Iran just dropped a bombshell about its speed boat program: they're now equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles.
Boom.
Iran's Fars News Agency reported this week, "Iran's speedboats have been equipped with the capability to fire different types of anti-ship cruise missiles, an Iranian defense official announced on Monday."
Not only are the speedboats now in service, armed with special "antiship"missiles, but Iran's Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi felt the need to boast, saying "All throughout the world, Iran is the only country which has speed vessels with the ability of firing (rockets and missile) at high speeds."
"We now have speedboats which can launch missiles as they traverse at a speed over 60km (per hour)," the commander said.
The Telegraph's Jon Stock recently reported that the speedboats' design may be based of a British Award Winning boat the Bradstone Challenger. In fact, Stock noted that Iran has been in the market for Italian and other western speedboat designs.
"Acknowledging the David-and-Goliath discrepancy between its own armed forces and the West’s, Iran has developed various “asymmetric” approaches to warfare," Stock writes.
Iran's armed forces are widely regarded by experts to be defensive based and centered around delaying invasion for the purposes of diplomacy. Certainly in the face of the American 5th Fleet, Iran's "asymmetrical" approach could be just to harass the larger force in an effort to hold out for appeals to the U.N.
On the other hand, Iran has demonstrated the ability to turn these boats into drones. Presumably several speedy drones could be packed with explosives and missiles and sent suicide bomber like, head on into the fray, guns blazing.
Explosives aside, cruise missiles are among the more deadly missile systems. Small, low flying, incredibly fast, with a natural resistance to electronic countermeasures and almost too speedy to be shot down.
Iran has several variations, each with a strange name:
From Fars:
- Zafar (Triumph) is a short-range, anti-ship, radar guided missile capable of hitting and destroying small and medium-sized targets with high precision.
- The anti-ship missile, called Nour (Light), is a long-range cruise missile manufactured by Iran and has already been mounted on several military gears.
- And the newest, the Qader (Mighty), was displayed to the public during the military parades marking the Week of Sacred Defense in September.
CNN also published a video based of the Telegraph report. Watch the video here >
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