August 13,2008:
Iran now claims it has developed
and manufactured a UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle). Iran regularly claims to
have developed new military technology. In time, either nothing more is heard
of it beyond the initial press release, or the Iranian wonder weapons turns out
to be a crude knock off of some foreign technology the Iranians either stole,
or bought and smuggled in.
As for UUVs,
there are some excellent models available on the civilian market. Take, for
example, the Remus 100. This is an 80 pound vehicle that looks like a small
torpedo. It is 5.4 feet long and 190mm in diameter. Carrying a side scanning
sonar, and other sensors, a Remus 100 can stay under water for 22 hours,
traveling at a cruising speed of five kilometers an hour (top speed is nearly
twice that.) The UUV can operate up to 100 kilometers from its operator, and
dive to 300 feet. The Remus keeps costs down by using GPS, in addition to
inertial guidance. The UUV surfaces every hour or two to get a GPS fix, and
then goes back to doing what it was programmed to do.
Remus 100 was designed mainly for civilian
applications (inspecting underwater facilities, pollution monitoring,
underwater survey or search). But there are similar military and police
applications, like searching for mines, or other terrorist activities. The U.S.
Navy uses Remus, as do many others. This is in addition to many civilian users.
Australia and New Zealand also use Remus 100, and over 120 are in use. Depending
on sensors carried, each Remus costs $350-500,000. The Iranian tech theft and
smuggling network would have no problem getting one of these for
reverse-engineering. The components are off-the-shelf stuff.
Last year
Iran announced a new miniature submarine design, which it called the Yono
class. The Iranian Navy did not provide much in the way of details. From
available information, this appears to be an Iranian version of the Italian
MG110 mini-subs. Some of these boats were sold to Pakistan years ago. The
Iranians and Pakistanis have been known to exchange information like this (on
foreign weapons) before.
The MG110s are 85 feet long, displace 105 tons
and have a crew of six. These boats are designed to also carry eight combat
scuba divers. These subs can carry two torpedoes or mines externally. Top speed
on the surface (using the diesel engine) is 16 kilometers an hour. The sub can
stay at sea for about five days. It can stay under water for up to eight hours
at a time (on batteries). These subs are hard to detect, but it remains to be
seen if the Iranian boats are as reliable and capable as the Italian ones they
are modeled on. The Iranians love to talk up new weapons they developed
themselves, but when the stuff is actually put to use, the performance tends to
be dismal.
Iran has
bought mini-subs from North Korea, which has been designing and building these
for decades. These UUVs and minisubs are mainly useful for commando type
operations.