In early January the ship ran aground on rocks near a jetty protecting the harbor it was attempting to enter during bad weather.
At first Iran played down the severity of the situation but after a month it was clear the ship was breaking up and probably unsalvageable.
With the loss of the Damavand Iran has only one recently built large (over 1,000 tons) surface warship. The Damavand was the second of what was supposed to be a class of seven ships and entered service in 2013. A third, a slightly larger, version of this type of ship (Sahand) has a hull built but not much else because of budget problems. The first ship of this class, Jamaran, is based in the Persian Gulf, with most of the Iranian Navy, which consists mostly of small coastal missile boats, small locally built submarines and lots of speedboats manned by fanatic members of the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps).
So this is one of their mighty ships that was going to come over here and challenge us in the Gulf?
ReplyDeleteHahahahahahahahahaha
The Shah of Iran ordered some really nice destroyers (which became the US "Dead Admiral Class") but we kept them when the savages took over Iran. The problem with having a navy is that you must maintain it. The savages have the same problem with their aircraft.
ReplyDelete...because they're savages.
DeleteI rember the old Gulf War joke: Why does the Iraqi navy have
ReplyDeleteglass-bottom boats? A: So they can see the old Iraqi navy.
This is the fate of all collectivist governments. I read
a story by P. J. O'Rourke. He went up the Volga River with
collection of blue-haired American communists. He said he
saw evidence of concrete flaking off a building that was
still under construction. There was a line about the
recipe being simple: Gravel, sand, cement and water.
The rulers siphon off the wealth and collectivist
economic policies create inflation and stifle production.
Everything that rusts or rots, will. Some Russian once
stated that the only well maintained road in the Soviet
Union was the one leading the Dachas of the ruling class.
Wanna bet the captain on this ship is no more?