Military

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Equipment

Modernization

The IRGCN presents a real analytical challenge for bean-counters. Many sources adopt a "rule of reason" on what gets counted, excluding most units below 100 tons for combat vessels, and below 1,000 tons for support vessels. The alternative is a compilation largely consisting of speedboats and scows. But the IRGCN is a navy of speedboats. It is the modern epitome of the Jeune Ecole's (young school's) advocacy of torpedo boats as the French Navy's adaptive response to the capital ships of other European powers of the late 19th Century. But speedboats are hard to track, and authoritative sources are in pretty serious dis-array as to designations, numbers and characteristics. The best response seems to be to "teach the controversy".

The ONI naming system includes a one word name, followed by numerals that indicate the length of the vessel in meters. The provenance and meadning of ONI name is unclear, but is not derived from the local Iranian name. Irans's Marine Industry Group [MIG] also has an alpha-numeric designation system.

Sources

• USNI2013 - 2013 - Combat Fleets of the World, 16th Edition
• ONI2017 - 2017 - Iranian Naval Forces - A tale of Two Navies Office of Naval Intelligence, February 2017
• IISS2019 - 2019 - The Military Balance 2019