Expecting The Unexpected
The U.S. Navy had discovered that the training it gives it’s submarine crews is sometime not keeping up with the complexity of new equipment. Case in point is the collision earlier this year between the submarine USS Hartford and the USS New Orleans, an American amphibious ship.
The sub was at periscope depth, and the men on the bridge had been tracking the amphibious ship for nearly an hour. But the sonar data, and the automatic identification signals being received from another ship (moving in the same direction as the LPD, and apparently confused with the LPD) led the crew to ignore the sonar data indicating an imminent collision.
The navy investigation of the incident blamed specific crew members for allowing the collision to happen, but also noted that there were a lot of sensors involved, and the navy procedures did not clearly deal with what you should do when conflicting data is being received. Nuclear subs rarely spend this much time near the surface, and have lots more sensors to detect what’s above, and around the sub. Even the periscope is a much more complex instrument, containing radar and image manipulation devices, along with the traditional visual information. The conclusion was that, without some new types of training, it’s too easy to become confused by the flood of data. This, in part, was one of the causes of the Hartford accident.
The accident itself consisted of a 24,000 ton USS New Orleans, colliding with the submerged USS Hartford (a 7,000 ton Lost Angeles class boat), in the narrow Straits of Hormuz, at 1 AM, local time. Fifteen sailors aboard the sub were injured, while a fuel tank on the USS New Orleans was torn open, and 25,000 gallons of fuel oil got into the water. The USS Hartford rolled 85 degrees right after the collision, and substantial damage was done to the sail, including a leak.
The captain and chief of the boat (senior NCO) were dismissed shortly after the March 20 collision. The USS Hartford went to a Persian Gulf shipyard for emergency repairs (a metal brace for the sail, which was twisted so that it leaned to the right). Temporary decking, railing and antennas were added to the topside of the sub, to make it easier for the surface ride home.
Initially, the accident was blamed on sloppy leadership by the captain, and the senior chief petty officer. The subsequent investigation found that lax discipline was tolerated on throughout the ship. This led to sloppiness. In particular, the crew did not take all the precautions mandated for passing through a narrow waterway like the Straits of Hormuz. The investigation found many specific errors the crew made, that contributed to the collision. This included supervisors not staying with the sonar operator, who, it turned out, was chatting with someone when the collision (that the sonar would have provided warning about) occurred. The navigator was doing something else, while listening to his iPod, while the officer in charge did not, as he was supposed to do, check the surface with the periscope. The list went on, and ultimately amounted to 30 errors in procedure.
Accidents like these are part of a larger problem in the navy; finding and retaining sailors capable of running a nuclear submarine. Sub commanders are under a lot of pressure to keep their sailors from leaving the navy. But the long periods submarine sailors spend away from their families, creates pressure to get out and take a civilian job close to home. The USS Hartford had been at sea for five months when it had the accident.
Submarine sailors are very capable, and highly trained, people. Getting a better paying civilian job is not a problem. So sub captains try to keep the crews happy. That often leads to lax discipline. And that often leads to these collisions. Many sub captains see this as a calculated risk, as they know that, in wartime, their highly skilled crews would snap together and do the job. But a sub commanders first priority, at least in peacetime, is the safety of his boat. In wartime, the mission comes first.
There’s precedent for this. During the early days of World War II, the U.S. Navy had to replace most of its sub captains. These men had risen to their positions in the peacetime navy by doing things by the book and always adhering to procedure. Moreover, the peacetime sub operations did not include the kind of unexpected, and highly stressful, situation typical of wartime. But in combat, you needed much more flexible commanders, and these were the ones who came in and won the American submarine war in the Pacific. The navy has found that the flood of new technology is creating unexpected situations, that crews have to be warned about, and trained to handle.
Pentagon Says Climate Change a Security Threat
Global warming is now officially considered a threat to U.S. national security.
For the first time, Pentagon planners in 2010 will include climate change among the security threats identified in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Congress-mandated report that updates Pentagon priorities every four years.
The reference to climate change follows the establishment in October of a new Center for the Study of Climate Change at the Central Intelligence Agency.
But the new attention to climate concerns among U.S. security officials does not mean the Pentagon and the CIA have taken sides in the debate over the validity of data on global warming. As with nuclear terrorism, deadly pandemics or biological warfare, it only means they want to be prepared.
