It's exactly what I'm criticizing, most of these ships have too short a range to pose a threat to larger ships, they will be detected and destroyed long before coming close to a carrier group. Neither they have the ability to remain at sea for any real length of time or in harsh weather conditions.
It's because the Persian Gulf is swarming with these vessels alongside other assets that it a war scenario it'll be a no-go zone for larger enemy ships.
This is shown by the enemy's behaviour and statements.
Your most basic ship must
1. possess anti ship missiles that match the range of the American Harpoon
2. have the ability to remain at sea for a while
3. big enough to mount a CIWS
Bigger dimensions = easier to detect.
Bigger dimensions = fewer numbers. Sheer numbers will eventually overwhelm the aggressor's offensive munitions. One Harpoon is enough to put out of duty a 400 tonnes FAC. But if the firepower of that FAC was distributed among, say eight light FAC's which could be procured for the same price, the enemy would need to spend ten Harpoons to achieve a similar result.
Numbers also mean greater expendability. The fewer vessels one concentrates one's cards on, the greater the risks when faced with a powerful enemy.
Remaining at sea for long = higher probability of being detected and attacked. A preferable approach consists in sheltering scores of small, fast FAC's in hardened bases and sending them out on hit and run missions.
Optionally:
Having good sensors and networked warfare capabilities would be good
Having a stabilized naval gun would give some flexibility
Such a ship could be shorter than Kılıç Class. We're still talking about assymetric warfare but in a better organized fashion that could really lock down persian gulf.
Iran does have those in her inventory as well, I mentioned them: Kaman (La Combattante II) / Sina (Iranian reverse-engineered version of the latter) and Tondar classes of FAC's. A total of 22 operating in the Persian Gulf at present with 3 Sina's under construction and possibly further Tondar's to be added as well. Their displacement is in the 200 to 265 tonnes range and they are equipped with superior radars and sensors compared to light FAC's, as well as with naval guns. In the mid to long term we're thus looking at anywhere between 25 to 30 such vessels patrolling the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.
One step above is the Shahid Soleimani light corvette (some 600 tonnes of displacement) with a stealthier design and a catamaran hull. One's operational and two under construction, it's quite possible their fleet will exceed 10 units.
Light FAC's aren't supposed to be acting alone, but in concert with a multitude of other systems. They're one of several pieces in a cohesive defense architecture. As such, they have a place, a utility of their own. One cannot gauge their effectiveness on the basis of a side by side comparison with an aircraft carrier, as this isn't how it would play out in practice.
If Iran's coastal air defense batteries are suppressed, your navy is completely exposed, it's a big weakness the enemy could exploit
If Iran's air defenses were suppressed, the Navy isn't the only thing that would be exposed. Practically every critical asset on the mainland would be. The whole point is to prevent this from happening by striking the enemy's offensive weapons and their underlying infrastructure with a hail of precision guided ballistic and cruise missiles, drones etc.
Naturally there are budgetary and technological constraints to overcome, so everything can't be developed at once. Fact however is that Iran's naval strategy has managed to ensure the sought after deterrence, and moreover it is constantly in the process of being enhanced as additional technologies are gotten hold of. Improvement of seaborne air defence is a step that has been mastered and is currently being implemented in Navy vessels.
In 2020 for instance the IRGC tested its 3rd Khordad SAM on the Shahid Siavashi transport ship.
These efforts then bore fruit in the shape of the Shahid Soleimani's significant air defence capability. A tendency that's surely going to be noticed on future Navy ships designed and produced by Iran, if not in upgrade programs for existing vessels.
It ambushed and sank a single corvette on patrol of the right next door neighbor. Not the aircraft carrier group of an overseas superpower.
Should it try to launch military aggression on Iran, the overseas superpower in question will have to bring over its ships. It happens to be operating bases in Iran's immediate vicinity. So there's not much of a difference here. If anything, distance complicates logistics and operability.
Similar to how the Cheonan was ambushed corvettes, frigates and destroyers accompanying USA aircraft carriers can and will be ambushed by Iranian midget and semi-heavy attack submarines in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf, where background noise is such that powerful sonars will see their range reduced, and where the geology offers excellent dissimulation opportunities to small subs.
Kadirs have so little endurance that they can be easily tracked when they surface, so little firepower that they couldn't be much of a threat and such short range that they couldn't be effective any distance away from the Iranian shores.
Qadirs aren't supposed to secure blue waters but the Persian Gulf in essence. They are part of the reason why the enemy's bulky vessels aren't going to sail into the Persian Gulf in case of a war.
They may be trackable when they surface but why would they do such a thing? Considering the size of the Persian Gulf, they can remain below surface up until the moment they return to a hardened base after accomplishing their mission. In the meantime they will be sitting silently on the seabed, awaiting their prey.
As for firepower, look at the photograph of the Cheonan. A 1200 tonnes corvette literally chopped in half by a single 533 mm torpedo. Each Qadir carries at least two of these. Or naval mines, or Jask-2 submarine-launched cruise missiles.
