Australia Reviews Plan to Double Submarine Fleet

Australia will review plans to double its fleet of submarines, with the new conservative government under pressure to rein in its budget even as Asian neighbors dramatically ramp up military spending.

Defense Minister David Johnston said he was unconvinced that Australia needed as many as 12 new conventional submarines currently foreseen by military planners. It comes as regional neighbors, led by China, build up their naval and air arsenals amid disputes over territorial waters, especially in North Asia.

At a cost of up to 36 billion Australian dollars (US$32.28 billion), doubling the submarine fleet would be the country's largest single military purchase

How dangerous is Iran's submarine fleet?

Should we be worried by a recent announcement Iran has retrofitted its fleet with 'the best and most equipped systems existing in the world,'and that some of the fleet is deployed to the inland Caspian

A senior Iranian naval commander announced recently that Iran has retrofitted its submarine fleet with "the best and most equipped systems existing in the world" and that some of these submarines had even been deployed to the inland Caspian Sea. Should we be worried about this new underwater threat? Probably not, the same admiral said two weeks ago that Iran is not planning to build a nuclear submarine.

In an interview with FARS news agency, Rear Admiral, Abbas Zamini, the deputy commander for technical affairs of the Iranian Navy said that "our old units have been renovated and updated and meantime our newly-built units are also equipped with the world's most up-to-date technologies which are suitable for our region."

These systems apparently include radar, sonar and electronic warfare systems along with torpedoes and upgraded diesel engines. In another quote from this interview, appearing on the MehrNews website, Zamini says that Iran is planning to deploy "light" submarines in the Caspian Sea and that "three super-heavy submarines have already been deployed to the country’s southern waters."

Zamini didn't go into any technical details but at least the political motive for this interview is clear, with new sanctions to come in force this weekend on July 1 against exports of Iranian oil, the regime is anxious to highlight its ability to obstruct oil exports of other nations around the Persian Gulf. His mention of the Caspian Sea is obviously aimed at spooking Israel's new ally to the north, Azerbaijan.

How dangerous is Iran's underwater fleet?

Any reports of indigenous submarine development should be taken with a pinch of salt. The country in the past has relied on submarines built in Russia and North Korea. While Iran has made some progress in developing a local arms industry, submarine construction and even refurbishment necessitate a wealth of relevant experience in precision engineering. Iran has made at least three attempts so far to build medium-sized subs, the Qaeem, Fatah and Nahang, but at the most, only two of these are in service and they are probably locally-produced version of North Korean boats. Iran claims to have eighteen Ghadir-class small submarines, also of North Korean design, but these are very limited vessels, with two torpedo tubes and would only be used for littoral operations, close to the coast.

The three "super-heavy submarines" Zamini has mentioned are not new. These can only be the three antiquated Kilo-class subs his nation purchased over two decades ago from Russia. Based on 1970s-era Soviet technology, they are easily detected by the advanced systems Iran's rivals have on hand in the Gulf. Most naval experts believe that if Iran will try to attack shipping going through the Gulf or its exit, the Strait of Hormuz, it will use anti-shipping missiles, launched from the coast or small, fast, explosive-laden attack boats, that can be disguised as civilian boats and are not easily detected before they are on a collision course.

There is another reason that Iran can make only limited use of its submarine fleet. Most of Iran's naval bases are along the 1000-kilometer long coast of the narrow Persian Gulf, which could potentially allow it to block the sea-lanes through which much of the world's oil supplies are delivered, but it also leaves very little room for a submarine to hide, especially in the shallow waters of the Gulf which at no point are deeper than ninety meters. The U.S. Navy, along with its Sunni Arabian Gulf allies and other western nations have a major concentration of anti-submarine assets which spend most of their time observing the Iranian ports and tracking those submarines.

The Caspian light submarines are indeed a threat to Azerbaijan and can be used to infiltrate saboteurs into the central Asian, secular Muslim republic. But this has been known for years and the Azeri Navy has long been working with the U.S, and recently also with Israel to defend its coastline from Iran.

Altogether, Zamini shouldn't be taken too seriously. Only two weeks ago he gave another interview to Fars in which he said that his nation's “astonishing progress in developing and acquiring civilian nuclear technology for various power-generation, agricultural and medical purposes,” enables it to “think of manufacturing nuclear-fueled submarines.” Since it took Iran nearly forty years to complete its first nuclear reactor and less than a year into full operation, is already urgently in need of maintenance, it is hard to imagine the country being capable of building a new reactor, small enough to fit inside a submarine, let alone a large enough submarine that can actually put to sea.