Iranian frigate ''Sahand'' () was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

-made Vosper Mark V class

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

(also known as the ) commissioned as part of a four-ship order. She was launched in 1969. The ship was originally called ''Faramarz'', named after a character in

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...

's ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

''. After the 1979

Islamic Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Im ...

it was renamed ''Sahand'', after the

Sahand Sahand (), is a massive, heavily eroded stratovolcano in East Azerbaijan Province, northwestern Iran. At , it is the highest mountain in the province of East Azerbaijan. Sahand is one of the highest mountains in Iranian Azerbaijan, in addition ...

volcano.

Construction

On 10 May 1970, she was damaged by fire while

fitting out Fitting out, or outfitting, is the process in shipbuilding that follows the float-out/launching of a vessel and precedes sea trials. It is the period when all the remaining construction of the ship is completed and readied for delivery to her o ...

Service history

The

Iranian Navy The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN; ), also referred as the Iranian Navy (abbreviated NEDAJA; ), is the naval warfare service branch of Iran's regular military, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (''Artesh''). It is one of Iran's two maritim ...

ship was sunk in

Operation Praying Mantis Operation Praying Mantis was the 18 April 1988 attack by the United States on Iranian naval targets in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the mining of a U.S. warship four days earlier. On 14 April, the American guided missile frigate stru ...

on 18 April 1988. Located by two American A-6E Intruders of Attack Squadron VA-95 steaming roughly southwest of

Larak Island Larak Island (also Lark Island) is an island off the coast of Iran, which has been one of Iran's major oil export points since 1987. The narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz at a distance of lies between this Iranian island and Oman's Quoin ...

, she was hit by two

Harpoon missile The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and later AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack M ...

s and four AGM-123 Skipper II laser-guided missiles. A pair of

Rockeye ''Rockeye'' is the fifth album by the British band the Outfield. It was the band's second album to be released under the MCA label. "Going Back" became a hit single in South Africa on Adult Contemporary radio. The opening track, "Winning It All ...

cluster bombs from the aircraft and a single Harpoon from the

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

finished the destruction of the ship. Left heavily aflame, dead in the water and listing to port, ''Sahand'' burned for several hours before fires reached her ammunition magazines and they detonated, sinking her in over of water southwest of Larak Island. Forty-five members of her crew were killed.

Notes

References

* Alvand-class frigates Ships built in Southampton 1969 ships Shipwrecks in the Persian Gulf Maritime incidents in 1988 Ships sunk by US aircraft Frigates sunk by aircraft Iran–Iraq War naval ships of Iran Naval magazine explosions {{mil-ship-stub

Construction

Service history

See also

Notes

References