The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) showed an anti-ship missile being launched from one of its Ghadir-class midget submarines on 24 February.
A Ghadir submarine is seen out of the water. It is unclear if the submarine-launched missile is a short-range weapon developed for the class or whether one of the midgets is being used as a test platform for a missile designed for the new Fateh class. (Iranian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics )
The launch apparently took place as part of the ‘Velayet 97’ naval exercise.
“Our Ghadir-class submarines have so far fired cruise missiles and [the new] Fateh [submarine] has this capability too and we will display it in future drills,” the Fars News Agency quoted IRIN commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi as saying.
Fars also cited Rear Adm Khanzadi as saying the submarine-launched missile was developed under the Jask-2 project and is based on the new Nasr missile, which has a different range from earlier versions.
The Nasr is the Iranian version of the Chinese C-704, which is a solid-propellent missile that has a range of 38 km when launched from the surface. It has been in Iranian service since at least 2010, but a longer-range version with a turbojet engine called the Nasir was unveiled in April 2017. No range was given for the new model.
It was previously known that Iran was working on its own submarine-launched anti-ship missile.
In February 2015 Iranian television showed footage of a sub-surface missile launch that appeared to be a failure. In May 2017 Fox News quoted US officials as saying that a sub-surface missile launch from an Iranian Ghadir midget submarine had failed.
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