Video and photos released by the U.S. Navy on the 27th showed two U.S. patrol boats and several speedboats of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Persian Gulf. “As a result of harassment by several Iranian speedboats, the U.S. boat fired warning shots in the direction of the Iranian speedboat.” The conflict has added to fears that the U.S. and Iran could fire their guns. 27 U.S. “war zone” website noted that Iran in the recent intercept operation launched a mysterious catamaran.
According to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet revealed the news, local time on the 27th at about 8 pm, a number of Iranian speedboats quickly approached the United States patrol boat. “The U.S. patrol boat issued several warnings, but the Iranian speedboat did not change course, and eventually the U.S. fired warning.”
According to the War Zone website, this is not the only recent clash between small U.S. and Iranian vessels. On April 2, Iran also launched the mysterious catamaran Shahid Nazeri, which suddenly intercepted two U.S. patrol boats under the cover of three near-shore speedboats. Reported that during the interception process, the Iranian catamaran approached the U.S. patrol boat, from 70 yards in front of the U.S. boat high-speed through, and then aggressively close to the head of the U.S. boat. “In order to avoid a collision, the U.S. ship left the channel with a radio and radio warning.”
The U.S. Navy was impressed by the high-speed and flexible nature of Iranian catamarans. According to the U.S. Navy, it drove at high speed from the front of the U.S. patrol boat “repeatedly at unnecessary close range” for “unsafe and unprofessional” drills. The U.S. Navy has asked ships under its jurisdiction to conduct targeted defense exercises to avoid possible “collision risks.”
Reported that “Shahid Nazeri” catamaran captain 55 meters, 14 meters wide, drainage capacity of about 800 tons, by the U.S. Navy as a “rapid support ship”, can transport 100 armed personnel. There is also a large deck at the rear of the hull that can carry supplies or carry light helicopters. The ship entered service in 2016, but has had little exposure, except that it appeared in naval exercises between Russia and Iran this year.
Although the publicly unveiled Shahid Nazeri has only two multi-barrel rapid-fire guns, no other weapons and appears to have limited operational capabilities, photos previously released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards show that the ship can carry AB-206 helicopters and is equipped with anti-ship missiles.
In addition, the U.S. Navy News Network said satellite photos show a new mysterious catamaran on the platform of Iran’s Shahid Maharati naval shipyard. Reported that Iran named it “Shahid Suleimani” level, in memory of January 3 last year at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq was killed by a U. S. drone senior Iranian general Suleimani. By name, Iran built the new missile boat against the United States. The catamaran is larger than the Shahid Nazeri and could have a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. Perhaps this means that in the future the U.S. Navy will be fighting a growing number of Iranian catamarans in the Persian Gulf.