“I always look at the worst case,” says one senior intelligence official who follows climate issues. “Whether it’s global warming or the chance of Country A invading Country B, I just assume the most likely outcome is the worst one.”
Military officials, accustomed to drawing up detailed plans for a wide variety of contingencies, have a similar view.
“The American people expect the military to plan for the worst,” says retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, a 35-year Navy veteran now serving as president of the American Security Project. “It’s that sort of mindset, I think, that has convinced, in my view, the vast majority of military leaders that climate change is a real threat and that the military plays an important role in confronting it.”
Among the scenarios that concern security planners is the melting of the massive Himalayan ice mass. In theory, the rivers fed by the Himalayan glaciers would flood at first, then dry up once the glaciers retreat. That would endanger tens of millions of people in lowland Bangladesh.
Retired Air Marshal A.K. Singh, a former commander in India’s air force, foresees mass migrations across national borders, with militaries soon becoming involved.
“It will initially be people fighting for food and shelter,” Singh says. “When the migration starts, every state would want to stop the migrations from happening. Eventually, it would have to become a military conflict. Which other means do you have to resolve your border issues?”
The drafters of the Quadrennial Defense Review were instructed by Congress to accept the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body established by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization to gather and report world climate data.
Neither the Pentagon nor U.S. intelligence agencies make an independent effort to assess the planet’s climate, and U.S. security officials have generally tried to distance themselves from any debate over the validity of the IPCC data. Instead, they focus on the security repercussions.
“The [IPCC] projections lead us to believe that severe weather events will increase in intensity in the future, perhaps in frequency as well,” says Amanda Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense overseeing the review process. “This is a mission area where the Department [of Defense] already responds on a regular basis in support of civil authorities, whether for floods, wildfires [or] hurricanes. We believe there’s a possibility those types of requests will increase in the future.”
Climate change could also have implications for ship and aircraft designers.
“When you talk about building ships that are going to last from 30 to 50 years or programming for aircraft that are not going to be put in the air for 20 years, you have to be thinking about the kinds of changed conditions into which you’re going to throw them in the future,” Gunn says.
Still, there is only so much military planners can do to prepare for the consequences of climate change. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, due to be delivered in February, is required to identity what global warming may mean for the Defense Department’s “roles, missions and installations.”
But Dory of the Pentagon says there won’t be much change in that area.
“We don’t anticipate that there are new mission areas as a result of climate change,” Dory says. “Similarly, there may be changes in technical specifications for platforms, but not the need for new types of platforms that we don’t already possess.” (In Pentagon jargon, “platforms” are the things on which weapons are carried, like ships or aircraft.)
In the short term, climate change may be a more important subject for intelligence officials than for military planners.
Analysts at the National Intelligence Council are trying to develop a set of early warning signs that could suggest where the next famine might arise or which countries are in most danger of being destabilized as a result of dramatic climate changes. Intelligence officials put those countries on a “stability watch list.”
But how far to go with such climate and security projections is a matter of dispute.
“We suck at predicting wars, and we’re not very good at predicting peace,” says James Carafano, a retired Army officer and former West Point instructor who now directs foreign policy and national security studies at the Heritage Foundation. “These are huge, giant, complex systems, and people who take a linear approach to these things and say, ‘Oh, well, if this happens, then we’ll have to worry about that’ — that’s not how reality works out.”
Perhaps not, but it’s the job of national security officials at least to imagine future climate and security scenarios, whether they can do something about them or not.
Construction Begins on USCG Fast Response Cutters
Artist Rendering of the Fast Response Cutter - Sentinel Class
Work has finally begun on the U.S. Coast Guard’s latest Deepwater addition: the fast response cutter.
Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, La., began construction in late November on Sentinel, the first in a class of the fast response cutters. The Coast Guard awarded a contract option for about $141 million to Bollinger Shipyards on Dec. 15 to begin production on three additional fast response cutters. The second cutter will be called Guardian, but the third and fourth hulls have not been named, said Laura Williams, a spokeswoman for the acquisitions directorate at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.
The design for the 154-foot patrol boats successfully cleared a critical design review in mid-November and the Homeland Security Department’s Acquisition Review Board earlier this month. In September 2008, the Coast Guard awarded Bollinger an $88 million contract for the lead Sentinel. The initial patrol boat, which will be home ported in Miami, is expected to be delivered to the Coast Guard in the third quarter of fiscal 2011.
