Surface Forces: New Iranian Wonder Weapons

Archives

September 22, 2006: Iran has announced a new super weapon; a torpedo boat (the Josham) equipped with the " most advanced 76mm gun ever built". As with past Iranian breakthroughs, the announcement was long on rhetoric and short on details. One interesting tidbit was that the 76mm gun contains 25,000 parts, and fires a new wonder shell called the Fajr (with a range of 19 kilometers and able to reach aircraft flying as high as 19,000 feet.) Most modern 76mm naval guns have far fewer than 25,000 parts (in engineering anything, the fewer parts, the better), and a maximum range of about 19 kilometers (and an effective range of about half that.) There have been some innovative 76mm shells developed in the last decade ago, especially in Italy. But Iran is not saying what these nifty new shells can do.