Iran Press/ Iran news: In an interview with local media published Saturday, the rear admiral Alireza Tangsiri said, “The movement of the enemy’s vessels in the Persian Gulf is under constant surveillance by the IRGC Navy.”
Pointing to the advanced capabilities of Iran’s defense industry, and to the “great progress” made by the IRGC and the regular Navy and Army, Tangsiri said that “with such equipment and capable forces, the preparedness level of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran is increasing day by day.”
Speaking to reporters in the Iranian port city of Bushehr on Friday, the commander revealed that multiple ships of the IRGC Navy have received new Qadr-474 cruise missiles with a 2,000 km range. These include the Shahid Mahdavi ocean-going warship, and Shahid Soleimani-class warships – a new generation of catamaran-style missile corvettes unveiled by Iran last year.
Iran’s defense sector has made a series of dramatic advances over the years in areas ranging from missile and drone systems to radar and defense electronics, owing its successes to timely investments, a ruthless battle against corruption, and decades of restrictions on the purchase of advanced armaments from traditional Western arms suppliers.
Qadr-474 cruise missiles would make the Iranian missile superior in range to most variants of the Tomahawk – a US subsonic anti-ship and land attack cruise missile that has long been the mainstay of the US Navy. Tomahawks have a range between 460 km (anti-ship) and 1,700 km (land attack), with only the nuclear and ground-launched variants capable of flying distances beyond that – up to 2,500 km. They are armed with either a 450 kg conventional warhead, or a nuclear W80 warhead with a yield of between 5 and 150 kilotons.
Tangsiri did not provide any further information about the Qadr-474’s characteristics but did offer details on the IRGC Navy’s fielding of a separate coastal defense cruise missile known as the Abu Mahdi. The missile, named in honor of late Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – who was slain in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020 alongside IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, has a range of up to 750 km and can alter its destination mid-flight. It is said to be capable of ascending to trajectories high enough for it to be stationed behind mountainous ground cover and launched at targets at sea.
211
