how many 1,500kg warheads (containing 1,000kg TNT) impacting at mach 5 with 100m CEP are needed to cause "total destruction" ( > 90% of buildings destroyed) of a 50sqkm city target (Tel Aviv)? [DeepSeek]
(official claims for Khorramshahr-4 missile: 1500kg warhead, re-entry velocity of mach 8, 30m CEP)
assuming:
(1) 25% of the missiles malfunction
(2) 25% of the remaining missiles are intercepted (can fire 500-1,000 cheaper Rezvan/Emad class MRBMs to deplete the c. 500-700 Israeli ABM interceptors first, ensuring negligible interception rate for subsequent Khorramshahr waves)
--> 2,150 Khorramshahr-4 missiles needed
--> 540 malfunctions
--> 400 interceptions
--> 1,200 successful impacts
--> cost = c. $4 billion (assuming $2 million cost per missile)
if impact velocity is increased to mach 6 (official claim for re-entry velocity is mach 8) and CEP improves to 80m CEP (official claim is 30m CEP), this reduces the number of missiles needed (with same assumptions) to 890 missiles and cost falls to $1.8 billion
--> $2-4 billion needed to ensure total destruction of Tel Aviv
--> cost will increase significantly to account for maintenance, storage, development of associated launchers / logistics, but even assuming (very conservatively) total cost of $10 billion, still extremely feasible for IRI to build this capability over a c. 5 year period
given 2000km range of K-4, these 890-2,150 missiles could be distributed across 10-20 missile bases with only 50-200 being stored in each base. silos are also an option given IRGC claim that K-4 can be stored in launch-ready state for 10 years.