Iranian 'Nimitz' (the 'Target Barge')

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/middleeast/a-ship-being-built-in-iran-looks-awfully-familiar-to-the-us.html

WASHINGTON — Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.

Intelligence analysts studying satellite photos of Iranian military installations first noticed the vessel rising from the Gachin shipyard, near Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, last summer. The ship has the same distinctive shape and style of the Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers, as well as the Nimitz’s number 68 neatly painted in white near the bow. Mock aircraft can be seen on the flight deck.

The Iranian mock-up, which American officials described as more like a barge than a warship, has no nuclear propulsion system and is only about two-thirds the length of a typical 1,100-foot-long Navy carrier. Intelligence officials do not believe that Iran is capable of building an actual aircraft carrier.

“Based on our observations, this is not a functioning aircraft carrier; it’s a large barge built to look like an aircraft carrier,” said Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. “We’re not sure what Iran hopes to gain by building this. If it is a big propaganda piece, to what end?”

Whatever the purpose, American officials acknowledged on Thursday that they wanted to reveal the existence of the vessel to get out ahead of the Iranians.

Navy and other American intelligence analysts surmise that the vessel, which Fifth Fleet wags have nicknamed the Target Barge, is something that Iran could tow to sea, anchor and blow up — while filming the whole thing to make a propaganda point, if, say, the talks with the Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program go south.

Iran has previously used barges as targets for missile firings during training exercises, filmed the episodes and then televised them on the state-run news media, Navy officials said.

“It is not surprising that Iranian military forces might use a variety of tactics — including military deception tactics — to strategically communicate and possibly demonstrate their resolve in the region,” said an American official who has closely followed the construction of the mock-up.

But while Iran has tried to conceal its underground nuclear-related sites, the Iranian Navy has taken no steps to cloak from prying Western satellites what it is building pierside at the busy shipyard. “The system is often too opaque to understand who hatched this idea, and whether it was endorsed at the highest levels,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Iran has sought to exploit captured or pirated American military technology in the past. Last year, Iran’s political and military elite boasted that their forces had shot down an American intelligence-gathering drone, a remotely piloted Navy vehicle called ScanEagle that they quickly put on display for the Iranian news media.

Navy officials responded that no drones had been shot down by enemy fire, although the Pentagon acknowledged at the time that it had lost a small number of ScanEagles, likely to engine malfunction.

Iranian Navy officials could not be immediately reached for comment as the country prepared to celebrate its New Year festivities on Friday. American intelligence officials cited a photograph taken on Feb. 22 in Bandar Abbas and a brief description in Persian of the vessel on a website for Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade.

For now, Navy analysts and American intelligence officials say they are not unduly concerned about the mock ship. But the fact that the Iranians are building it, presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes, contrasts with the fact that the Iranians stepped back from their typically heavy anti-American posture during a recent naval exercise in the gulf.

Until recently, Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships, and the government in Tehran has deployed remotely piloted aircraft that carry surveillance pods and that may someday carry rockets.

With Iran’s multiple political bases of power, the government’s purposes can be hard to decipher. After the temporary nuclear agreement was reached in November between the world powers and the moderate government of Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, it was unclear to American officials whether Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps might try to provoke a conflict with the United States Navy to undercut the accord.

The navy of the Revolutionary Guards consists of fast-attack speedboats with high-powered machine guns and torpedoes, and crews that in the past employed guerrilla tactics, including swarming perilously close to American warships.

When the mock-up will take its maiden voyage — if it ever does — is anyone’s guess, analysts said. The vessel is nearing completion, they said, and will presumably be shipped by rail on tracks that run through the shipyard, to its destiny in the Persian Gulf just a few hundred yards away.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Thanks to Surenas over at MilitaryPhotos.net:

 

[Grey Havoc]

It is, apparently, a naval project.

 

[SOC]

Hey, it probably floats, so...

Look at it this way. Now they have a fake aircraft carrier to put their fake airplanes on.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Hey, it probably floats, so...

Look at it this way. Now they have a fake aircraft carrier to put their fake airplanes on.

