Iran Captured Two U.S. Navy Riverine Patrol Boat Near It's Farsi Island, Detained 10 USN Sailors

Two US Navy riverine patrol boats captured by Iranian Navy (IRGC) and Ten sailors were detained. Though Iranian authority had originally told the US that the sailors would be returned promptly, but later soldiers had to spent a night in Iran, media reports. Iran say to return the sailors to the Navy today (Wednesday) morning, a US defense official told to the media.

This type of U.S. Navy Riverine Command Patrol Boats were captured by Iranian Navy near Farsi Island in Parsian Gulf.

A senior administration official confirmed earlier they lost contact with two small US naval craft en route from Kuwait to Bahrain and claimed the drift of those two boats into Iranian waters as a mechanical defect. The official further said "We subsequently have been in communication with Iranian authorities, who have informed us of the safety and well-being of our personnel. We have received assurances the sailors will promptly be allowed to continue their journey." Another senior US administration official told CNN that there's nothing to indicate anything hostile on the part of Iran. Administration officials also reportedly said that releasing the sailors at night would be "unsafe."

Though, later, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized the 10 American sailors, who are now being held at an IRGC naval base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. The semiofficial Fars news agency in Iran said that members of the elite IRGC had confiscated GPS equipment from the boats for the due check whether this drift of US Navy boats were a unintentional technical fault or deliberate sneak-peak. And as per news agency IRGC officials iterates that the data from the equipment would "prove that the American ships [were] 'snooping' around in Iranian waters."

Satellite map

Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the US is "working to resolve the situation such that any US personnel are returned to their normal deployment." According to a senior US official told the media that US Secretary of State John Kerry immediately called Iran's minister of foreign affairs, Javad Zarif, upon learning of the incident at around 12:30 p.m. EST. Kerry "personally engaged with Zarif on this issue to try to get to this outcome," the official said.

The latest incident comes on the heels of Iran's rocket test in late December near US warships and boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The incident also comes hours before US President Barack Obama is due to give his final State of the Union address before Congress. This is not the first time Iran has detained Western navy sailors operating in or near Iranian waters. In 2004, 15 British Royal Navy personnel from a training team based in southern Iraq were detained while delivering a boat from Umm Qsar to Basra, then The Telegraph reported.

Iran-Oman Joint Naval Drills Underway in Persian Gulf

A two-day maritime joint exercise of the Iranian and Omani naval forces started on Wednesday in the eastern part of the Strait of Hormuz and will continue in the Persian Gulf, Iranian media reported. According to Farsnews agency, the two countries develop strong military cooperation and have already conducted several joint naval exercises.

"It is the fifth joint wargames by Iran and Oman of this type and level, with a set of specified goals," Commander of the Iranian Navy's First Zone Rear Adm. Hossein Azad told journalists as quoted by Farsnews.

According to Azad, the purpose of the drill is to train Navy's ability to provide vessels, cargo ships and oil tankers, constantly passing through the region, with necessary security level. The decision to hold joint naval drills was made on December 19 at the opening of the Omani-Iranian Joint Military Friendship Committee's 12th meeting in Tehran.

Iran and Oman singed a memorandum of understanding for military cooperation in 2013. The memorandum includes cooperation in fighting against drug and human trafficking, strengthening of educational and cultural ties between the two countries` armed forces.

Commander, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari: Iran Navy to send 35th flotilla to Gulf of Aden

Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari.

The 35th flotilla of the Iranian Navy plans to leave for the Gulf of Aden to safeguard naval routes for vessels operating in the region.

Iran's Navy chief, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, said on Sunday that the flotilla would depart for the strategic region on July 11. He added that the 34th flotilla has a 90-day mission to accomplish in the north of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea.

The 34th flotilla, which comprises the Bushehr logistic vessel and Alborz destroyer, left Iran's southern port city of Bandar Abbas for the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait on April 8. Sayyari said fighting pirates and ensuring safety for Iranian vessels sailing in high seas are among objectives of the 35th flotilla.

File photo shows an Iranian warship.

Iran’s Navy has succeeded in passing more than 2,700 oil tankers or merchant vessels through the Gulf of Aden and had 200 clashes with pirates, he noted. In recent years, Iran’s Navy has increased its presence in international waters to protect naval routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers.

In line with international efforts against piracy, the Iranian Navy has been also conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 in order to safeguard merchant containers and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran or other countries. Iran’s Navy has managed to foil several attacks on both Iranian and foreign tankers during its missions in international waters.

Source: Press TV

Iran Sends Warships To Monitor Yemen’s Coast

Two Iranian vessels have arrived in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is on a bombing campaign against anti-government Houthi rebels.

