"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 08:48:56 GMT, Tom Cooper wrote:

The Iranians knew this so they also never asked for complete missiles.
What
they were looking for instead (and what was usually smuggled) were
maintenance+upgrade packages and batteries for their AIM-54s.

Why couldn't they make their own batteries? It's not exactly rocket
science is it? (Unless you're putting it in a rocket, but you know
what I mean).

It's not a "rocket science", but not far from it either. At the time there
was simply no capability in Iran to produce such batteries.

Besides, they were not lacking the batteries all the times: most of the
times they could easily get new ones at a price of something like $10.000 on
the "black market".

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585