January 22, 2021
The Pasdaran claim they have proved they can now use their ballistic missiles to destroy enemy warships 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) away with pinpoint accuracy.
They said successful tests were carried out January 16 on targets in the Indian Ocean.
Speaking to reporters, Major General Hossain Salami, commander of the Pasdaran, said destruction of hostile aircraft carriers and warships by hitting them with very fast long-range ballistic missiles is now among Iran’s main defense strategies.
“One of our main purposes in defense policies and strategies is to be able to hit enemy warships, including aircraft carriers and cruisers, with long-range ballistic missiles,” Salami said.
“While it is customary to destroy mobile naval targets with low-speed cruise missiles, Iran can launch ballistic missiles from inland territories to hit targets in the ocean,” the Pasdar chief said, praising the tactic as a great defense achievement.
Anti-ship missiles have routinely been cruise missiles because they can achieve pinpoint accuracy. But they fly at less than the speed of sound. For Iran to be able to use ballistic missiles, which fly at such great speeds that they are very difficult to shoot down, Iran would have to have achieved the accuracy of the best American missile.
The US Trident missile has a CEP (circular error of probability) of 90 meters (300 feet). That means that if multiple missiles are fired at the same target, half will fall within 90 meters and half farther than 90 meters from the target. A US Nimitz-class carrier is 77 meters (252 feet) wide. So, if four missiles of Trident accuracy are fired at a Nimitz, the chance that one would hit the carrier would be high. With less accuracy, more missiles would have to be fired to have a good chance of actually striking the carrier.
Video released by the Pasdaran showed two missiles striking a target. The Pasdaran did not name the missiles used.
An important qualifier is that the Pasdaran said the warships to be targeted would first have to be located by aerial surveillance. In wartime, US aircraft fan out hundreds of miles from an aircraft carrier to intercept any enemy planes approaching. Furthermore, carriers must operate at high speed to launch planes into the wind, so a carrier would soon be far from wherever it was sighted.
Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the senior military officer in Iran as chairman of the Joint Staff, described the launch of ballistic missiles to destroy the hypothetical enemy’s warships from a distance of 1,800 kilometers as “meaningful,” warning enemies against threatening Iran’s national interests.
“Choosing a barrage of long-range missiles against naval targets illustrates that if the enemies of the Islamic Republic have ill intentions against our national interests, maritime trade routes, and territory, they will come under a missile strike and will be destroyed,” he said.
General Salami said, “The message of these drills is our power and strong determination to defend the establishment and our values against the enemies of Islam and Iran.”
He didn’t address how the Islamic Republic would survive the likely enormous US response if any of its carriers were sunk.