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Hengam - Landing Ship Tank

Iran's modest amphibious warfare fleet is primarily built around LST (Landing Ship Tank) style vessels that lack an over the horizon amphibious assault capability. These ships are 2,940 t full load displacement landing ship logistic (LSLH). Built by British shipbuilder Yarrow & Co. four LST of the Hengam class were delivered in the mid-seventies and mid-eighties. The class has a flight deck for one Sea King–sized helicopter aft. cargo capacity of 600 tons, and can carry 12 T-55 MBT.

Landing craft were designed for the special circumstances of an opposed amphibious landing, in which troops have to be landed onto beaches rather than at a port or quayside. They possessed a shallow draft so that they could get close to the water’s edge and land troops in only shallow water, and a ramp that enabled the troops to exit the craft rapidly and go into action the moment they did so.

Amphibious forces sought a Landing Ship Tank (LST) with speed commensurate with that of other modern amphibious ships. All efforts to design such a ship had been frustrated because of the incompatability of the fine ship form required for high speed and the ramp size and location required lfor debarking vehicles when the ship is beached or married to a causeway. It is necessary, therefore, to provide a ramp system and having a configuration and location which would not compromise the tine ship form required to meet speed requirements.

All of the ramps used for this purpose in the past have numerous shortcomings which greatly limit their usefulness. In most conventional ramp ships, the ramp is hinged at one end similar to a drawbridge, so that the length of the ramp is limited to the distance between decks at the bow. When the conventional ramp is raised or stowed, it forms a watertight cover for the bow opening. Spoon shaped bow doors are provided to close the cut required in the shell of the conventional ship. The limitation of a ship of this form is that it cannot meet the speed requirement.

Two of four Yarrow-shipyard (UK) built Hengam class ships – smaller, more austere versions of the Royal Navy’s Sir Lancelot class — were cancelled after the Shah’s overthrow in 1980 but in 1983 Iran reordered the second pair as ‘hospital ships’, installed with different engine fits than the first. To the standard four Bofors 40 mm AA guns a bow-mounted BM-21 MLRS and two .50-cal machine guns were added, during the war with Iraq. The Bofors have since been replaced with ZU-23 twin AA guns.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates complained to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Abu Dhabi that on 19 January 1997, at 5.30 a.m., units of the border guards, coast guard units and police aircraft accompanying them sighted an object at sea 3 nautical miles off Hamra island in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. It was ascertained that the object was a naval vessel flying the Iranian flag, the Hengam 511, a logistic landing ship fitted out with four 40 mm/60 guns, sailing at a speed of 14.5 knots.

The captain of the vessel, with whom contact had been made for the purpose of ascertaining the reasons for the vessel's entering the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates, stated that he had the authorization of the port authorities of the emirates of Ajman and Ras al-Khaimah, an assertion that was subsequently found to be totally unfounded.

Given such unjustified violation of its territorial waters, the United Arab Emirates vigorously protests against these illegal actions, which constitute a blatant violation of its sovereignty, a flagrant breach of the norms and principles governing relations between States and conduct that is contrary to the principle of good- neighbourliness.

H I Sutton noted "The main current version of the Al-Sabehat 15 is operated by the Iranian Marines' Special Boat Section (SBS) for beach reconnaissance in support of amphibious landings. A new boat-like bow has been grafted on but it is otherwise similar to the baseline Al-Sabehat 15. These craft are not adapted for submarine launch (they could be), and instead are launched from the deck of the Iranian Navy's Hengam Class landing ships."