Foreign Correspondence

[StephanieVanbryce]

Russian Roots for Iran's "Underwater Missile"

In 1994, Russian military contractors were handing out brochures touting their "high-speed underwater missiles." This weapon, called the Shkval, had a "high kill capability," the contractors promised. Against it, "known anti-torpedo defense system[s]" were "not effective." Someone in Tehran liked what they read, apparently. Check out today's New York Times.

Iran said Sunday that it had test-fired what it described as a sonar-evading underwater missile [video of the test here]...

The new missile is among the world's fastest and can outpace an enemy warship, Gen. Ali Fadavi of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards told state television.

General Fadavi said only one other country, Russia, had a missile that moved underwater as fast as the Iranian one, which he said had a speed of about 225 miles per hour.

That's because this Iranian weapon -- called the "Hoot," or "whale" -- is based on the Russian Shkval, according to former Naval Intelligence Officer Edmond Pope. "I was informed in late 1990's by a Russian government official that they were working with Iran on this subject," he tells Defense Tech. "A cooperative demonstration/program had already been conducted with them at Lake Issy Kul in Kyrgyzstan."

The Shkval goes so fast because it creates an air bubble around itself, essentially. The process, known as supercavitation, keeps friction to a minimum. "Instead of being encased in water," New Scientist noted, the weapon "is simply surrounded by water vapour, which is less dense and has less resistance." (Pope has more about the technology on his website. The Airborne Combat Engineer blog rounds up supercavitation speculation here.)

As the AP notes, the Russian-Iranian cooperation could have major strategic consequences for the U.S. navy, possibly keeping American ships from operating freely in the Persian Gulf. "The U.S. and Iranian navies have had brush-ups during the past."

During the "Tanker War," when U.S. warships moved into the Gulf to guard oil tankers.

In 1988, the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts was badly damaged by an Iranian mine. In response, the U.S. Navy launched its largest engagement of surface warships since World War II. Two Iranian ships were destroyed, and an American helicopter was shot down, killing the two pilots.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002291.html