Iranian Navy destroyer.

The Alborz destroyer and Bushehr logistics vessel are on a patrol mission in the Gulf of Aden, south of Yemen, and the Red Sea, according to Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari. He says the ships will “provide [safety for] Iran’s shipping lines and protect the Islamic Republic of Iran’s interests in the high seas,” Press TV reports.

According to Tehran officials, the warships will be protecting a crucial trade route against pirates. The Iranian Navy has been conducting such patrols since 2008.

Iran’s fleet is headed into troubled waters, as at the moment Yemen is blockaded off by a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition. They are on a bombing campaign against anti-government Houthi Shia rebels, whose uprising forced Yemen’s President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee the country. He is currently in Saudi Arabia.

Iran has been vocal in calling for an end to the airstrikes against Houthis, which often end up hitting civilians. Saudi and Western officials believe Iran is directly supporting the Houthis with money and weapons, aiming to take control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast – something Tehran denies.

The fierce bombing campaign has led to over 560 deaths in just two weeks, according to the latest World Health Organization estimates. It describes the situation in Yemen as a rapidly-unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, with over 1,700 people wounded and 100,000 displaced.

An international evacuation effort is under way, with India alone rescuing some 4,000 of its citizens from the war zone. Russia is also taking part. So far, it has sent five airplanes to Yemen, rescuing its nationals, as well citizens of 11 other countries.

With the chaos triggered by the Houthi uprising and the airstrikes, militant and terrorist groups are finding it increasingly easy to operate in Yemen. Last week, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) captured the port city of Al Mukalla, seizing an army base and freeing 300 prisoners from a local jail.

On Tuesday, Al-Qaeda militants reportedly attacked an outpost on Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, killing several officers and taking over the checkpoint.

Naval Weapons - Anti-Ship Missiles - The Kowsar, Noor and Raad

Anti-Ship Missiles

Kowsar ASM

The Kowsar is the lightest of the 3 main ASM’s in the Iranian arsenal, being able to be launched from either land on mobile platforms, or from sea from the missile version of the IPS-16 fast attack craft (FAC). It comes in two main variants with a third in development. 

Kowsar ASM

The first model is the Kowsar-1 and is identical to the Chinese C-701. Being the lightest of the missiles, it is not intended to engage targets with displacements greater then 180 tons of displacement meaning that the targets in theory would be limited to amphibious landing craft and auxiliary support craft.(1) However, in 2006, Hezbollah was able to deploy a C-701 successfully against the INS Hanit, a corvette with roughly 10000 tons of displacement, in other words, a craft 5 times as large as the acceptable target. The warhead is fairly conventional, with 29 kg of armor piercing high explosive. Guidance during the boost stage consists of inertial navigation which consists of calculating the approximate position of the target. Unlike other ASM’s, the Kowsar-1 does not climb to enter a cruise phase after launch, but rather remains at a fairly constant height of about 15 meters. Once it enters the immediate vicinity of the target, it switches over to TV guidance which would then have to be manually guided onto the correct target. The TV guidance can be replaced with an infrared seeker.
 

Kowsar 1

• Range: 25 km
• Length: 2.5 m
• Missile Weight: 100 kg
• Warhead: 29 kg
• Speed: Mach .8
• Guidance:
o Cruise Phase: INS
o Terminal Guidance: TV Imaging, IR

The second model, the Kowsar-2 is physically identical to the Kowsar-1, however the difference comes in the terminal guidance. The limiting factor of the Kowsar-1 was the TV or IR seeker which meant that the operator would have to stay with the missile the whole way until the target, which in turn meant that its usability on anything else besides a stationary launcher would be unfeasible. This meant that the operators were increasingly vulnerable to counterattacks from all angles. The solution to that was to replace the TV/IR seeker with a ‘millimetre-wave radar’ which is a type of active homing radar that is activated in the terminal phase and automatically scans for the target, allowing the operator to leave the area once the missile is fired, this then allows the missile to be fired from platforms like the upgraded IPS-16.

Kowsar 2

• Range: 25 km
• Length: 2.5 m
• Missile Weigh: 100 kg
• Warhead: 29 kg
• Speed: Mach .8
• Guidance:
o Cruise Phase: INS
o Terminal Guidance: Millimetre-wave radar
• Alterations
o Replacement of terminal guidance with active radar

Noor ASM

The Noor is the bigger brother to the Kowsar. It is the most common missile in the IRGCN’s arsenal and is found on land based launchers, the Thondar and Kaman class missile boats as well as most larger IRIN vessels such as the Alvand and Mowj. 