The Sentinel-class contract is worth up to $1.5 billion if all options for 34 cutters are exercised. The 154-foot patrol boats will replace the aging 110-foot Island-class patrol boats. The longer boats allow for larger crews – 23 people versus 16 – which the Coast Guard felt were needed. The larger cutters also handle better in 8-foot seas and have centralized berthing, which reduces crew fatigue in stormy weather, he said. The cutter will be outfitted with communications and computer equipment that will allow the crew to communicate with the cutter’s rigid-hull inflatable boat team beyond the horizon – another advantage over the Island class.
The other capabilities will remain the same – the fast response cutters will have a flank speed of 28 knots and be able to perform independently for a minimum of five days at sea. The cutters will be used in drug and migrant interdiction, fisheries enforcement, search and rescue, and port security.
USS Carl Vinson completes four-year overhaul
After four years out of operational service for a mid-life re-fuelling, complex overhaul (RCOH) and post-shakedown availability/supplemental restricted availability (PSA/SRA) work, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) sailed out of Northrop Grumman’s Newport News shipyard on 3 December to rejoin the US Navy’s active fleet.
By 13 December, F/A-18C Hornets from Strike Fighter Squadron 34 and SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, among other aircraft, were participating in two days of carrier flight deck certifications for air department personnel.
Begun in November 2005, Carl Vinson’s USD3.12 billion RCOH has seen the 91,500-ton vessel stripped out and refurbished from the keel up. The refit involved the modernization of some 2,300 compartments.
As part of the vessel’s CAPSTONE combat system upgrade, Raytheon’s Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) system replaced one of the ship’s two Mk 29 launchers and both Phalanx Vulcan 20 mm close-in-weapon system mounts.
The island superstructure was reconfigured and now bears a 70-ton main mast and updated sensors, similar to those equipping the final Nimitz-class carrier, USS George H W Bush (CVN 77).
Why China Really Wants A Big Navy
Missile Destroyer Haikou 171 of the PLA Navy’s South China Sea Fleet. She departed with two other Chinese warships on a mission to the Gulf of Aden near Somali on anti-pirate patrol in December.
The growth of the Chinese navy, seen from the Chinese point of view, is the result of China’s three decades of economic growth and modernization. This economic growth depends on massive imports of raw materials, particularly oil and ores, especially iron ore. While China’s economy could continue to grow without its massive exports, that economy would collapse without the imports. Thus China has gone from being classic “Continental Power” (that was not dependent on seaborne commerce), to a maritime power, that must maintain access to oceanic supply routes. Thus China needs a navy to help preserve that access.
Russia, the other great Eurasian continental power, is still one. Russia produces its own oil, and can get anything else it needs via land routes in Eurasia. Thus Russia is not overly concerned that its navy is shrinking to the size of a coast guard. China, however, has to be particularly concerned with the sea routes to distant Persian Gulf and Africa. Australia is closer, but still a long sea distance away. It’s not that China wants to fight a naval war, but it does want a strong enough navy to prevent any smaller, rogue, nation from interfering with Chinese shipping. For example, China’s contribution to the anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden is a big deal in China. For once, the Chinese Navy is able to reach a long distance, and protect Chinese interests.
In particular, China has to worry about the Straits of Malacca (the narrow seaway providing the quickest passage between the Pacific and Indian oceans). Some 20 percent of all world trade moves through these straits. Sea traffic here is vulnerable to naval mines and sinking large ships in shallower channels. This would disrupt some traffic. Near total shutdown of the straits would cause economic disruption worldwide, and especially in China. Shipping costs would go up and there would be lots of shipping delays. Ultimate economic costs would run into the hundreds of billion dollars. China needs to stay on good terms with Singapore (the island city, populated largely by ethnic Chinese, right on the straits), and have a naval force capable to protecting the straits from any threat.
Then there is the Indian Ocean. India takes the name seriously, and considers itself the guardian of the sea routes through this vast area. This includes most of the oil coming out of the Persian Gulf (where most of the world’s known oil reserves are). India needs access to that oil, as well as to African resources. India is not receptive to seeing the Chinese Navy operating nearby, but the Chinese feel they have to show up, to prepare for any contingency.
From China’s perspective, the U.S. Navy is not the big threat, unless the Americans ally themselves with India, or anyone else trying to cut China’s maritime supply lines.
