Missile models can help Iran shoot down US F-15E fighters

“They used shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles with heat-seeking probes and needed luck to hit the target. Iran hit the fighter, the bullet was sucked into the engine,” US President Donald Trump said during a press conference at the White House on April 6, referring to the F-15E heavy fighter shot down in Iran a few days earlier.

This is the first time Washington has spoken out about the weapons used by Tehran in the incident, while Iranian officials have not announced the missile model that shot down the F-15E.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), headquartered in the UK, published a report in 2025 showing that the Iranian military possesses many types of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles on staff, although the number was not specified. Of these, the oldest models equipped are the 9K32 Strela-2 and 9K34 Strela-3.

9K32 Lightning-2 was the Soviet Union’s first shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile, put into service in 1968 and produced in large quantities two years later. The original Strela-2 model has a range of 3.7 km and a flight ceiling of 1.5 km, uses an uncooled lead sulfide infrared detector and operates on the principle of amplitude modulation (AM), with a fragment-explosive warhead weighing nearly 1.2 kg.

Limitations in the technical and tactical features of the Strela-2 prompted the Soviet Union to develop an upgraded variant of the Strela-2M, with a range of 4.2 km and a flight ceiling of 2.3 km, along with an improved probe to improve the ability to deal with fast-flying targets.

9K34 Strela-3 is a more deeply upgraded version, put into service with the Soviet army in 1974. The missile has a range of 4.1 km, a ceiling of 2.3 km, uses a new type of infrared detector, operates on the principle of frequency modulation (FM) and is cooled by nitrogen gas.

This method helps the Strela-3 probe to be much less affected by thermal primers and infrared jamming systems than the Strela-2 probe.

According to IISS, Iran also has a staff line 9K338 Igla-Sthe most modern version of the Igla shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile, has been in service with the Russian military since 2004.

This variant has a range of 6 km and carries a 2.5 kg fragment-explosive warhead, much superior to previous Igla versions. Igla-S’s dual-spectrum infrared detector is highly sensitive, effective against targets that emit little heat, and significantly improves the ability to counter bait and infrared jamming systems at the time of its release.

Western experts assess Igla-S as a serious threat to low-flying aircraft and modern cruise missiles.

Sheet Financial Times said that Iran at the end of 2025 secretly signed an agreement to buy 500 launch tubes and 2,500 9M336 bullets of a shoulder-fired missile complex. 9K333 Verba The most modern product made in Russia, expected to be received within 3 years. It is unclear how many launch tubes and ammunition Iran received before the conflict broke out in late February.

The Verba complex has been in service with the Russian army since 2014, gradually replacing the Igla model. The missile uses a multispectral optical probe, with three separate sensors to receive ultraviolet, near-infrared and mid-infrared signals, an increase of one sensor compared to the Igla-S series.

This helps Verba missiles better distinguish targets from decoys, while limiting the effectiveness of countermeasures such as infrared lights and laser emitters.

The missile can destroy targets at a distance of 6.5 km and an altitude of 4.5 km. The 1.5 kg explosive fragmentation warhead is strong enough to destroy many types of helicopters, light aircraft and drones. The manufacturer said Verba can also be integrated with an external enemy-friend identification system to limit the risk of accidentally shooting teammates, which is one of the disadvantages of missiles using infrared probes.

In addition to imported weapons, the Iranian armed forces are also equipped with domestic shoulder-fired missile models of the same series Misagis said to be copied from the QW-1/1M and QW-18 series produced by China.

The latest version, Misagh-3, was launched in 2017, has a flight range of 5 km, a firing ceiling of 4 km and carries a high-explosive warhead weighing 1.4 kg. Information about the Misagh-3’s probe was not disclosed, but the Chinese QW-18 missile uses a dual-spectrum infrared probe similar to the Igla-S series.

The projectile is also equipped with a laser proximity detonator with 360-degree visibility, helping to detonate as soon as it approaches the target. This mechanism has superior accuracy and resistance to interference compared to proximity detonators using radio waves, suitable for dealing with high-speed targets and very short approach times.

Thanks to their ease of operation, high mobility and difficulty in being detected, shoulder-fired missiles are still dangerous anti-aircraft weapons in modern warfare. They are especially effective against low-flying targets, such as fighter jets that must lower altitude to support ground forces or use laser-guided weapons.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said that at the time the F-15E fighter was downed, the US Air Force was operating at a lower level than normal.

The American F-15E multi-role fighter was shot down while on a combat mission in Iran on April 3, the two-man crew parachuted into the southern region of Iran. An A-10 attack was also shot down by Iran a few hours later, while supporting search and rescue forces.

Reuters Citing unnamed US officials, special forces units destroyed 6 aircraft, including two MC-130J transports and 4 helicopters, before leaving to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. Meanwhile, the Iranian military announced that its forces shot down two helicopters and a C-130 transport plane participating in the search campaign for the American pilot.

According to CNN, if including the downed F-15E, the US military has suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage just because of a shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile worth a few thousand dollars.