Iran Parades New Anti-Shipping Capabilities
Iran has unveiled new missiles and drones in parades held in Tehran and elsewhere on September 21 to celebrate Sacred Defense Week.
As is normal, equipment put on show by the Iranians is rarely new, and usually a development of an existing in-service system. At times, the ‘new’ equipment presented was built in America fifty years ago but is presented with a new paint job and new name. In the parade this year, however, there were two pieces of new equipment that represent a step-up in capability.
The Jihad ballistic missile is an upgraded version of the Qiam liquid-fuelled missile. The Qiam was already one of Iran’s best missiles, and was used in the attack on US forces based at Al Asad Airbase in Iraq on January 8, 2020. The Qiam has a range of 1000 km and a formidable 600-kilogram warhead with 50 meters accuracy, which can swapped for a cluster area-denial munition. The Jihad is likely to improve on all these performance characteristics; in particular its range is likely to have been extended.
From the examples seen on parade, the warhead module appears to have small conformal radio receivers so that it can be steered on its final, very fast dive onto the target. In the more relaxed sanctions environment since the Houthi ceasefire with the Saudis, the Jihad could well have been supplied in complete form to the Houthis in Yemen. From Yemen, the Jihad has the range and accuracy to present a credible threat both to Israel, but also to ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and potentially also in the Arabian Sea.
An enhanced threat is also represented by the new Shahed-136B drone which was also on parade, which externally bears little resemblance to earlier Shahed-136 suicide drones supplied to the Russians for use in Ukraine.
The Shahed-136B drone is claimed to have a 4,000 km range, which the Iranian press specifically mentions as being sufficient to target US and UK forces on Diego Garcia. The Shahed-136B airframe looks big enough to carry a warhead of at least 100kg, sufficient to cause significant damage.
These two systems present an enhanced threat if launched from sites in Iran, Yemen or other Axis of Resistance aligned territory. But they can also be launched from the decks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s two drone carriers based on the hulls of Panamax container ships, the Shahid Mahdavi (110-3) and sister ship Shahid Bagheri (110-4), which both could deploy far from Iranian home waters. Indeed, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani has suggested that a new long-range mission n into the Indian Ocean is imminent.