Could Iran Shut Down the Strait of Hormuz?
The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is saying that Iran’s navy has reached the point where it can effectively seal off the Strait of Hormuz in the event of war. According to a September ONI report, Iran would likely do this if its nuclear sites were attacked by the U.S. or Israel. The implications of this naval blockade would endanger the fragile world economy: since nearly 40 percent of the world’s oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, even a limited closure would cause the price of oil to skyrocket, Press TV reports.
World economies would suffer a “serious economic impact from a sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to greatly reduced supplies of crude oil, petroleum supplies and (liquefied natural gas),” ONI said.
The report also pointed to Iran’s naval modernization to help carry out such a closure. Indeed, the report said that Iran not only is expanding its current arms inventories but is adding “increasingly sophisticated systems” which it has acquired from China and Russia.
The Chinese have provided Iran with an arsenal of C801 and C802 cruise missiles which it could use for coastal defense. The missiles are capable of reaching any point within the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, according to the Navy.
Iran also has worked with China to develop shorter-range missiles, including the C701, for “deployment in narrow geographic environments,” the report added.
The ONI report tended to confirm what the Navy until now has refused to talk about, namely Iran’s possible possession of a “supercavitation high-speed missile torpedo.” For some time, there has been speculation that Iran may have acquired from the Russians or Chinese this torpedo capable of speeds of 250 knots.
The U.S. Navy has no defense against it, making U.S. warships such as aircraft carriers and other battle group ships vulnerable. A similar threat also comes from Iranian submarines.
The Strait of Hormuz, however, is not the only potential chokepoint where oil supplies could be cut in the event of a crisis. Throughout the world, there are some six such chokepoints of which some are in areas currently embroiled in serious turmoil and political tension.
In October Iranian media outlets reported that as part of its plan to enhance its maritime defence, Iran has developed an advanced, indigenously constructed Sina-class missile boat. Iran’s defence minister claimed that the ship is equipped with radar, weapons, electronic and telecommunication systems, as well as advanced navigation technology.
The Iranian navy is transforming from a littoral force into a blue water force, according to Iranian Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari. But there have been questions about the quality of that equipment and ships.
In Pursuit Of Silence And Superiority
The U.S. Navy has revealed that the Chinese Navy has turned its attention to making its submarines quieter. For decades, the Chinese concentrated on just building subs (no easy feat, as few nations can do it) that were reliable enough for wartime use.
In the last decade, China has sought to make its subs safe for peacetime use. There have been several bad failures of Chinese subs. In one recent case, the entire crew of one boat was asphyxiated when the diesel engines did not shut down as the sub dived. There have been numerous breakdowns while at sea, and many subs that don’t leave port much because of reliability problems.
Diesel electric subs are intrinsically very quiet when underwater, operating on battery power. But the Chinese did not train their crews to be quiet when “running silent.” This included tweaking the mechanical items, that run off battery power underwater, to be quiet. Thus U.S. ships, and especially nuclear subs, had an easy time detecting Chinese subs, even the diesel-electric ones running underwater.
This is all changing. Chinese dockyard workers and engineers are silencing noise making components. Crews are trained to operate silently when the ship is running under water. New nuclear boats are also being refurbished to increase quietness.
Despite all this, the U.S. Navy has found that Chinese subs are still noisier than Russian boats were 20-30 years ago. But if past performance is any guide, in 10 years or so, Chinese subs will be very quiet, and much more dangerous.
China is in the process of expanding its sub fleet from about 60 boats to, over the next decade, 75 more modern ones.
Old Warships Never Die, They Just Fade Away
The Steregushchy class is the newest multipurpose frigate of the Russian Navy.
The Russian public are becoming aware of the fact that they won’t have much of a navy in 5-10 years. The problem is during that period most of the Cold War era warships that now comprise the fleet will have to be retired. These ships are falling apart, as there was not any money since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, for repairs and upgrades. The Russian parliament is calling for more money, to build enough surface ships to maintain a respectable fleet. That is proving difficult. Then there’s the problem that most of Russians warship building capability has disappeared since 1991.
To that end the Russian government is negotiating with France for the right to buy a Mistral amphibious assault ship/helicopter carrier, and the right to built three more in Russian shipyards. During that process, Russian shipbuilders will learn how it’s done in the West.
