Iranian warship Sabalan. Source: the Fars News Agency.
Iran upgraded one of its largest warships, Sabalan, by arming it with a dozen anti-ship cruise missiles, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani told the semi-official Tasnim News Agency on October 1.
The naval commander said that the upgraded “destroyer” will be soon unviled, without providing any further details on the upgrade.
Sabalan, is an Alvand-class frigate that Iran purchased under the name of “Rostam” from the United Kingdom before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Iranian Navy refers to its largest warships as “destroyers”.
The 1,500 tons warship was previously upgraded with four Ghadir and Ghader anti-ship cruise missiles, which are both Iranian copies of the Chinese C-802 with a range of 300 kilometers. Irani didn’t reveal what type of anti-ship cruise missiles was installed on the newly-upgraded Sabalan. One option would be the advanced Abu Mahdi missile, which has a range of 1,000 kilometers.
Sabalan, which has an operational range of 9,000 kilometers, has so far taken part in 13 overseas missions as part of the Iranian Navy’s flotilla.
Iran has been working to improve the capabilities of its naval forces for the last few years in order to counter the growing presence of the United States Navy in the Persian Gulf and to expand its own naval operations in remote international waters.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC:
iran has made significant progress in domestic shipbuilding, in the past several decades. the above cited example is a post-revolution holdover. the future will be purely domestic produced examples of ever larger tonnage and sophistication.
dobrá správa!!! ochrana pobrežia iránu je zase o niečo bezpečnejšia.
ďakujem mnohokrát :)
will be as usefull as the moskva. the russian approach with smaller ships to mount kalibr missiles from the caspian is much better then to put many of these missiles on one carrier.
thumbs up…