Alvand ['Vosper' Mk 5] class

Alvand ['Vosper' Mk 5] class

Refitted in Britain just before the 1979 revolution, she was renamed Alvand. Sister ship Sahand was sunk by US aircraft. The Iranian navy currently includes three destroyers: the ex-HMS Sluys (a modernized 'Battle' class ship) and two ex US 'Allen M. Sumner' class vessels. The Iranians' most modern major units are the three British built frigates, commissioned in 1971-72 and refitted just before the Shah was overthrown. The Vosper Mk 5 is a mid-1960s design equipped with weapons of that period: Sea Killer (an early surface-to-surface missile), good gun armament and a Limbo ASW mortar. Sea Killer is an obsolete system in the 1990s and the Iranians may be short of missiles since they are credited with rockets taken from BM-21 multiple rocket launchers. There were four ships originally: Sahand was sunk by US Navy aircraft in April 1988, and Sabalan was crippled by a laser-guided bomb in the same action and spent two years in dock.


Specifications
Dimensions: length: 94.5 m (31 0 ft), beam 11.1 m (36 ft)

Displacement: 1118 tonnes (1100 tons)

Speed: 39 knots

Armament:
1 quintuple launcher for Sistel Sea Killer Mk 1 SSM,
1 Vickers 4.5-in DP gun,
twin Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
1 Limbo anti-submarine mortar

Crew: 125

Displacement = 1,540 tons full load