Bluffers Guide: Iranian Naval Capability 2007

After all the Iranian's must have a Plan B after their overt nuclear sites have been destroyed or at least damaged.

Iran began her incessant effort to acquire nuclear technology and the means to develop and produce a nuclear weapon back in the mid 80's under the guidance of Hashemi Rafsandshani and it is known that Iran got A.Q. Khan's ´info package´back in '87. Accordingly they are in the know about the nuclear game for 20 years now and obviously they are aware of the fact that the most dangerous phase would be AFTER they have produced the first warheads of their initial arsenal.

Only after Iran would have built up a robust arsenal comparable with Pakistan (80-100 warheads, 3 types of mobile ballistic missiles) the necessary effect of deterrence would be assured against Israel and against regional assets of the US . (of course the US could win in a conflict with a nuclear Iran but the whole middle east would go ablaze and 100 million dead people do not pay America's bills)
Meanwhile and until the line of ´minimal deterrent´is crossed Iran's leaders will have to deny, deceive and even if necessary convert to judaism as long as Iran's nascent capability remains secret, ambiguous or at least deniable.

North Korea's strategic situation is completely different since high value targets in her immediate neighborhood can be credibly threatened with only a few crude bombs and additionally NK is a state without much to loose. Interestingly Pyongyang and Tehran have an intimate relationship for 25 years now and NK's miraculous economic survival has probably very much to do with iranian cash and oil. NK has without doubt nuclear weapons, the necessary weapons grade PU and a healthy interest in keeping Iran strong enough to deflect US power from converging on NK, so some decisive deal has occurred probably already years ago (probably after the US invasion of Iraq, Kim Jong Il was reportedly shocked for months...).

Naturally my speculation can be wrong but my assumption is that Iran has already got a nascent initial nuclear capability but this constitutes currently more a danger than a deterrent for Tehran and the iranian strategists know about that very well. Unfortunately this unstable period of time is prone to disastrous miscalculations: Tehran could be prompted to test a weapon demonstratively just before an anticipated US strike and the US or even Israel could respond with a massive tactical nuke strike on an array of iranian military targets. The stakes in this deadly game are very high indeed and for the sake of mankind both adversaries must find a sustainable compromise (...just like the Cold War was at least absence of real war).

Re psychology in the war. If you want to make a country's population war tired, I still believe the best way is to wear down it's military; meaning regularly cause fatal casualties to the other nation people's realtives wich serve in that military, while the people at home can not see a clearbenefit to their lives.
I'm not saying that is the way to succes, just that I think it might be the most promissing try.
But terrorising those people at home, only resolves their will. This was shown many times.
A lot of V2s on London's houses did not get the British from fighting of a german invasion (in the air battle). Millions of russian casualties did not stop the red army form fighting every german soldier in the rodina. Intensive bombing runs on nearly every german city did not really brake the will of the germans either.

Interesting debate guys, but shouldn't we bring it a bit closer to topic - how does the Moudge compare with other current designs? My take is that it's terrible.

Yeah, planemen is right, I think we should shift back to the topic which is just about the Iranian navy, but it was an interesting debate nonetheless.

Well I killed that, lol.


I, well with a lot of help from someone else, have found strong leads that suggest this missile boat is destined for Iran. Possibly locally produced, may already be entering service.

All 3 of Iran's Kilo class subs have been retrofitted with the potent Club-S missiles by the Russians. The Kilos are well suited for the relatively shallow water of the Persian Gulf.

coolieno99 said:

All 3 of Iran's Kilo class subs have been retrofitted with the potent Club-S missiles by the Russians. The Kilos are well suited for the relatively shallow water of the Persian Gulf.

[qimg]http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/navalmissile/3m541.jpg[/qimg]

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I'm not saying that you are necessarily wrong, but please give sources for this. Iran definately has test fired submarine launched missiles but I haven't seen anything convincing re SS-N-27s.

planeman said:

I'm not saying that you are necessarily wrong, but please give sources for this. Iran definately has test fired submarine launched missiles but I haven't seen anything convincing re SS-N-27s.

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4 July 2005
Russian daily Kommersant reports that Rosoboronexport, a Russian state-owned arms selling agency, is negotiating a contract to upgrade three Iranian submarines with Club-S missile systems.
--"Paper: Iran in Talks to Refurbish Subs," Moscow Times, 5 July 2005.

The U.S. Navy has determined that Iran has amassed a fleet of fast patrol boats in the 43-kilometer straits. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for strategic programs, leads the effort.

At this point, officials said, IRGC has deployed more than 1,000 FPBs in and around the straits. The vessels, armed with cruise missiles, mines, torpedoes and rocket-propelled grenades, are up to 23 meters in long and can reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

"This marks the implementation of Iran's swarm program, where dozens of armed speed boats attack much larger naval vessels from all sides," an official said.
In 2005, IRGC developed its swarm doctrine following Teheran's assessment that the United States was considering an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Officials said the swarm doctrine was designed to exploit the slow pace of U.S. aircraft carriers and destroyers in the shallow waters of the Gulf.

"Iran still states that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will employ swarming tactics in a conflict,'' U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence spokesman Robert Althage said.

IRGC swarming tactics envision a group of more than 100 speedboats attacking a target, such as a Western naval vessel or a commercial oil tanker. They said 20 or more speedboats would strike from each direction, making defense extremely difficult.

The Navy, with at least two carrier groups in the Gulf, has been developing counter-measures to an Iranian swarm attack. These include using minesweepers, unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor Iranian speedboats and the deployment of weapons that could blast Iranian speedboats at standoff range. Such exercises have been conducted over the past few months.

"We have devised various tactics and other ways of coping," U.S. commander Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff said. "You just don't get 1,000 or 500 or even 20 of anything under way and tightly orchestrated over a large body of water to create a specific effect at a specific time and specific place. They have their own challenges.''

crazyinsane105 said:

The U.S. Navy has determined that Iran has amassed a fleet of fast patrol boats in the 43-kilometer straits. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for strategic programs, leads the effort.

At this point, officials said, IRGC has deployed more than 1,000 FPBs in and around the straits. The vessels, armed with cruise missiles, mines, torpedoes and rocket-propelled grenades, are up to 23 meters in long and can reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

"This marks the implementation of Iran's swarm program, where dozens of armed speed boats attack much larger naval vessels from all sides," an official said.
In 2005, IRGC developed its swarm doctrine following Teheran's assessment that the United States was considering an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Officials said the swarm doctrine was designed to exploit the slow pace of U.S. aircraft carriers and destroyers in the shallow waters of the Gulf.

"Iran still states that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will employ swarming tactics in a conflict,'' U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence spokesman Robert Althage said.

IRGC swarming tactics envision a group of more than 100 speedboats attacking a target, such as a Western naval vessel or a commercial oil tanker. They said 20 or more speedboats would strike from each direction, making defense extremely difficult.

The Navy, with at least two carrier groups in the Gulf, has been developing counter-measures to an Iranian swarm attack. These include using minesweepers, unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor Iranian speedboats and the deployment of weapons that could blast Iranian speedboats at standoff range. Such exercises have been conducted over the past few months.

"We have devised various tactics and other ways of coping," U.S. commander Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff said. "You just don't get 1,000 or 500 or even 20 of anything under way and tightly orchestrated over a large body of water to create a specific effect at a specific time and specific place. They have their own challenges.''

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That is an awful lot of boats to contend with. I can see why there have been such concerted efforts recently to install weapons like the 25mm Typhoon, 12.7mm Mini Typhoon and the 25mm Mark 38 Mod 2 (USN gun based on Typhoon) in allied warships.

Cheers