Iranian Navy | News and Discussions

[TheImmortal]

The issue isn't 2013-2019 for the first Fateh since it was Iran's first experience with a 500-600 ton sub, the issue is no further Fatehs since 2019-2023 (this is assuming work on Fateh #2 only started after Fateh #1 was commissioned).

At this rate the 4th Fateh (the only one with AIP) will join Iran's navy in 2040. Iran is better off buying subs from Russia than wasting all this time.

You are preaching to choir. I’m a long critic of Iranian shipbuilding times. They are abysmal.

I will say larger subs typically take a decent amount of time to build 4-5 years isn’t unheard of. For a 500ton sub it should be built within 3 years ideally.

The only shipyard pumping ships out extremely fast is China. But China also a military budget of $120B+ compared to Iran’s paltry $15-20B.

 

[mohsen]

That's not what the article says. Regardless, the pace of development is staggeringly slow. Since 2013 they built one 520 tonne Fateh sub. God knows how long they will take to build the fantasy Besat submarine.

That's what he meant, regardless of bad sentences, moron reporters and machine translation!


As the commander said, up to the last war game, they were testing the new design to reach the full reliability. lack of funds is another story.

 

[glablo]

The Persian Gulf is shallow and clear, making it difficult for submarines to operate.
Therefore, it is thought that Iran does not place much importance on submarines,
The United States can bomb the Middle East unilaterally from safe zones, as numerous U.S. military bases have been built in the region.
There is no possibility of an aircraft carrier or Aegis entering the Strait of Hormuz, and submarines would only be used to attack civilian ships.

 

[SalarHaqq]

As for Fateh, the first Fateh was made with inadequate materials and its hull got compromised during trial tests of pressure depth so it had to basically have its hull redone. That added even more time on the project.

Source?

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The Persian Gulf is shallow and clear, making it difficult for submarines to operate.
Therefore, it is thought that Iran does not place much importance on submarines,
The United States can bomb the Middle East unilaterally from safe zones, as numerous U.S. military bases have been built in the region.
There is no possibility of an aircraft carrier or Aegis entering the Strait of Hormuz, and submarines would only be used to attack civilian ships.

Submarines are one of the reasons the enemy's navy would avoid the Persian Gulf. The farther out air bases the enemy would be forced to rely on, the more restrictions to operational parameters they will have to face.

 

[sahureka2]

A submarine must have a safety level that is enormously higher than a ship, if the ship sinks the crew has the possibility to go down into the lifeboats and have the possibility of saving themselves, in a submarine this option is not present, therefore the level of design and construction must be adequate to give maximum safety and therefore construction times are much longer.
Therefore, talking about delays is a mistake, also because the Fateh class is something completely new for the Iranian naval industry in terms of size, displacement and capacity.
They had to predict different parameters, including the type of steel to be used.
In any case it is not always the shipyard's fault that slowly builds the hull, a submarine is a closed cylinder with only small openings, therefore almost all systems and accessories must be installed before closing the cylinder.
Therefore all on-board systems, accessories, diesel engines and electric motors, etc. they must be produced first and supplied to the shipyard, materials that I think are produced entirely in Iran and only a few of these systems can be considered in mass production, but made in small quantities precisely and only for these submarines.
Therefore there may be delays in deliveries, and everything is like a puzzle the works could slow down and even stop in a certain sector of the submarine waiting for the delivery of the necessary piece.
So I don't feel like blaming any of these hypothetical delays, having in mind that there are few nations that can build even just a submarine the size of the Fatheh completely autonomously.

 

[SalarHaqq]

So I don't feel like blaming any of these hypothetical delays, having in mind that there are few nations that can build even just a submarine the size of the Fatheh completely autonomously.

Well said. This is in addition to budgetary constraints the industries need to deal with. Some over the top criticisms are way out of touch.

 

[HGV]

North Korea has already built a 2000 ton SLBM capable submarine while Iran has produced one 500 ton submarine without AIP in 10 years.

Submarines are difficult to build but some of you are acting like slow production of navy assets is restricted to submarines and not endemic to all of Iran's ships (outside of the IRGC Navy).

As the commander said, up to the last war game, they were testing the new design to reach the full reliability. lack of funds is another story.

The problem is in 2019 they announced it entered into operational service. That usually means testing is complete, not that you have to do another 4 years of testing before you can build another one.

 

[SalarHaqq]

North Korea has already built a 2000 ton SLBM capable submarine while Iran has produced one 500 ton submarine without AIP in 10 years.

