The Weapons’ Repository - Toophan Missile

WEAPON NAME	Toophan Anti-Tank Guided Missile

The Toophan is an Iranian SACLOS anti-tank guided missile reverse-engineered from the American BGM-71 TOW missile. The Toophan 1, an unlicensed copy of the BGM-71A TOW missile, began mass production in 1988 and the Toophan 2, a BGM-71C ITOW variant, was publicly shown in 2000. The Toophan comes in at least 11 variants, many of which are poorly documented, including variants with laser guidance, thermobaric warheads, and tandem-warheads with increased penetration. The Toophan is normally deployed from ground-based tripods. It can also be mounted on fighting vehicles and helicopters. → armyrecognition.com/toophan

MANUFACTURER

(?) Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran, IRAN

ARMS EXPORT

Iranian Toophan have been been sighted headed toward Yemen with additional suspected appearances in Iraq and Syria — all in the hands of Tehran’s allies and proxy groups. In official news outlets, documentaries and on Iran’s official arms export website, the Islamic Republic has touted its production of a series of different Toophan missiles derived from TOW variants. Until recently, however, Toophans tended to appear only in Iran at official rollouts and in news articles, with some brief reported use by Hezbollah in the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group. The most detailed sighting of a Toophan missiles in the wild thus far comes from the seizure of a small dhow off the coast of Oman, laden with anti-tank missiles allegedly sent from Iran for use by Houthi fighters in Yemen. (Medium, Jun. 2016)

IDENTIFICATION	Destruction of two vehicles of the Saudi aggression coalition with two missiles (Oct. 18, 2015)

Toophan at min. 0:01 (impossible to identify if authentic or an extract from Saudi media)

GEOLOCATION	East of Mount al-Dood, Jizan, Saudi Arabia→ 16°44’08.1”N 43°13’18.3”E

Satellite Image, Apple Maps

Wikimapia

(Investigation Non-Verified)