A top commander in the Iranian armed forces said, “Iran’s speedboats have been equipped with the capability to fire different types of anti-ship cruise missiles.” If confirmed the move represents a significant advance in the capability of the Iranians to aggressively defend their coast lines and narrow confines of the Strait of Hormuz from attack.
It also gives the Iranian navy an offensive capability to engage small and medium targets well beyond coastal areas.
“Iran is the only country which has speed vessels with the ability of firing (rockets and missile) at high speeds”, said the Deputy Defense Minister and Head of Iran’s Aerospace Organization General Mehdi Farah.
“Our missiles have the capability of being launched from boats with the speed of over 30 knots, and these missiles include Zafar, Nasr, Nour and Qader”, the commander said.
“We now have speedboats which can launch missiles as they traverse at a speed over 60km (per hour),” the commander said (source: Commander: Iran’s Speedboats Capable of Launching Cruise Missiles http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107112870 ).
See video: IRAN Among Top Speed Boat Designers (Feb-7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDkkB9uhaDs&feature=related
Iran has developed this strategy as an “asymmetrical” response to deal with the threat posed by the much larger naval force. See also video: US Navy says Iran preparing suicide boats for Gulf attackshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=mdC18JF0nn4&NR=1
The only problem with that strategy is that will largely depend on the vessels’ ability to acquire targeting information in many cases. Which may or may not be guaranteed in a full-scale war against a technologically superior enemy nation, like the United States – which will be attacking Iranian shore based long-range radar network and tactical data link systems.
The Pentagon refused to comment on this report.