Noor missile in Holly Defence Exhibition

 It comes in sets of 4 on each of the respective ships, while two can be fired from the Mi-17 and the F-4, while 4 can be allegedly carried on the Su-24, although no pictures of the latter have been unearthed. Like, the Kowsar, it also comes in two main variants, with a third in development. It is in the same class as the more famous Excocet missile.

The Noor-1, is copy of the C-801, the precursor to the C-802. The larger 165 kg warhead as compared to the Kowsar, means that it is most useful against frigates, cruisers and destroyers such as the ‘Oliver Hazard Perry’ and ‘Ticonderoga’ class of ships found in the USN 5th fleet that patrols the Persian Gulf. The largest ship sunk ever successfully sunk, albeit a test, has 10,000 tons of displacement, which is 2000 pounds greater then the Ticonderoga cruiser, the most formidable of the US destroyers. In the early ‘90’s, Iran received 200 C-801’s along with 8 launchers, at that point Iran began to reverse engineer them under the name “Tondar”, eventually it morphed into the Noor-1 project. In the late ‘90’s, Iran adapted them to fire from an F-4. The guidance and flight profile is presumably the same as the C-802. After cruising speed of mach .9 is achieved through a boost motor, it flies at 20-30 meters cruising altitude. Inertial guidance, as with the Kowsar, guides the missile to the target. When entering terminal phase, the two seeker systems activate, the first is the monopulse active radar much like the radar in the Kowsar, the second is an IR seeker that was originally squeezed into the large housing of the original missile as an after market addition, however its usefulness soon led it to become standard equipment. A sharp drop then happens, from 20-30 metres to 5-7 meters above the sea level, maintained by the radio or laser altimeter. This has the advantage of making it near invisible to the target ship because it is below the detection range, especially combined with the integrated jamming capabilities and low radar signature. The missile is driven with kinetic energy through the hull where a delayed fuze allowing the missile to explode within the target vessel.

Noor 1

• Range: 40 km
• Length: 6.5 m
• Missile Weight: 715+ kg
• Warhead: 165 kg
• Speed: .9 mach
• Guidance: Inertial in cruise with monopulse active radar and IR Seeker in terminal

The Noor-2 replaced the original solid fuel rocket of the Noor-1 with a much more powerful turbojet. However the actual range gained is somewhat contentious, some use set figure of 120 km found on the C-802(on which the Noor-2 is a loose copy of). However some cite the domestic modifications to the Microturbo TRI 60-2 powerplant as evidence that the range was extended, and in 2006, during the ‘Blow of Zolfaqar’ wargames, commanders were quoted as saying it was 200 km. However the latter number is cast into doubt when the rest of the article mentions that the missile was only ever fired from warships, whereas in 1997, the Noor-1 was tested from an F-4.  The most likely range is somewhere around 170 km as it fits in line with the upgrades and domestic production of the turbojet, under the name of Tolloue 4 and 5.(8) Although the missile is overall lighter then the Noor-1 due to reduction in the solid fuel, the warhead remains the same packing the same punch, as do the targeting mechanisms remain unchanged. There are several key changes however. First, in the terminal phase, an upgraded altimeter allows the missile to hug the water closer, staying 3-5 meters above the surface. Second, the option of having a ‘pop-up’ attack pattern was also introduced by Chinese partners in 2006. A ‘pop-up’ pattern involves an immediate jump by the missile in the last few seconds allowing the missile to dive deep into the deck of the target. Third is the introduction of manoeuvring algorithms to make it harder for active ship defences to stop the missile. 

Noor 2

• Range: 170 km (140-200 km possible)
• Length: 6.5 m
• Missile Weight: 715+ kg
• Warhead: 165 kg
• Speed: .9 mach
• Guidance
o Cruise: Inertial
o Terminal: DM-3BMonopulse active radar and IR Seeker
• Alterations
o Turbojet engine
o Lower altitude in terminal phase
o Introduction of manoeuvring and ‘pop-up’ attack options

Raad ASM

The largest of Iran’s anti ship missiles, the Raad also has the longest range. It can be fired from a multitude of platforms including static defences, self-propelled tracked vehicles, presumably delivered from North Korea, or from a truck, much like the ones seen launching Kowsars. Developed from the body of the Chinese HY-2 Silkworm, the Raad, however, has seen many improvements most prominently in the seeker and propulsion. The first of the changes include replacing the conical scanning radar and IR imaging with the "brains” of the Noor missile (DM-3B radar) with the end result that the missile becomes of skimming the sea at about 3-5 meters, compared to 8 of the HY-2, a substantial amount when considering a targets countermeasures. It also means that it will be capable of last minute evasive maneuvers and execute a ‘pop-up’ attack on the deck of the target. 

