
It can fire rockets singly or in salvo.
The US Army reports that the Fajr-3 has no fire-control system,
while Iran's Defense Industries Organization reports that the Fajr-3 has a computer system with indigenous software that can calculate range and azimuth.
The Fajr-3 launcher is 10 m long, 2.5m wide, and 3.34m tall (when traveling).
The tubes are 5.36 m long, fire for maximum range when set to 57˚, and have a maximum azimuth of 90-100 degrees.
Rocket
The rocket is solid fueled and has a fragmentation high explosive warhead.
The rocket is 5.2 meters long, 240mm in diameter, and weighs 407 kg.
It has wraparound fins for stabilization in flight, which reach a diameter of 512 mm when extended.
The rocket also has spin-stabilization, but is not guided.
The rocket's double layer propulsion burns for an average time of 4 seconds, reaching a peak velocity of 930 m/s.
Sources differ on whether the Fajr-3 rocket has an 85 kg
warhead or a 90 kg warhead.
[Fajr-3 & Fajr-5 brochure.](_blank)
Retrieved on May 13, 2008. The warhead contains 45 kg of HE
and the rest of metal pellets for fragmentation. The warhead is detonated by a nose-mounted impact fuse.
In 2018 Iran announced an assembly line for proximity fuses for a variety of rockets and guided missiles, including the Fajr-3. One source reports that Fajr-3 rockets can likely carry (plain) high explosive, submunitions, incendiary, smoke, or chemical payloads as well.
The shelf life of a Fajr-3 rocket is 15 years.
Reloading
When the Fajr-3 is reloaded, the launch tubes (in two groups of six) are detached from the launcher and laid on the ground by a crane. Then, a machine called a "Loading machine" is used to mechanically press the heavy Fajr-3 rockets into their launch tubes one by one. When all the tubes are filled, the crane is used to reattach the launch tubes to the vehicle.
A reload is estimated to take 12-15 minutes.
Because of the long reload time and large size of the "Loading machine" (10.4m), the Fajr-3 MLRS is supposed to retreat after firing to safer rear battle areas to reload.
Operational history
Iran
![Fajr-3 MLRS launch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Fajr-3_MLRS_launch.jpg)
Iran used the Fajr-3 in an exercise in 2010 (see right). The Fajr-3 is likely to be in Iran's inventory for decades. One assessment of the system's capability is that its small number of rockets, combined with the poor accuracy of MLRS systems, means that the Fajr-3 is unlikely to be tactically effective.
The Fajr-3 is used in service alongside nine of the original North Korean-built M-1985 systems,
which are still on their original chassis.
Lebanon
Hezbollah maintains Fajr-3 rockets, as well as other unguided rocket artillery systems, to fire onto
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in war.
Fajr-3 rockets sent to Hezbollah are subsidized by the Iranian government. They are flown into Syria, then smuggled into Lebanon by Hezbollah agents, and are believed to be stored in southern Lebanon.
The date the first Fajr-3 rockets were supplied to
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
is unclear; some sources report the early 2000s,
[Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Operations in Israel's War Against Hezbollah: Learning from Lebanon and Getting It Right in Gaza (Project Air Force). RAND Corp. (2011). p. 94 ] possibly 2002 specifically, while other sources report the late 1990s.
[Nicolas Blanford (2011) ''Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel''. New York: Random House. p. 338][Gabrielsen, Iver (2014) "The evolution of Hezbollah's strategy and military performance, 1982–2006," Small Wars & Insurgencies, 25:2, 257–283, DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2014.903636M]
2006 Lebanon War
Fajr-3 MLRS were used in small numbers in the
2006 Lebanon War
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War ( ar, حرب تموز, ''Ḥarb Tammūz'') and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( he, מלחמת לבנון השנייה, ''Milhemet Leva ...
. The
Israeli Air Force
The Israeli Air Force (IAF; he, זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, tl, "Air and Space Arm", commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense ...
identified the Fajr-3, along with other medium- and long-range artillery rockets, as their main target in the war, and attempted to destroy them in a large attack in the beginning of the war.
Similarly, Hezbollah viewed their Fajr-3 systems and similar rockets as their "centerpiece for operational planning" in the lead-up to the war.
[MAJ Brad R. Henry, "Manufacturing the Horns of Dilemma: A Theory of Operational Initiative." April 13, 2015. School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1007877.pdf ] In Hezbollah use, the Fajr-3 was also known as the "Raad-1".
At least some of Hezbollah's Fajr-3 rockets survived Israel's initial wave of airstrikes, and "tens" were fired sporadically at Israel over the course of the war, mainly targeting the Israeli city of
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
.
The rockets' long range meant that they were mostly deployed from north of the
Litani River
The Litani River ( ar, نهر الليطاني, Nahr al-Līṭānī), the classical Leontes ( grc-gre, Λέοντες, Léontes, lions), is an important water resource in southern Lebanon. The river rises in the fertile Beqaa Valley, west of B ...
.
[William M. Arkin, ''Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War'' (2007) ] Hezbollah's Fajr-3 MLRS were operated in a mobile fashion, not from fixed locations, and were reportedly controlled from a Hezbollah headquarters in
Tyre.
Hezbollah is estimated to have had 24-30 launchers at the beginning of the war; the number that survived is unknown.
[Cordesman, A. H., Sullivan, G., & Sullivan, W. D. (2007). Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war. Washington (D.C.): CSIS Press. ]
Iraq
A Fajr-3 rocket was fired by unidentified Iraqi insurgents on September 11, 2007, and injured an American soldier in Baghdad.
Gaza
In 2009,
Israel targeted Fajr-3 rockets, among other weapons, that were being smuggled to Hamas in Gaza via Sudan.
![Fajr-3 operators](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Fajr-3_operators.png)
Operators
Current operators
* – sources differ; one reports approximately 100 launchers;
another approximately 10 launchers
**
Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces
The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces ( fa, نیروی زمینی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران, ''Niroo-ye Zamini-ye Artesh-e Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Iran''), acronymed NEZAJA ( fa, نزاجا, NEZEJA) are the ground forc ...
**
Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
The Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( fa, نیروی دریایی سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, niru-ye daryâyi-e sepâh-e pâsdârân-e enghelâb-e eslâmi; officially abbreviated NEDSA ( fa, ندسا), als ...
[Iran’s Asymmetric Naval Warfare Fariborz Haghshenass Policy Focus #87 , September 2008 https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus87.pdf ]
*
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
– a few dozen launchers
*
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...
– up to fifty rockets
[Anthony H. Cordesman, ''Iran's Rocket and Missile Forces and Strategic Options''. October 7 2014. p. 60.]
References
{{Iran Missiles
Fajr 3
Fajr 3
Hezbollah rocket systems
Self-propelled artillery of Iran
Salvo weapons
Military equipment introduced in the 1990s
Military vehicles introduced in the 1990s