In the words of western analysts and enemy navy commanders themselves:
Vijay Sakhuja, director of the National Maritime Foundation, comments that the class is "[the] most difficult to detect particularly when resting on the seabed and this could be the possible tactics that the Iranian Navy could employ during hostilities. Further, given their numbers, these could overwhelm enemy's technological superiority".[17]
According to U.S. Navy Captain Tracy A. Vincent, Ghadir submarines can provide additional surveillance capability and create a new layer of defense for Iranian naval forces.[18] Commander Daniel Dolan maintains that the submarines are well-designed for the purpose of guerrilla warfare, ambush and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), describing them as potentially more expendable in comparison to Kilo class attack submarines. He argues that American fleet is prone to a high threat environment created by sheer number of these "small but lethal threats".[19] Royal Navy Commander Ryan Ramsey, who captained nuclear submarine HMS Turbulent (S87) in the Persian Gulf has stated that the submarines are a threat to western forces operating in the region, adding that "[t]he Ghadir-class are tiny submarines but have enough torpedoes to sink a couple of ships".[20]
They don't seem to be dismissing these subs at all. As a matter of fact I've seen various authors from the west qualify them as the single most dangerous (for potential western aggressors) ships in the Iranian Navy.
If it was the Turkish navy, Americans would be worried about being ambushed in the Indian ocean.
If you are of the opinion that 16 frigates measuring some 120 to 130 meters in length, sold to Turkey by either the USA itself or by Germany (thus Americans are privy to their technical specifications) and outgunned by equivalent sorts of vessels fielded by the USN in greater numbers, would represent a harder nut to crack than a hundred disseminated, fast, maneuverable, pesky craft designed for ambushes, swarm attacks and naval guerilla warfare, then so be it. The Turkish navy is designed to protect Ankara's interests vis à vis Greece and other European countries, against Egypt as well but not to confront American invaders, a scenario Turkey will not be envisaging anytime soon.
Once those frigates are out of the way the Persian Gulf would be at the mercy of the enemy. Iran with her asymmetric doctrine has effectively succeeded in keeping the enemy at bay insofar as no naval aggression is ever going to be initiated from a point closer than some hundreds of kilometers from Iranian shores. Which in turn has considerable implications as to range, quantity of weapons carried, sortie rates and safety of enemy fighter jets i.e. the central offensive weapon their doctrine is constructed around.
And lastly, attacking Iraq was a big strategic folly. They murdered a million Iraqis and incurred great costs all to pacify the region for Israel's zionist agenda. They could never justify that war to the American public without the 9/11 so they staged it.
They can not attack Iran without some 9/11 kind of event. Which was the point of Suleimani assassination. Fortunately Iranian government was smart enough to not take the bait.
Rest assured, they wanted to start the war.
All out war or downright invasion of Iran would suppose military build up on such a scale that it would take months to complete. They hadn't shown any signs of intending to perform a build up when they carried out the terrorist attack on shahid Soleimani.
You describe the 9-11 attacks as false flag events aimed at legitimizing the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, I share this view. Why then did they not stage a similar operation in 2020 to blame Iran? Because they knew war with Iran would prove not just costly but too costly actually.
Now if your assessment is that the USA incurred heavy damage by attacking Iraq, then the logical deduction will be that Iran would inflict politically, socially and economically unbearable losses to the Americans. And their leadership, deep state included is fully aware of this. A solitary madman at the White House seeking to go ahead nonetheless would be stopped in his tracks by the establishment.
Let's recall that Iraq was an agonizing country in early 2003, "softened up" by over a decade of devastating sanctions, disarmament, no-fly zones and regular aerial bombing raids. Furthermore Baghdad was deprived of Iran's manifold instruments of deterrence, namely: more than thrice the population (present day Iran as compared to 2003 Iraq) and thrice the surface area, terrain (highly mountainous in Iran's case), geographical location atop the Strait of Hormoz, chokepoint through which 30% of global oil supplies are transiting, deeply rooted patriotic / nationalistic sentiment across the board, a religious support base legitimizing the government, an extensive network of allies including ideologically committed ones equipped and trained by Iran, vast national defense industries, considerable degree of industrial and agricultural self-sufficiency, power to set the region ablaze including by striking the zionist entity, latent nuclear breakout capability.
So we're effectively comparing apples and oranges. For the USA regime repercussions of military aggression on Iran compared to the impact the illegal invasion of Iraq has had, would be like night and day.
How did Iraq end up in such a vulnerable position? Fatally flawed decision making which you alluded to is part of it, namely Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. The other part is a similarly flawed defense doctrine, which was inadequate against US military aggression since its general orientation was not asymmetrical enough. Iraq lacked the massive ballistic and cruise missile force (and what they had left in this regard turned out to be their most effective weapon against the Americans), the UAV arsenal, the IADS, the navy suitable for guerilla warfare, the hardened underground bases, the space program which Iran meticulously proceeded to set up, drawing the right conclusions from NATO's campaigns since the 1990's.
If Iran were to commit a blunder similar to Saddam in 1990, it would offer the USA regime political capital to attempt a military response of sorts. Absent such a move however the cost benefit calculus of a military undertaking against Iran will not be considered beneficial in Washington. This in turn has caused the Americans to fail in their objectives because everything else they threw at Iran did not produce the outcome they were hoping for.
surely
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