A decision by Iran to fire a ballistic missile towards western Europe would leave Britain and its Nato allies barely 20 minutes in which to trigger a multi-layered air defence system designed to intercept a projectile before it could reach its target.
Tehran’s attempt in recent days to target the US-UK airbase on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean – some 2,300 miles from Iran – with two ballistic missiles has triggered warnings that the Islamic Republic is likely to have weaponry capable of striking London, Paris or Berlin.
Any such move would amount to a dramatic raising of the geopolitical stakes by the Iranian regime, not least by making it likely that any targeted state would be brought into the American-led bombing campaign against Tehran.
But a ballistic missile attack targeting the UK would also represent a critical test for the air defence systems put in place by both Britain and the Nato alliance to neutralise what military planners increasingly see as one of the most plausible threats to Europe – an aerial bombardment using missiles and drones – from Russia or other members of the so-called CRINK alliance involving China, Iran and North Korea.
First minute: Initial detection and response
A medium-range ballistic missile launch by Iran would be likely to originate from the country’s north eastern corner, minimising the distance to a target in Europe.
Unlike cruise missiles or drones, which generally fly a shifting course at a level altitude to avoid radar, ballistic weapons must attain a height and trajectory to reach their targets, powering into the upper reaches of the atmosphere in an arc before then falling to their target.
This means that the heat plume generated by the initial boost phase and the subsequent trajectory can be detected and tracked by Western space satellites and specialist radar systems designed to monitor vast swathes of territory precisely for such eventualities.
The pyramid at RAF Fylingdales is fitted with 7,500 radar modules (Photo: Rob Hastings for The i Paper)Nato has a number of such facilities, one of the most capable of which is the US-UK radar array at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire.
The vast pyramid-shaped sensor structure, which is owned by the Americans but operated by personnel from the UK Space Command, would be one of the first units to spot an incoming missile and calculate its trajectory, flight time and likely target before relaying that information in real time to the relevant Nato and British operations centres.
A similar US-run radar facility at Kürecik in south east Turkey would also be likely to play a key role in tracking launches from the Middle East.
1-5 minutes: The clock starts ticking
Once detected, an incoming missile would trigger Nato’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) system – a series of overlapping capabilities operated by member countries either separately or in joint commands and interlinked by satellite and terrestrial communications systems.
The IAMD network, and a dedicated sub-system known as Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) designed to deal with weapons like the Khorramshahr-4, is co-ordinated via two Nato’s two air operations centres, one at Uedem in Germany and the other at Torrejon in Spain.
It is from either of these two locations that the initial attempts to destroy an incoming missile would be masterminded.
In the meantime, ministers have raised the possibility that the national phone alert system, used to send messages to mobile phones. could be used to inform the public of an incoming missile threat.
The flight time of a ballistic missile depends on several variables including the weight of its warhead, the power of its rocket engine and the distance to its target.
Nato’s response times estimate that a Russian medium-range missile would take about 15 to 20 minutes to reach the UK. An intelligence source told The i Paper that Iran’s most advanced deployed ballistic weapon – the Khorramshahr-4 – would have a similar flight time of up to 20 minutes to reach a target in western Europe, including London.
5-10 minutes: Attempt to kill a missile
Apart from destroying a silo or mobile launcher before any projectile has been launched, there are two main tactics available for neutralising a ballistic missile once it is in the air.
Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think-tank, explains that these are so-called “terminal phase” interception, when the missile warhead is on its final approach to the target, and mid-range interception at an altitude of up to 100km above the Earth.
A Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer leaves Portsmouth Harbour. The UK’s six vessels are equipped with an advanced missile interception system. But critics point to delays in deploying HMS Dragon to Cyprus in recent days and ongoing maintenance work which has made other Type 45s unavailable as evidence of stretched resources in Britain’s air defence capabilties. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)Writing recently, Dr Kaushal said: “Mid-course defence involves engaging a ballistic target in the longest period of its trajectory, during which it is outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Both modes of interception depend on hit-to-kill interceptors which destroy a target through kinetic impact.”
