The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Navy took delivery of a massive new warship on Thursday. The Shahid Mahdavi is a 36,000-ton, 240 meter long, 27 meter wide commercial cargo conversion fitted out with advanced weapons systems and the latest in Iranian-made radar and defense electronics.
The multi-purpose vessel, reportedly converted from a Panamax container ship, was greeted in a ceremony by IRGC Navy chief Alireza Tangsiri, who praised its ability to provide the Revolutionary Guards with new power projection capabilities.
“The Shahid Mahdavi warship is like a mobile maritime city ready to carry out ocean-going missions…to create sustainable security of sea communication lines and provide aid to the commercial and fishing fleets of the Islamic Republic and regional countries,” Tangsiri said in a ceremony in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
The ship contains an array of Iranian surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles (including the Khordad-3 missile system which shot down a stealthy US drone in 2019), cruise missiles, helicopter pads, and the capability to launch an array of drones and speedboats. The ship is also equipped with a 3D phased array radar, electronic warfare and advanced communication systems.
The Shahid Mahdavi’s debut was accompanied by the launch of 95 new missile-launching Ashura and Tareq-class speedboats. The small, highly maneuverable vessels are said to be capable of launching their payload at distances up to 180 km, shoring up Iran’s ability to secure the Persian Gulf at standoff ranges.
The Shahid Mahdavi bears the name of Nader Mahdavi, the late IRGC naval commander who engaged in naval battles against Iraqi and US forces in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. Mahdavi was killed in October 1987, with Iranian officials accusing the US of torturing him to death aboard the USS Chandler after a brief period of captivity. Mahdavi has been dubbed a Che Guevara-style heroic figure of Iranian Islamic revolutionary lore by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The Shahid Mahdavi is the second successful conversion of a large commercial vessel for military purposes by Iran. In the spring and summer of 2021, a two-ship Iranian Navy flotilla consisting of the Makran mobile forward base and the Sahand destroyer kept the US and its allies on edge for months as it sailed through the Indian Ocean, up the coast of Africa, into the Atlantic, through the English Channel and to the Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg, Russia to take part in a massive naval parade.
6 September 2022, 16:41 GMT
The Makran’s complement of onboard weapons includes Qadir and Abu-Mahdi cruise missiles, speedboats armed with Katyusha-style rocket launchers, and an array of possible roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) mobile weapons platforms.
Iran’s military engineers have tinkered with the idea of using retired commercial vessels as warships since the late 1990s, with the Makran built out of a converted oil tanker, taking just six months to complete and costing significantly less than a purpose-built warship. The 111,500+ ton vessel can serve as a support ship carrying fuel, troops and equipment, plus weapons systems, drones, helicopters and smaller boats stationed on its football field-sized deck or in its large cargo hold.
US media first picked up on Iran’s efforts to convert a Panamax cargo ship into the Shahid Mahdavi in the spring of 2022, citing publicly available open-source intelligence.