For the last seventeen years, most of the Russian construction effort went into finishing a few subs, and building some surface ships for export. Current new-buildings are three SSBNs (the new Borei class, one of which recently entered service), one new SSN (attack sub, that has been building for 15 years now and was recently finished), and one new Amur conventional sub, with two more building.
There is a new class of 4,500 ton frigates (the Gorshkov class), but only one is under construction and won’t be finished for another two years. The Gorshkov’s have a 130mm gun, plus anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles. The navy wants at least a dozen of these 4,500 ton ships, but the money has not been provided yet.
There is one Stereguschyy class corvette in service, with three more building. These are small ships (2,100 tons displacement), costing about $125 million each. These “Project 20380″ ships have impressive armament (two 30mm anti-missile cannon, one 100mm cannon, eight anti-ship missiles, six anti-submarine missiles, two eight cell anti-missile missile launchers). There is a helicopter platform, but the ship is not designed to carry one regularly. Crew size, of one hundred officers and sailors, is achieved by a large degree of automation. The ship also carries air search and navigation radars. It can cruise 6,500 kilometers on one load of fuel. Normally, the ship would stay out 7-10 days at a time, unless it received replenishment at sea. Like the American LCS, the Russian ship is meant for coastal operations. The navy wants at least fifty of them. There is also an amphibious ship under construction, and lots of talk about aircraft carriers. But until money is allocated, and construction starts, it’s all just talk.
Meanwhile, the fleet is a collection of aging Cold War ships. This includes about a dozen SSBNs, two dozen SSNs (nuclear attack subs) and about fifty diesel-electric boats. There’s one aircraft carrier, five cruisers, 17 destroyers, eleven frigates and about fifty corvettes. There are about twenty amphibious ships still in service.
All these Cold War era ships suffered from years of neglect during the 1990s, and most are not in the best of shape. In ten years, all of them will be gone. The new fleet, even if construction picks up, will be much smaller.
The Russian fleet will go from 170 ships and subs now, to less than a third of that. This is not popular with most Russians, but the money, capability and will is not there to do much more.
New Littoral Combat Ship Costs Exceed Target, Yet Lower Than Earlier Ships
New cost figures just revealed by the U.S. Navy show that contract prices for the second pair of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are far higher than a congressional target, but lower than the first pair of ships. And while the new figures provide more insight into a program where the first pair of ships tripled its initial budget, the convoluted nature of how the second pair is being accounted for may reduce the significance of the contract price.
The contracts for the second pair, LCS 3 and LCS 4, were awarded last spring to Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, respectively. The prices were kept hidden, the Navy said, because of Pentagon acquisition rules governing the service’s plan to acquire an unspecified number of each of the competing designs. But the strictures were lifted in September when Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley changed the plan to a winner-take-all strategy.
The contract for LCS 3, awarded March 23 to Lockheed Martin, is for $470,854,144, according to a Naval Sea Systems press release issued Dec. 3. The ship reuses certain materials from an earlier LCS 3 cancelled in April 2007. Those materials, valued at $78 million, bring the contract value to $548,854,144.
For LCS 4, awarded May 1 to General Dynamics, the contract price is $433,686,769. Taken together with $114 million of materials from an earlier LCS 4 canceled in November 2007, the contract value is $547,686,769.
Those numbers contrast with the original $220 million-per ship cost forecast by the Navy in 2004, and a congressionally imposed cost cap of $460 million per ship to take effect with the fiscal 2011 budget.
The new figures are less than the current estimated price of the first pair of ships. In budget documents submitted in May with the 2010 budget, the Navy said the total cost for Lockheed’s LCS 1 – commissioned in November 2008 – is $637 million. The price for GD’s LCS 2 – set to be delivered to the Navy in mid-December and commissioned in January – is $704 million.
The Navy cancelled the first LCS 3 and LCS 4 in 2007 when, in an effort to rein in rising costs, it tried and failed to renegotiate the cost-plus contracts for those ships – paid for in 2006 money – and institute new fixed-price agreements. When the service ordered new ships this year with the same hull numbers but using 2009 money, it created a confusing situation where, in effect, the shipbuilding accounts were double-numbered.
“What you have here are numbers that would have to be manipulated quite a lot to understand what the construction costs of the ships are,” said one congressional source. “This is interesting, but there are so many variables here. It would be hard to use these numbers to get a clear understanding of what these ships cost to build.”
