IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps): News

Wow whoever did this was wrong...

On the front deck the VLS systems marked 6 midsized VLS cells... they look as big as UKSK, but yes they appear to be each a block of three tube cells, but the outer set of "cells"  if I had to guess the size and shape of them I would guess they could be land based TOR sized VLS, so old model each "lid" is four TOR missiles from the 1980s, which is 8 lids for 32 missiles, but I would think in this day and age it could be the modern TOR sized missiles with 8 missiles under each lid and therefore 64 missiles ready to fire.

If the big tubes are UKSK sized that means the depth there is 8-10m so plenty of room for TOR sized missiles beside them that don't reach down so far freeing up internal space to move through the vessel at the lower decks.

Here is the current TOR... look at the shape of the VLS systems for two blocks of missiles ready to fire:



The two big missile launchers might carry large SAMs, (three tubes each for 6 missiles), but I would also guess to say that they might be 9M96 type missile cells which means each of those three hatches might have four missiles each... so 24 medium range SAMs,  but those smaller VLS systems will be short range air defence systems like TOR or something similar... that is the sort of thing I would love to see on new Russian ships.

(Obviously I am using 9M96 and TOR missiles as examples, they will have Iranian missiles I would expect...)

For a TOR based missile to be effective you need very good tracking radar for very high precision tracking of the target and the outgoing missile... which is essentially command guided and therefore very effective but also relatively cheap.

A cat like that would move rather quickly through the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and one carrying a helicopter and the other carrying speed boats would be very useful for the Iranian Navy... they make a lot of sense for them, but not really something to get hugely excited about.

A bit like saying a Russian icebreaker patrol boat is amazing and everyone should have them... well the shape needed to cut through surface ice means in open water they are not very fast and not very energy efficient either, so they belong in the far north or far south, while these cats would be best in the Persian Gulf or off the coast of Africa or in Indonesia hunting pirates.

The vertical launch tubes appear to take up quite a bit of internal space too so those big structures are likely not too big on the inside.

Interesting looking boats though.

When I said cat I didn't mean . I meant catamaran.

Don't think their F14s have remained the same. Phoenix and air launched Hawk and Standard missiles would be interesting, not to mention Su35s!

Very nice, but propeller driven... isn't this just a very slow S-70 with external weapons?

With external bombs it wont be a bird on any radar.

For a country like Iran where most of its enemies have western based air defences then it will be fine... they will get shot down of course but equally they will also do some damage too... I would guess the key will be their accuracy of bombing and as we know from the experience of WWI and WWII most bombing has shit accuracy without assistance, so unless it is dropping rather large bombs its effectiveness will be poor... except if it uses some sort of computer assisted bombing system like the Russians fit to their upgraded and new aircraft...

Being able to fly this at 5,000m altitude means it will be out of range of most ground fire... MANPADS wont get an IR lock on something so far away... as I mentioned the Russians would destroy it easy... OSA, TOR, SA-9, SA-13, Tunguska and Pantsir would all eat it for breakfast and would not be overly expensive for the job... even Kornet-EM in the HE model would be excellent, but for most of the rest of the world it is too high for small arms and most MANPADS require an IR lock and at 5km distance with such a small motor they are unlikely to get a lock, so this thing could fly back and forth over an area lining up targets for bombing runs as it pleases and its relatively low speed will be making it even more effective... they will hear it and see it and there will be very little they can do about it... except hide like cockroaches.

The thing is that the Russian S-70 is the same sort of thing but much faster and can probably operate at 10-12km altitude which will be even safer at 800km/h and with a bombing accuracy and flight range and weapon capacity to make it effectively as dangerous and as powerful as an unmanned F-117... but cheaper.

Russia does have quite a few medium sized drones that are armed and could do the sort of job this drone will be for, so I don't see them adopting it... the Geran filled a niche... they had Lancets... but they didn't really have any very long range.... 800km+ suicide drones with decent warheads (30-50kgs).

I guess that is why they built a factory to make them and have them in licence production and use.

The bigger drone rapidly get more expensive and so it is worth adding even more expensive stuff so they last longer and are more effective... but the reality is that there are only very specific situations where it makes sense to use a big drone and sometimes collecting information with camera and a radar and other electronics systems is more useful than carrying weapons.

For Iran however this is a very interesting drone which would be very dangerous on any Middle East battlefield... ISIS should be afraid.