Raad ASM

 Although, they will be notably harder with a missile with the aerodynamics of the 3,000 kg missile compared to the 715 kg Noor. It undoubtedly presents other difficulties of meshing the two systems, but they have presumably been fixed due to successful tests. The second main alteration is engine. Public perception is that the Raad is powered by the Tolou-4, the same powerplant as in the Noor. However this is intuitively unlikely given that the Tolou-4 was designed to propel a much smaller (715 kg) missile. Another indicator is looking at the extremely prominent ducts on the Raad compared to the extremely recessed ducts on the Noor. Rather, the more likely candidate is the Tolou-5 upgrade which is described as being much more powerful then its predecessor, although it was only in the prototype stage in 2005, meaning it would have had to of progressed extremely fast for them to appear in the 2007 wargames.

Other then the above modifications, the Raad acts very much like the HY-2 from which it was derived, it is fired with the help of a solid rocket booster, quickly climbing to 1,000 meters, then descending to slightly less then 20 meters for cruising under inertial guidance. When, in terminal phase the active radar is switched on, and the missile descends to about 4 meters to skim the surface of the water and eventually strike the target. Packed with over 300 kg of high explosive in a shaped charge, it is designed for use against the massive destroyers of western fleets. (13) Meanwhile, the 360 km range would literally leaving no part of the gulf untouched.

• Range: 360 km
• Length: 7.48 m
• Missile Weight: 2,998 kg
• Warhead: 315 kg
• Speed: .8 mach
o Guidance: Inertial in cruise, DM-3BMonopulse active radar and possibly IR seeker in terminal.

Other missiles

Navigating Irans inventory of equipment is metaphorical minefield of what exists and what only exists as prototypes, and what is rhetoric. Consequently there are a few missiles which may or may not exist depending on whom you talk to. The biggest example of this is the anti-ship missile which was recently announced this month. It was announced by “experts from the Iranian Armed Forces in charge of the project” as an air-to-ship missile weighing 500 kg (presumably the whole missile, not just the warhead) and having a range of 110 km, and being radar guided. Whatever this missile is, its roughly in the same class as the Noor, although having shorter range. Some think it is just another test or variation of the Noor missile, but if this were true it would have to definitely another version due to the dramatic reduction in weight (change of 200 kg) with a similar reduction in range(change of 60 km). Logically it could just be the Noor with a smaller fuel load, leading to both a reduction in weight and range. The only purpose though would be more efficient transportation by the weapons carrying platform, most likely and F-4 or Su-24, although it could have been specifically designed for an F-5 as a normal Noor may have been thought to be too large.

Iran to Launch New Submarine to Boost Naval Capabilities in High Seas

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran plans to launch a semi-heavy submarine soon in a bid to boost its naval capabilities in the high seas, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan announced.

“The Defense Ministry will take another step in developing the operational capabilities of this strategic force (Navy) after this advanced submarine (Fateh) joins the Navy fleet in future,” General Dehqan said.

He stressed that as before the Defense Ministry is ready to help the Iranian Navy reach an international balance with regard to its presence in territorial and free waters.

General Dehqan reiterated that the Iranian Navy has shown that it is one of the main security elements and contributors in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

He pointed to the defense ministry’s backup for Iran’s naval forces, and said, “Design and manufacture of different surface, subsurface, light, semi-heavy and heavy vessels like Zolfaqar missile-launching frigate, the advanced Jamaran II destroyer, Al-Sabehat, Qaem, Midget, Qadir and Huvana submarines in different classes, flying boats in different classes and floating pools in different tonnage are part of the Defense Ministry’s backup.”

In September, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced that Fateh will be launched this (Iranian) year (ending on March 20, 2014).

“Based on the Navy’s plans, the Fateh submarine will be launched this year," Sayyari told reporters in Tehran in September.

He said that Fateh submarine, Kaman-class missile-launcher warships and Jamaran 2 destroyer will come into operation in the current year.

The Iranian Navy dispatched its 27th flotilla of warships to the high seas in August to protect the country's cargo ships and oil tankers against pirates.

The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off the coast of Yemen.

According to UN Security Council resolutions, different countries can send their warships to the Gulf of Aden and coastal waters of Somalia against the pirates and even with prior notice to Somali government enter the territorial waters of that country in pursuit of Somali sea pirates.

The Gulf of Aden - which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea - is an important energy corridor, particularly because Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West via the Suez Canal.