Friday, April 23, 2010

Iran's radar-evading unmanned speedboat debuts in Hormuz exercise



Debka
debkafile's military sources report that on Thursday, April 22, the first day of their large-scale military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards put their new radar-evading, unmanned Ya Mahdi speedboat through its paces.

Operated by remote control, this vessel is claimed by Iran to be able to track warships and drive 7-meter holes in their hulls with its missiles. Tehran reports that the speedboat is being mass produced.

Thousands of ground, air an naval troops are taking part in the three-day Iranian exercise for "securing" the narrow waterway through which some 40 percent of the world's oil supplies flow.

Our military sources report that Ya Mahdi's design copies the Bladerunner 51 sporting speedboat, which was built for a racing champion who broke world records for speed. In January 2009, Iran managed to beat sanctions and get hold of the original vessel for the Revolutionary Guards.

At the beginning of this month, debkafile disclosed that the model under construction in Iran had a speed of 61.5 mph and was to be armed with Russian-made Shkval (Screaming Storm) torpedoes which, at a speed of 360 knots per hour, were the fastest in the market and therefore invisible to radar.

The IRGC Navy commander Gen. Ali Fadavi boasted upon obtaining the Bladerunner that no warship was safe from this vessel. However Western naval experts say that operating unmanned speedboats by remote control is very tricky and will certainly impair the accuracy of their missiles.And here is the rest of it.

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