Article Summary: Iran has officially launched its first unconventional aircraft carrier, the IRGC Shahid Bagheri, a converted container ship designed to carry drones, helicopters, and missile systems.
Key Point #1 While it lacks the firepower and survivability of traditional aircraft carriers, the ship provides Iran with a long-range naval presence, expanding its power projection beyond the Persian Gulf.
Key Point #2 The vessel’s ability to operate drone swarms and missile platforms raises concerns for regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States. But how effective will it be in combat? Experts are divided on whether the Shahid Bagheri is a legitimate naval asset or just a symbolic show of force.
Iran’s New ‘Aircraft Carrier’: What the Shahid Bagheri Means for Naval Warfare
It looks like Iran has gone and built itself an aircraft carrier, of a sort.
The IRGC Shahid Bagheri, known for two years to be under construction and undergoing trials, has been accepted into service by the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Named after a martyr of the Iran-Iraq War, the Shahid Bagheri represents an effective if altogether odd contribution to Iran’s maritime power.
Ship Characteristics
The IRGC Shahid Bagheri has been converted over the last three years from a South Korean civilian container ship. At 41,000 tons and 780’ long, she is not a small vessel.
Reports indicate that Shahid Bagheri can make over twenty knots, and Iranian authorities claim an implausible 22000 operational range. She sports an angled, sloped flight deck some 590’ long.
In addition to her air group, Shahid Bagheri is said to carry a suite of offensive and defensive missiles, including short and medium range anti-ship missiles and short-range surface-to-air missiles.
The ship also carries small boats and evidently Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), making it a “mothership” much like American and Chinese amphibious assault ships. Much of the technical nature of the ship remains hazy because of Iran’s habitual overstating of its own military capabilities.
The Shahid Bagheri is an unusual looking ship, with a long, sloped flight deck ahead of a superstructure tower located about one third ahead of the stern. Indeed, it visually resembles the earliest incarnation of HMS Furious, one of the Royal Navy’s first aircraft carriers, and the Soviet Moskva class aviation cruisers. Many naval analysts and professionals have been inclined to humor at this new warship, both because of its odd appearance and its unusual airgroup.
But… an aircraft carrier is a flat-decked ship that carries aircraft, and Shahid Bagheri is a large flat-decked ship that carries aircraft, of a sort.
Is this an Aircraft Carrier?
And so Iran has an aircraft carrier, and assuming that the Iranians can manage the exceedingly difficult tasks associated with operating an air group of any size from a maritime platform, it will mean an effective extension of Iranian naval influence.
Shahid Bagheri joins TCG Anadolu (“The Beast of the Black Sea”) in the small family of aircraft carriers dedicated to the service of unmanned aerial vehicles. The Turkish warship, built to a Spanish design, was initially expected to carry F-35B STOVL stealth fighters, but was reconceived as a drone carrier after Turkey was excluded from the F-35 project.
Nor are Turkey and Iran alone; many of the world’s carrier operators have begun to think seriously about how to best take advantage of UAVs.
The size and configuration of an aircraft carrier has long depended on the needs of the aircraft that fly from the ship. Larger aircraft require longer runways, larger hangar spaces, and more powerful catapults, all of which change the architecture of a warship.
If smaller aircraft become available (and most UAVs are smaller than modern manned aircraft) then the requirements of the ship necessarily shift.
Air Group
What aircraft exactly is Shahid Bagheri supposed to carry? This remains a bit unclear. Iranian-released footage revealed an aircraft similar to a smaller version of the Qaher-313 fighter, a project of dubious provenance, as well as small Ababil-3 drones. As with any other large flat-decked vessel, the Shahid Bagheri can operate helicopters with a variety of load outs.
Qaher-313. Image Credit: Iran State Media.
The large flight deck and ski jump offer room for growth, and it is possible that the ship could be a platform for long-range “suicide drone” attacks, although it is not yet obvious the extent to which Iran has modified its existing drone fleet for maritime conditions.
Iran’s Aircraft Carrier Challenge?
Can we overstate the significance of the ship?
As with all things associated with Iranian military capabilities, the answer is surely yes.
The ship is not constructed with military tolerances and with the damage control systems that warships take for granted, and is consequently extremely vulnerable to any kind of attack. It does not appear to have much in the way of either offensive or defensive weaponry apart from its air group.
Iran does not possess a sufficiently large navy to regularly deploy a “carrier battle group” in the typical sense of the term.
But if Iran needs naval presence distant from its shores in a non-combat situation, it now has that option. That should give Iran’s rivals in the region and beyond some cause for thought and concern.
Qaher-313. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley
Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