Submarines are difficult to build but some of you are acting like slow production of navy assets is restricted to submarines and not endemic to all of Iran's ships (outside of the IRGC Navy).

Korea is prioritizing the military in a way that if Iran were to do the same, it would cause social instability. Korea's defence budget is estimated to stand at 26% of its GDP, versus slightly more than 2% for Iran. To be able to imitate the Korean example, the Islamic Republic would need to introduce similarly draconian methods of social control, which I'm sure most of those who criticize the production rate of navy vessels would then denounce loudly.

 

[HGV]

Korea is prioritizing the military in a way that if Iran were to do the same, it would cause social instability. Korea's defence budget is estimated to stand at 26% of its GDP, versus slightly more than 2% for Iran. To be able to imitate the Korean example, the Islamic Republic would need to introduce similarly draconian methods of social control, which I'm sure most of those who criticize the production rate of navy vessels would then denounce loudly.

26% of North Korea's GDP is far less than 3% of Iran's GDP. $4 billion vs $20 billion. With 1/5 of Iran's military budget they develop and maintain a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons (an extremely expensive endeavour), ICBMs, strategic cruise missiles, AD, artillery, a much larger and more advanced Navy than Iran has, etc.

Their space program has also experienced far greater success than Iran's. You telling me they are doing all of this with a much smaller budget than Iran does not reflect well on Iran.

 

[SalarHaqq]

26% of North Korea's GDP is far less than 3% of Iran's GDP. $4 billion vs $20 billion. With 1/5 of Iran's military budget they develop and maintain a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons (an extremely expensive endeavour), ICBMs, strategic cruise missiles, AD, artillery, a much larger and more advanced Navy than Iran has, etc.

Their space program has also experienced far greater success than Iran's. You telling me they are doing all of this with a much smaller budget than Iran does not reflect well on Iran.

Production costs are a question mark. During the considered period Iran manufactured more UAV's, more frigates, about as many or more fast attack craft, and probably more ballistic missiles than Korea since Iran unlike the DPRK is using these in a strictly conventional role (not to mention the supporting infrastructure i.e. underground bases, of which there are over thirty in Iran), same for cruise missiles (in land attack and anti-ship roles). In the air defence sector as well chances are Iranian production rates would be on par if not superior.

 

[HGV]

Production costs are a question mark. During the considered period Iran manufactured more UAV's, more frigates, about as many or more fast attack craft, and probably more ballistic missiles than Korea since Iran unlike the DPRK is using these in a strictly conventional role (not to mention the supporting infrastructure i.e. underground bases, of which there are over thirty in Iran), same for cruise missiles (in land attack and anti-ship roles). In the air defence sector as well chances are Iranian production rates would be on par if not superior.

UAVs are cheap and the bigger ones like Kaman-22 and Shahed-149 are not produced in good numbers (or any type of numbers yet)

Frigates seriously? Iran lost 3 major ships in the last 5 years and built maybe 3-4 small Mowj class ships, most of them still don't even have modern radars and still use subsonic cruise missiles, none have VLS. North Korea has a submarine fleet Iran could only dream of.

You think North Korea doesn't have underground bases? Missile experts still don't know where North Korea tests its solid fuel missiles, not long ago our own PeeD was here saying North Korea is far behind Iran with solid fuel missiles since it doesn't have any publicly known solid fuel infrastructure, and yet they just successfully tested a solid fuel ICBM.

North Korean cruise missiles are many generations ahead of Iran

Again, all of this and a large nuclear arsenal (which is 100x more expensive than anything you mentioned) with 1/5th of the annual budget.

 

[Flotilla]

North Korea has already built a 2000 ton SLBM capable submarine while Iran has produced one 500 ton submarine without AIP in 10 years.

I think developing directly a SLBM submarine it is a mistake. Without experience building submarines, Sinpo class must be noisy and the level of safety margins must be by force low. As Sahureka said it takes time designing and building a submarine.

Keep in mind that it is not only because IRIN budget is evidently lower than IRGN. You must test 100 times each piece, system, subsystem and margin before making a series. If you just jump to a big submarine like Besat or Sinpo you are betting all to fortune.

The operational maturity of Fateh gives IRIN and shiphyards confidence to build more. And each one with few improvements (comm, sensors, weapons... and livability. At this poing I agree with others.

 

[sahureka2]

North Korea has already built a 2000 ton SLBM capable submarine while Iran has produced one 500 ton submarine without AIP in 10 years.

