IRIS ''Shahid Soleimani'' (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: شهید سلیمانی) is the lead ship of an Iranian class of missile corvettes with the same name. It was built by the Shahid Mahallati Shipyard and is operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy of Iran.

Design

Hull

The ship has a

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

(twin hull) design with sharp angles to give it a more stealthy design. Its design has been compared to the Chinese Type 22 missile boat and the Taiwanese . According to Iranian officials the ship's hull is made of aluminium instead of steel which decreases the weight and is a new innovation in the Iranian shipbuilding industry.

Armament

This warship is equipped with six anti-ship cruise missiles including four long-range ones (likely Noor or Ghadir) and two short-range anti-ship missiles (likely Nasir) in an order of two long-range and one short-range box launchers on each side behind the

superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...

. It is also the first Iranian warship to be equipped with a

vertical launching system A vertical launching system (VLS) is an advanced system for holding and firing missiles on mobile naval platforms, such as surface ships and submarines. Each vertical launch system consists of a number of ''cells'', which can hold one or mo ...

(VLS). Its VLS includes 6 bigger cells for surface-to-surface

cruise missile A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

s and 16 smaller ones for

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...

s all of which are located behind the command bridge. The warship ''Shahid Soleimani'' is also equipped with four 23 mm

gatling gun The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling of North Carolina. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operatio ...

s (likely Asef), one 30 mm auto-canon and two chaff dispensers. According to Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, the ''Shahid Soleimani''-class vessels have been equipped with different missiles with ranges of 200, 300 and 750 kilometers, as well as with a new 2,000-kilometer-range cruise missile named Ghadr-474. Tangsiri later said that ''Sayyad Shirazi'' and ''Hassan Baqeri'' are equipped with 16 Navvab vertically-launched missiles and 6 Sayyad-3 missiles.

Radars and electronics

Intelligence and reconnaissance monitoring, surface and subsurface and air traffic monitoring are among the duties of this vessel and it is equipped with Iran's most advanced electronic warfare systems.

Propulsion

''Shahid Soleimani'' is powered by four indigenous

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

s which gives it a top speed of and a range of .

Other equipment

The warship also has a helipad and a crane under it which is used to launch and retrieve fast attack boats. The ship can carry three fast attack boats and has the ability to retrieve and rearm them.

History

After the end of construction at the Shahid Mahallati Shipyard on 14 June 2022, it underwent

sea trial A sea trial or trial trip is the testing phase of a watercraft (including boats, ships, and submarines). It is also referred to as a "shakedown cruise" by many naval personnel. It is usually the last phase of construction and takes place on op ...

s but at that time instead of four 20 mm gatling guns, it was equipped with four 12.7 mm machine guns which were later replaced. On 5 September 2022, ''Shahid Soleimani'' was commissioned into IRGC's navy branch in a commissioning ceremony.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shahid Soleimani Corvettes of Iran Ships of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ships built in Bushehr