Europe’s main mid-course defence system relies on American technology, known as the Aegis Combat System, deployed in Romania, Poland and the Mediterranean.
Linked to the Kürecik radar array, Aegis missile batteries are based at Deveselu in south-eastern Romania, Redzikowo on Poland’s Baltic coast and on board US Navy Arleigh-Burke class destroyers operating in the Mediterranean out of Spain.
The system, which is purpose built to target intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles, represents the front line of Nato’s ability to protect Europe from any Iranian, or Russian, attack.
As the intelligence source put it: “Aegis is the gold standard for this type of scenario. If it fails to intercept then you are down to much finer odds in the terminal phase. But even with Aegis the hit rate is not 100 per cent, especially when it comes the more manoeuvrable warheads and kill vehicles that are now available.”
10-15 minutes: Interceptors have been triggered
According to Nato’s BMD strategy, the initial rounds of interceptors would be triggered within the first half of a missile’s flight, suggesting that their release would happen no later than 10 minutes into the 20-minute journey of an Iranian projectile. An Aegis SM-3 missile, designed to eliminate ballistic missiles, takes one to three minutes to reach its target.
If an incoming missile enters its terminal phases, the Nato system turns to a second class of defence technologies capable of eliminating missiles at closer quarters than Aegis. These include the American-made Patriot and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) anti-missile systems and a forthcoming iteration UK’s Sea Viper platform used by the Royal Navy.
The Patriot system, which is primarily for use against cruise and short-range ballistic missiles but can also take out mid-range ballistic missiles, is deployed by countries on a flight to the UK, including Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. THAAD batteries have previously been deployed to Europe on a short-term basis.
But while these systems are effective, the margins for interception at this stage of a missile’s flight are extremely narrow and can only cover a relatively narrow range of 150-200kms, according to experts.
20 minutes: Brace for impact – ‘nothing is guaranteed’
Experts warn that British and European populations need to understand that no existing air defence system can offer impregnable protection from barrages of conventional missiles and drones.
One senior American commander last year acknowledged that Aegis batteries in Europe only have a certain number of interceptors available in an age where Russian and Iranian tactics increasingly involve using successive waves of missiles and drones to confuse and overwhelm defence systems.
The officer said: “There’s always a cat-and-mouse chase of how many [missiles] are being fired and how many we are able to shoot down.”
A 2024 paper by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change quoted unnamed Nato officials as saying that the alliance “currently has fewer than five per cent of the air defence capabilities necessary to protect central and eastern Europe against a full-scale attack”.
It is a vulnerability which appears to have been exposed in Israel, widely regarded as having the most sophisticated array of layered missile defences in the world.
The use by Iran of banned cluster munitions in the warheads of Khorramshahr missiles in recent days – releasing up to 80 sub-munitions prior to impact – appears to have resulted in the Islamic Republic’s munitions striking a number of Israeli targets in recent days.
The key question remains of what defences Britain itself might be able to muster if an Iranian missile evaded Nato defences and bore down on the UK mainland.
The Government has insisted that Britain is adequately protected. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: An MoD spokesperson said: “We have the resources we need to keep the United Kingdom safe from any kind of attacks, whether it’s on our soil or from abroad. The UK stands ready 24/7 to defend itself.”
But critics have claimed that years of under-investment in air defence has left the country badly exposed.
A key plank of the UK’s ability to repel a ballistic missile attack is the fleet of six Type 45 destroyers which are equipped with the Sea Viper missile system. These vessels, one of which – HMS Dragon – has been deployed to Cyprus in response to the Iran crisis, are being upgraded to use the Aster 30 missile capable of intercepting a ballistic missile in terminal phase.
But with only one Type 45 generally in operation in UK waters at any one time, experts say the protection offered is geographically limited. As RUSI’s Dr Kaushal put it: “A terminal-phase system cannot cover the entirety of the UK.”
The uncomfortable truth may well be that when it comes to protecting Europe in general, and Britain in particular, in a time of war choices are likely to be needed to be made about which places can be protected, and others not.
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