The true cost of the new ships is actually closer to $600 million each, said one professional analyst.
“If you add to the contract price about $20 million for change orders, government-furnished equipment and other categories, you get costs of $560 million to $570 million,” the professional analyst said. “Then throw in outfitting and post delivery, and they’re about $600 million each.”
Those figures are far higher than the $460 million cost cap and help explain why the Navy changed its acquisition plan to winner-take-all, the professional analyst noted.
An industry source also noted the LCS 3 and 4 costs are for single ships only, and don’t have the advantages of the 10-ship buy the Navy is expected to award next year.
“There was a long time between each builder’s first and second ships, and you’ve got to consider the costs of relearning,” said the industry source. “There are no new techniques to introduce, no best practices being figured and no economical buys because there are no cost savings from ships after these.”
There also continue to be disagreements as to the proper way to account for the ships. In early October, the Navy’s Program Executive Officer of Ships, Rear Adm. Bill Landay, said he expected to release the new figures by the end of that month, but the Navy had to work through its internal calculations of what costs to include and then satisfy Congress. Objections from the Hill, primarily from professional staff members on the Senate Appropriations Committee, further held up release of the contract prices.
With four ships under contract, the Navy plans to build another 51 LCS ships.
Revolutionary Guards Said To Take over Iran Naval Forces in Gulf
Iran has given the Revolutionary Guards Corps command over naval operations in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz as part of a strategy to block access to vital sea lanes in the event of a war, according to a U.S. intelligence study.
The military reorganization, launched in 2007, transfers responsibility for the Gulf from the regular navy to the elite Guards’ naval force, which has an arsenal of small, high-speed boats and cruise missiles, said the study by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.
“Throughout the restructuring, senior commanders in the IRIN (Islamic Republic of Iran Navy) and IRGCN (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy) have reiterated that the reorganization of existing bases and the creation of new bases create a line of defense that would prevent an enemy from accessing the Strait of Hormuz and, thus, the Persian Gulf,” said the study, dated Fall 2009.
With the regular Iranian navy operating in the Gulf of Oman with larger warships and the Guards’ using a new base at Asaluyeh to operate in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the approach will “better allow Iranian naval assets to contribute to and extend Iran’s layered defense strategy,” the study said.
Gulf states produce nearly 30 percent of the world’s oil supply, much of which passes through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, said the study, citing figures from the U.S. Energy Department.
The assessment of Iran’s growing naval power comes amid rising international tensions over the country’s nuclear program. Major powers threatened fresh sanctions against Iran on Monday after Tehran defiantly pledged to build 10 more uranium enrichment plants.
The United States and Israel have refused to rule out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites while Tehran has warned it stands ready to hit back if it is attacked.
As Iran also relies on the Strait of Hormuz to transport most its oil exports, imposing a blockade on the area would carry risks for Tehran as well, the study said.
“Closing the Strait of Hormuz would cause Iran tremendous economic damage, and therefore Iran would probably not undertake a closure lightly,” it said.
“However, given the importance of the Strait, disrupting traffic flow or even threatening to do so may be an effective tool for Iran.”
As a generously funded pillar of the regime, the Guards Corps has bolstered its naval might by purchasing Chinese vessels equipped with anti-ship missiles and manufactured patrol craft and missile boats based on North Korean designs, the study said.
“Overall, Iran’s development program has strengthened its naval capabilities, yielding increases in the country’s inventory of small boats, mines, anti-ship cruise missiles, torpedoes, and air defense equipment,” it said.
The corps also bought a number of speed boats from the Italian firm Fabio Buzzi Design, and then reverse-engineered the vessels. The Iranian version of the Fabio Buzzi boat gives the Guards “some of the fastest naval vessels in the Persian Gulf,” the study said. Iran was reportedly seeking to develop unmanned vessels as well, it said.
The Revolutionary Guards Corps has taken on an increasingly high profile in recent years, using its militia wing – the feared Basij – to crack down on mass street protests after disputed elections in June.
And the Guards now own large tranches of the country’s economy, including a massive contract to develop Iran’s biggest gas field.
Estimated at more than 100,000 troops, the corps was initially created to counter perceived threats from leftist guerrillas and army officers who remained loyal to the U.S.-backed shah, overthrown in the 1979 revolution.