Mr. HGV, comparing North Korea and Iran in submarine construction is a gross mistake, I think you know that North Korea has been manufacturing submarines for many decades, since 1976 it has been making Romeo class/type 033 submarines, 1,830 tons submerged and with a length of 76.6 m, to then build several classes of midget submarines and coastal submarines of the Sang-o and Sang-o II class.
Furthermore, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, at the beginning of the 90s they managed to obtain some decommissioned units from the Pacific fleet, about a dozen diesel/electric submarines, both of the Foxtrot class and at least one missile launcher derivative of this class, known as class Golf I/II .
Therefore, from the 90s they had the opportunity to evaluate the technology and develop a more modern version with the ability to launch missiles from submerged, technology which they then poured into the "Gorae" class experimental submarine equipped with a silo for launching an SLBM missile and on at least one larger submarine that should carry 3 SLBM missiles in the sail + it seems at least other submarines derived from the "Gorae" class that should be built in the future.
Therefore comparing Iran - North Korea in this area is not appropriate

 

[SalarHaqq]

UAVs are cheap and the bigger ones like Kaman-22 and Shahed-149 are not produced in good numbers (or any type of numbers yet)

Drones are cheap but Iran is also fielding a whole lot of them. The UAV arsenal in its present size surely cost a non-negligible amount of money to acquire.

Frigates seriously? Iran lost 3 major ships in the last 5 years and built maybe 3-4 small Mowj class ships, most of them still don't even have modern radars and still use subsonic cruise missiles, none have VLS. North Korea has a submarine fleet Iran could only dream of.

Four Moj class constructed, one more as good as ready and yet another under construction. Several large supply ships as well. In addition to the Shahid Soleimani class corvette, a second of which is nearing completion with two more under construction at a rather high production rate.

During the same period Korea manufactured two light frigates and outfitted a third larger one obtained from Russia. So in this area Iran outproduced Korea.

Same holds true of small attack craft.

As for submarines, the backbone of Korea's fleet are the 45+ Sang-O submarines versus an estimated 21 Qadir and one Fateh vessel (three more under construction) for Iran. However the first Sang-O submarine entered service in 1991, which is 16 years earlier than Iran's first Qadir class. So the Koreans have had lengthier experience as well as manufacturing infrastructure in place for much longer than Iran.

As is the case of their defence industries in general. Korea started right after the war in 1953, Iranian defence industries really took shape in the 1990's (after the war as well).

You think North Korea doesn't have underground bases?

Of course they do but I doubt they will be as many in numbers as Iran's.

 

[HGV]

Mr. HGV, comparing North Korea and Iran in submarine construction is a gross mistake, I think you know that North Korea has been manufacturing submarines for many decades, since 1976 it has been making Romeo class/type 033 submarines, 1,830 tons submerged and with a length of 76.6 m, to then build several classes of midget submarines and coastal submarines of the Sang-o and Sang-o II class.
Furthermore, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, at the beginning of the 90s they managed to obtain some decommissioned units from the Pacific fleet, about a dozen diesel/electric submarines, both of the Foxtrot class and at least one missile launcher derivative of this class, known as class Golf I/II .
Therefore, from the 90s they had the opportunity to evaluate the technology and develop a more modern version with the ability to launch missiles from submerged, technology which they then poured into the "Gorae" class experimental submarine equipped with a silo for launching an SLBM missile and on at least one larger submarine that should carry 3 SLBM missiles in the sail + it seems at least other submarines derived from the "Gorae" class that should be built in the future.
Therefore comparing Iran - North Korea in this area is not appropriate

Iran has had Kilo class for almost 30 years now and many decades of experience with Qadir midget class (ironically probably with some kind of support from North Korea). The point was the disparity in production speed despite Iran having a military budget 5x the size of North Korea.

For example, why announce that Fateh submarine joined operational service in 2019 then in 2023 claim it has finally completed tests? If it is a question of experience then of course the first one will take longer, but this doesn't explain why we don't have Fateh 2, 3 or 4 and why small Mowj 'frigates' continue to be developed so slowly and in such a haphazard incomplete way 15 years after the Jamaran was produced.

Damavand-2 was supposed to be VLS along with other Mowj frigates, doesn't appear to be true. By the time Fateh #4 is produced with AIP (if they can keep that promise) it will probably be 2030-2035 at best. Then we move onto waiting 15 years to develop Besat with people making excuses for that too. I doubt we will see Besat in operational service (whatever that means in Iran) in my lifetime.