74 Sahand - Mowj Class
Iran's Navy launched the indigenous Sahand destroyer in the southern port of Bandar Abbas on September 8, 2012 alongside the overhauled "super-heavy" Tareq 901 submarine.
A senior Iranian military official said Iran will launch another indigenous destroyer called Jamaran-3 next year in line with efforts to boost the country's naval capabilities. Deputy Head of the Industry and Research Institute of the Iranian Defense Ministry Mohammad Eslami said on 18 March 2013 that the Jamaran-3 destroyer will become operational by the end of the next Persian calendar year, which started on March 21, 2013.
Iran’s newest destroyer “Sahand” was 70 percent complete and was expected to be launched within the next few months, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said 17 August 2015. Sahand is the third destroyer produced as part of the Mowj (Wave) project, Sayyari told a gathering of Iranian veterans in Tehran, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported. Sahand’s predecessors, Jamaran and Damavand, were in service with the Navy and used for naval missions in international waters.
Iran has been building up its naval power in recent years to protect ships and oil tankers from pirates and deal with a growing hostile US naval presence in and around the Persian Gulf. The Sahand is the third vessel to be developed by the Mowj program after the Jamaran and the Damavand frigates.
On 01 December 2018 the Iranian Navy launched the Sahand at the port of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz. The new destroyer was said to have radar-evading stealth properties [the slab sides are an improvement over previous units], electronic warfare capabilities and a flight deck for helicopters. According to Iranian television, the destroyer is packed with advanced weaponry including anti-ship and anti-aircraft guns, torpedo launchers, surface-to-surface missiles and surface-to-air missiles. The vessel may also soon be fitted with the Kamand close-in weapon system, capable of firing 4,000-7,000 rounds per minute at close-range targets within a range of about 2 km.
The ship is equipped with four engines, and can sustain long-distance voyages for 150 days while accompanied by a support vessel. "This vessel is the result of daring and creative design relying on the local technical knowledge of the Iranian Navy…and has been built with stealth capabilities," Rear Admiral Alireza Sheikhi, head of the shipyard which built the destroyer, told Iran's IRNA news agency.
The new destroyer and the Kharg, another Iranian destroyer is expected to be among the two or three warships Iran plans to send to Venezuela for a goodwill visit sometime "in the near future," according to Iranian Navy Deputy Commander Admiral Tourraj Hassani.
The Sahand is the third of Mowj-class frigates built by Iran after the Jamaran and the Damavand. According to Press TV, the Sahand has twice the offensive and defensive capabilities as its predecessor, the Jamaran frigate, the lead ship of the Moudge-class of frigates launched in 2010 as part of the Mowj (Wave) program to replace its mostly US-made vessels with indigenous Iranian warships. "This vessel is the result of daring and creative design relying on the local technical knowledge of the Iranian Navy... and has been built with stealth capabilities," Rear-Admiral Alireza Sheikhi, head of the navy shipyards that built the destroyer, told the state news agency IRNA.
Iran launched its first locally made destroyer in 2010 as part of a program to revamp its navy equipment which dates from before the 1979 Islamic revolution and is mostly US-made. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei described the Navy's development of the new ships as proof of Iran's ability to create modern weaponry. He emphasized that Tehran was not looking for confrontation with any other country, but that it would promote its defence capabilities.
