Iranian Midget Submarine

Well, from Iran's terrible taste in camouflage and their imminent status as a nuclear power, we move to Iranian Naval power. The above is the Ghadir-class midget submarine. The powers that be in Iran have sought for several years to find a way to fight the Navies of the West, especially the US, in the waters near Iran. Despite the rather huge disparity in Naval power, the Iranians have several advantages in this theoretical battle. The waters of the Persian Gulf are relatively shallow and busy, making it harder for big subs to hide and hard for them to use acoustic methods to search for enemy subs. Also, in a potential conflict, the West must not only defeat the Iranians, but also keep open the vital sea lanes and prevent an ecological disaster from destroyed oil infrastructure. Whereas the Iranians would have a major victory in the eyes of many if they are able to sink even a few Western warships.



Well, to the specifics of this craft. The Ghadir is a class of midget diesel/electric submarines manufactured in Iran. It is fairly accepted that despite the Iranian propaganda machine's claim that the sub was designed by Iranian engineers, the sub was built from North Korean plans and with their technical expertise. And before we snicker into our hands about our friends the North Koreans, keep in mind that they were able to sink a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, with a similar sub.

The Ghadir is named after Ghadir Khumm a Shiite holy site in Saudi Arabia.

There are 11 Ghadirs in service and more on the way, with new subs delivered in 2009 and 2010. They are about 90 feet long and have a crew complement of 18. While the sonar and sensors and so forth are unknown at this time, we can probably expect them to be based on older Russian and Chinese equipment, like most of the Iranian arsenal. The Iranian state-owned media claims that the subs are "stealth" and capable of evading sonar, but I am going to chalk that up with other, similarly wild claims about the indigenous weapons from Iran. The sub has two torpedo tubes and could likely only carry two torpedoes. It has been said that the Ghadir can also fire tube launched missiles. While the Ghadir is not the state of the art, it could still be a formidable weapon, especially employed in groups. Recently, a war game showed that swarming tactics using small, fast, torpedo and anti-ship missile armed boats could be a serious threat to a US Carrier Group. However, the US Navy is pretty much the world master in anti-submarine warfare, and in any kind of large scale combat, I would expect the loss rate of this little sub to be very high. If it was located, its chance of getting away is small, and if hit with any modern ASW weapon, it would likely sink in a minute or two, if it was not immediately torn in half. Its only hope is that its size could help it hide in shallow water. The Ghadir and the North Korean Yono-class are not to be underestimated, but you wouldn't get me into one. It is apples and oranges, but no Japanese midget subs survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, and that was hardly the best day for the US Navy.

North Korean Yono-class submarine