Sunk

We are seeing the total destruction of Iran’s naval capabilities unfold day by day. Earlier this morning, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. Navy submarine had made the first torpedo kill since World War II against an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean. Now we are seeing footage of one of Iran’s strangest and most advanced warships, the Shahid Soleimani class IRIS Shahid Sayyad Shirazi (FS313-03), being struck and set ablaze. The ship would later sink, according to the Department of War.

The first ship in her class, the Shahid Soleimani, was commissioned in 2022, and is a very unique vessel indeed. Built for littoral combat, it incorporates a number of interesting features for a ship of its size. This includes a vertical launch system with two cell sizes that is capable of slinging air defense missiles. It also features anti-ship cruise missiles, gun systems, and a large flight deck. Clearly, Shahid Sayyad Shirazi‘s capabilities offered little help to its survival, as the video, shot by a U.S. surveillance aircraft, shows.

In fact, if you look closely at the image at the top of the story, it appears that either a missile is exiting one of the IRIS Shahid Sayyad Shirazi‘s vertical launch cells or it is stuck on its launch rail. We also see an image with smoke streaks surrounding the ship. It isn’t clear if this was it launching weapons at its attackers, or the attacker’s weapons finding their way to the Shahid Sayyad Shirazi.

It’s also worth noting that the IRIS Shahid Sayyad Shirazi‘s first-in-class progenitor is named after the IRGC commander that U.S. forces killed during the first Trump Administration in a strike near the Baghdad airport. This assassination in 2020 went on to largely set the tone between Tehran and Washington during the remainder of Trump’s first and now his second presidency.

We previously noted that at least one of the four Shahid Soleimani class corvettes escaped initial U.S. airstrikes on its home port of Bandar Abbas, Iran’s most important naval base that sits right in the Strait of Hormuz. The ship was at its berth just days before the war kicked off, but was nowhere to be found in subsequent satellite imagery. That vessel very well could have been the one sunk.

Ракетные катамараны Ирана типа Shahid Soleimani, обзор

This class of vessels is the most advanced of Iran’s catamaran warships, which are often configured in a puzzling manner. These ships are active components of the naval arm of the IRGC, nonetheless, and have played a part in close encounters with U.S. Navy warships in the region.

As an update to our prior reporting on the strikes on Bandar Abbas, new satellite imagery we have reviewed appears to show both frigates that were struck in the first attacks now having sunk. The single Kilo class submarine, Iran’s most advanced, which was docked at the base, also appears to have been sunk, and a large scorch mark sits next to where it was tied-up pier-side. U.S. Central Command confirmed it had targeted the “most operational Iranian submarine” in ongoing strikes last night.