The Naval Show of Force That Wasn’t

Several weeks ago, the Iranian authorities announced that the IRGC Navy (Nesda) would hold a major exercise in the Straits of Hormuz on January 11, involving 300 ‘combat vessels’, to be followed by an exercise January 18-23 within the Gulf, all to be concluded by the IRGC’s ‘largest ever fleet review’ on January 27.  

The UK Maritime Trade Organisation (UKMTO) team in Dubai has associated two activities with what it thought might be the delayed start of this major exercise.  The US-flagged container ship Liberty Power received an instruction on January 24 by VHF radio from a small craft, ordering it to change course for Iranian waters, an instruction which it ignored.  Other vessels in the Northern Arabian Gulf have also received similar VHF radio challenges.  While such activity might normally be associated with piracy or IRGC seizure operations, this may have been an indicator that the exercise had begun in the central and northern waters of the Gulf, confirmed when officially-sanctioned social media sites began posting video of exercise activity.

Khowsar missile being fired from a Nesda speedboat (Iranian Ministry of Defense)

This activity featured large numbers of speedboats firing Khowsar 222 missiles. The Khowsar is believed to be based on the Chinese TL-10, designed specifically for export to Iran by the Hongdu Aviation Industry Corporation.  The missile is a ‘fire and forget’ system designed to attack smaller shipping targets,…