Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Aug. 21 revealed the "Bavar-373," Iran's first indigenous long-range, high-altitude surface-to-air missile (SAM) based on and intended to surpass the Russian S-300P long-range SAM on which it's based.

Bavar-373 is a truck-mounted mobile air defense system still under development, however. Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said Iran will begin mass production of the Bavar-373 air defense system by March 2017 after component tests. The SAM was successfully test fired in 2014, four years after development began.

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Bavar is the Farsi word for "belief" while the number "373" is the Abjad number of Prophet Muhammad's name.

Bavar-373 is in some ways similar to the Russian S-300P and, like the Russian missile, was built to destroy high-flying aircraft such as U.S. strategic bombers. On the other hand, the Russian S-300 can also track down and shoot down cruise missiles and theater ballistic missiles.

While Iran hasn't revealed performance data for the Bavar 373, the Russian S-300P it's claimed to have surpassed can hurl its 100 kilogram high explosive fragmentation warhead out to an engagement range exceeding 90,000 meters.

Russia has delivered the first battalion of S-300PMU-1/SA-20 Gargoyle SAM batteries to Iran. The 300PMU, the export version of the S-300, is an upgraded version of the weapons system initially ordered by Iran in 2010.

The Bavar-373 project was launched after Russia in 2010 suspended the S-300 sale to Iran due to UN sanctions over Iran's controversial nuclear program. Putin lifted the ban this year and the first shipment of the S-300 system originally ordered in 2010 has been delivered.

In 2010, former Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Iran will develop a domestic system similar to the S-300 by itself.

"We have planned to build a long-range air defense missile system similar to S-300. By God's grace and by the Iranian engineers' efforts, we will reach self-sufficiency in this regard," he said.

TagsBavar-373, surface-to-air missile, Iran, President Hassan Rouhani, Russian S-300P