Confrontation in the Persian Gulf : Loss of Frigates Deals Another Blow to Iran’s Already Depleted Navy

The loss of two frigates in clashes Monday with U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf could be a severe blow to Iran’s navy, already depleted by its long-running war with Iraq and plagued by a lack of spare parts and poor maintenance.

As many as half of Iran’s 44-ship fleet may now be out of action, and the overall force is badly outgunned by the 25 to 30 warships the U.S. Navy has been deploying in and around the gulf, Pentagon officials say.

Iran’s four frigates, 1,220-ton vessels equipped with sophisticated missile systems and anti-aircraft defenses, are the centerpiece of its fleet and have been used extensively in attacks on oil tankers in the gulf. Two--the Sahand and the Sabalan--were crippled by U.S. missiles Monday, weakening Iran’s ability to attack the commercial shipping that helps bolster Iraq’s economy.

Iran’s gulf campaign must now rely increasingly on small, swift Swedish-built launches that can harass tankers but cannot inflict much damage or withstand return fire. Three of these craft, armed with machine guns and portable weapons, were disabled by U.S. fire Monday, and three others were sunk in skirmishes with U.S. forces last October.

The Iranian navy has an assortment of larger vessels, but they have suffered extensively from Iraqi attacks and the U.S. arms embargo, which has blocked spare parts and ammunition, military officials said.

Iran has three destroyers, but all are of World War II vintage, and defense experts say the ships are now only partially operational. It also has a number of French-built boats large enough to carry Harpoon anti-ship missiles, but Iran reportedly has few of these missiles, so the small vessels are used only as gunboats.

The U.S. force in the gulf region features larger ships with greater firepower as well as small boats used for minesweeping and defensive support.

The U.S. once had 40 ships in the area, but it withdrew 12 in February. In addition to the aircraft carrier Enterprise, on patrol outside the gulf, the fleet now consists of two cruisers, four destroyers, 11 frigates, six minesweepers and a variety of support ships, Pentagon spokesmen said Monday.

Several of the ships, including the destroyers Merrill, O’Brien and Lynde McCormick and the frigate Bagley, are based in San Diego. The Enterprise is based in Alameda, and several of the remaining ships in the fleet are based in Long Beach.

U.S. officials said they were surprised that Iran risked two of its frigates in Monday’s clash. The ships, built in Britain in the late 1960s, are armed with both British-built Seakiller surface-to-surface missiles and Soviet-built SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, but the Iranian ships were outmatched by the U.S. forces.

Both frigates fired missiles at U.S. planes in separate encounters. The Sahand was set ablaze by return fire from aircraft and a ship, while the Sabalan was damaged by a missile fired from a warplane, Pentagon officials said.

According to Jane’s Fighting Ships, the standard reference on naval forces, the Iranian navy before the Iran-Iraq War also had two small corvettes--lightly armed escort ships--built by the U.S. Navy in 1962 and transferred to Iran in 1964; six 100-foot patrol boats of the type used by the U.S. Coast Guard; 14 British-built Hovercraft armed with machine guns, plus supply and landing craft and minesweepers. However, some of these vessels have been damaged in Iraqi attacks, and their status is unclear.