Iran Press/ Iran News: The latest missile unveiled in this field is the 'Abu Mahdi' anti-ship cruise missile, which is named after the great martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and is an important step in Iran's naval offensive capability.
With the development and construction of this long-range anti-ship cruise missile, Iran has entered a special and strategic club in the world.
The important thing about this defense achievement is that to date, only three countries, the United States, Russia, and China, have anti-ship cruise missiles with a range of over 1000 km, and Iran has become the fourth country in the world to attain such a missile.
The 'Abu Mehdi' anti-ship cruise missile, which was unveiled at the same time as the 'Haj Qasem' ballistic missile on August 20, 2020, has the ability to launch from a variety of offshore and ground platforms to targets.
Abu Mahdi cruise missile was demonstrated for the first time while before, the Iranian Armed Forces had various types of cruise missiles with different ranges from 25 to 350 km.
The Commander of the Iranian Navy, Rear-Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, announced in August 2020 that Iran's longest-range cruise missile, the 'Talayeh', named after the martyr Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, would be delivered to the Navy.
Based on the images released from the missile's tests, it has been shown that it will be launched from mobile ground launchers.
The first units using this system will probably be the coast-to-sea missile units of Iran's Navy on the Makran shores.
According to Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier-General Qasem Taqizadeh, the main feature of the Abu Mahdi cruise missile is that it can be fired from deep waters.
Soon, the Navy will be equipped with this missile and the security of the water borders of 1,000 kilometers will be provided.
Features
With a clever move and using the cruise missile platform against the ground targets of the 'Soumar' family, Iranian defense specialists succeeded in developing the 'Abu Mahdi long-range anti-ship cruise missile.
The use of previous platforms (such as the one used in the Hoveyzeh missile) reduces R&D costs, including design, construction, testing, and production process time.
'Soumar' and 'Hoveyzeh' cruise missiles (with a range of 1350 km) and 'Meshkat' (with a range of 2000 km, of which no picture has been released yet) are among Iran's ground cruise missiles.
These missiles were originally designed for long-range; so just by changing their targeting system and using active radar (for marine cruise missiles), change the type of warhead to a special type for anti-ship operations, and the elimination of ground cruise missile navigation and guidance systems (TERCOM and DSMAC) and the use of integrated GPS / INS navigation, made it possible to achieve an anti-ship cruise missile with a similar range.
This technical possibility became a reality with the 'Abu Mahdi' missile in practice, and a range of over 1000 km was achieved for Iranian anti-ship missiles.
This increased Iran's ability to defend its coasts early against enemy attack vessels threefold.
Abu Mahdi missile uses a turbojet engine from the 'Tulou' family, which has a long and solid history of operation in 'Karrar' drones and cruise missiles of the 'Noor', 'Qader', and 'Qadir' families.
Due to the appropriate thrust control capabilities of this type of engine and sufficient fuel that can be placed in the larger body of the new cruise missile, as well as the type of wings, the Abu Mahdi missile can fly at a variety of speed ranges.
Unlike the 'Noor' family of missiles, which use triangular wings in the middle of the fuselage, the 'Abu Mahdi' missile uses rectangular wings with a circular tip that protrude from within the fuselage.
The control wings of the missile are also triple and installed at the end of the fuselage, which is also different from the previous conventional Iranian anti-ship missiles.
The solid-fuel booster that provides the initial acceleration of the missile, instead of trapezoidal wings in 'Noor' family missiles, uses the design of lattice wings, which has a much more advanced design and a lower weight.
The high range of the missile and the use of advanced navigation systems make it possible to fire from a greater depth of the country in coast-fired samples, which makes it difficult for the enemy to spot the launchers before firing.
These two features make it possible for Abu Mahdi missiles to choose different routes to reach a target and even attack the enemy vessel from the opposite side.
Because the Abu Mahdi missile is actually a generation of surface cruise missiles, it has sufficient flight capabilities for sea-skimming which is facilitated by radar altimeters.
Moreover, the missile can start flying closer to the water due to having more fuel than previous anti-ship missiles, which helps to hide from some enemy detection sensors.
Operational capability
Given the possibility of deploying coastal launchers to fire Abu Mahdi missiles and destroy targets over long distances, this missile will provide the Navy with significant capabilities to counter enemy vessels.
A very large area of the Arabian Sea (located between the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean) will be covered by this missile, to test of firing from the southeastern coast of the country and assuming a range of 1200 km for the missile,
This will be a serious, powerful, and special warning for the US Navy.
In the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the issue of long-range anti-ship attacks in order to create anti-access space and keep enemy aircraft carriers and logistics vessels off the coast of the country is on the agenda, which will create a new and broad layer of defense lines for Iran.
Hence, by constructing the Abu Mahdi cruise missile, Iran has practically responded to a critical threat and eliminated it.
Preliminary studies show that this missile, due to its very large size, cannot be easily installed on current Navy vessels, but specifically in Iranian ships' next generations and in weights of 5,000 tons and above, which will be equipped with vertical launch systems, will be easy to install; an issue that will greatly increase the firepower of Iranian ships.
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