The armaments of two squadrons of the US Air Force's B-52 bombers could easily overwhelm Russia's much-vaunted S-400 air defense systems if they were purchased by Iran.

B-52s can carry a multitude of various ordnance, including precision-guided weapons such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), a low-observable standoff air-launched cruise missile.

The missile can be used to strike a wide range of targets, including command and control centers, air defense systems, communication facilities and high-value infrastructure targets such as power plants and bridges.

One of the key advantages of the JASSM is its standoff capability, which allows it to strike targets from a safe distance without exposing the launching aircraft to enemy defenses.

The original version of the JASSM has a range of 370km, while the JASSM Extended Range (JASSM-ER) has a range of approximately 1,000km, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Missile Defense Project.

Each B-52 Stratofortress can carry up to 12 JASSMs on its wing pylons and another eight inside its bomb bay, for a total of 20.

With 20 B-52Hs, or less than half the active fleet of 58, the US Air Force could deliver some 400 JASSM-ERs against targets.

The S-400 is a mobile, surface-to-air missile system manufactured by the Almaz Antey Air Defense Missile Manufacturing Group.

The system can track up to 80 targets simultaneously and is equipped with four different types of missiles to counter different types of incoming weapons and aircraft. The ranges of the missiles vary from 40 to 400km to provide overlapping blanket coverage.

A typical S-400 battalion is equipped with eight launchers with 32 missiles and a command post. An S-400 regiment usually has two battalions.

Doing the math

Iran is reportedly trying to acquire the S-400 system as part of its growing military partnership with Moscow, even despite its vulnerability to volleys of cruise missiles.

The JASSM-ER's range of approximately 1,000km is equivalent to the distance between Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian naval port of Bandar-e Abbas.

That means US Air Force B-52s could launch their missiles from the safety of Saudi Arabia or other surrounding countries.

The overwhelming number of cruise missiles could easily overwhelm the S-400, analysts have noted in the past.

"The fact that it is possible to knock down no more than one target of a single SAM, apparently, does not need to be explained to anyone," Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of Russia's Institute for Political and Military Analysis, told the National Interest in May 2019.

"This is basic arithmetic. The combat algorithms for the S-300P and S-400 imply the use of two missiles for the same target in automatic combat mode; you can only switch to the option 'one missile -- one target' manually," he said.

"That is, if the regiment has 64 ready-to-launch missiles, then it can knock down a maximum of 64 targets, or actually 32. After which the regiment is 'reset.'"

"The standard for reloading one launcher for an 'excellent' [inspection] rating is 53 minutes. That is, it will take at least an hour to restore the regiment's combat readiness, which is a bit much in the context of a modern war," he noted.

To make matters worse, the S-400 is able to intercept cruise missiles at a range of only about 40km because of their low-altitude flight paths.

In one recent example, Ukrainian forces on August 23 destroyed a Russian S-400 in Crimea with a "new, completely modern" missile of Ukrainian design, Breaking Defense reported.

The Ukrainian forces reportedly used an S-360 Neptune anti-ship missile modified with global positioning system (GPS) guidance to destroy the S-400.