Navy chief: Iran drone carriers further operational capacity ‘very significantly’

Iran’s navy commander says the recent unveiling of naval groups capable of carrying drones “very significantly” increases naval units’ operational capacity.

Rear Admiral Shahram Irani says the naval groups are also capable of producing and repairing new drones onboard during operation.

“What is important is that the operational range, which we call operational dominion, and our intelligence dominance, is now increased by hundreds of kilometers, or even over a thousand kilometers, which is a very unique potential,” he says.

“Today, our naval groups are deployed in distances of more than two thousand kilometers and provide our shipping lines and economic arteries with security. Now suppose there is a naval group there and also has access to a flight squadron, which in itself has a range of over one thousand kilometers. This means our intelligence dominance, our operational dominion improves from two thousand to three thousand kilometers, or even more.”

He added, “In addition, we are reducing our reliance on land as a vessel focused on a support-combat or support mission is a base, which means you have moved a base from inside the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a location two thousand kilometers away deep inside oceans.”

Iran announced its first drone carrier division consisting of ships and submarines on Friday.

The vessels, Iran says, are capable of carrying all types of advanced drones for combat, detection and destruction purposes.

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