;D

 

[Grey Havoc]

We don't know what it's meant to be at the moment. All we have at the moment is speculation.

 

[spiteful21k]

Am I the only one that thinks the deck markings look more Russian STOBAR then American?

 

[muttbutt]

It's apparently for a movie called "Airbus" about the shoot down of the airliner.

According to the Iranians anyway.

 

[sublight_]

It's apparently for a movie called "Airbus" about the shoot down of the airliner.

According to the Iranians anyway.

I think that CGI would be a lot more cost effective.

 

[lastdingo]

It's apparently for a movie called "Airbus" about the shoot down of the airliner.

According to the Iranians anyway.

I think that CGI would be a lot more cost effective.

"Titanic" was made with a near-real size mock up as well.

I didn't know the Iranian movie industry was that ambitious, though.
The whole effort seems so very much over the top that the most economical scenario would be an involvement of Bollywood...

 

[jimbrooks]

Cool. F-14 Tomcats (albeit Iranian) will be flying off aircraft carriers again. :

 

[Orionblamblam]

It's apparently for a movie called "Airbus" about the shoot down of the airliner.

According to the Iranians anyway.

Yeah, but iran Air 655 was shot down by the USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser, not an aircraft carrier...

 

[sferrin]

It's apparently for a movie called "Airbus" about the shoot down of the airliner.

According to the Iranians anyway.

Yeah, but iran Air 655 was shot down by the USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser, not an aircraft carrier...

You're going to let pesky facts get in the way of an idiotic troll? How long you been on the 'net anyway?

 

[Hot Breath]

There we go again, declaring anybody who offers an alternative opinion a "troll". Must be hell for you living in a world where people keep thinking and expressing contrary opinions to your own.

I think the movie explanation is, if we use Occam's Razor the most likely one. If the acting is as good as most other Iranian movies, it will be an interesting one to watch. If it's just a propaganda piece, then that is their look out, now isn't it or do you seek to muzzle their views as well?

 

[Thiel]

Hey, it probably floats, so...

Look at it this way. Now they have a fake aircraft carrier to put their fake airplanes on.

And they're to scale to boot.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You're going to let pesky facts get in the way of an idiotic troll? How long you been on the 'net anyway?

Long enough to know that Irans military is Serious Business.

 

[kcran567]

The Iranians are building a prop for the next Top Gun movie to be filmed there. Apparently Tom Cruise is using his influence to help the Church of Scientology get the message out to the people of Iran.

 

[archipeppe]

I have a question?
How big it is such "stuff"??


I mean that from photo it looks big but not big as a CVN.....

 

[TomS]

It says in the article that this is about 2/3 the length of a Nimitz-class carrier, so about 730 feet. That's pretty big for a movie prop.

 

[VH]

Perhaps this Iranian 'Nimitz' will be used to secretly test the Chinese DF-21D in the Persian Gulf. If the Iranians fronted the test with PLA people running the back ground it would present an excellent example of plausible deniability

 

[jjnodice]

Come on. This is an easy one.

Its for the sequel to this YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7eUO1aw9M

 

[TomS]

If the Khalij Fars missile uses electro-optical guidance, as indicated in some videos, it might make sense to use a visually similar target for testing.


OTOH, the Iranians do claim to be using the mockup as set-dressing for a movie about Iran Air 655.


Could be both, honestly.

 

[kcran567]

It says in the article that this is about 2/3 the length of a Nimitz-class carrier, so about 730 feet. That's pretty big for a movie prop.

:

 

[Avimimus]

Is that the Pirates of the Caribbean theme music? ???

 

[J.A.W.]

What is it named?

'Spirit of Xerxes'?

 

[archipeppe]

It says in the article that this is about 2/3 the length of a Nimitz-class carrier, so about 730 feet. That's pretty big for a movie prop.

Interesting, it is (obviously) not a Nimitz but it is already big as a conventional carrier or at least a STOVL carrier (the long bow has a sort of "ski jump" or it only my impression???)....

 

[Grey Havoc]

Is that the Pirates of the Caribbean theme music? ???

"So, we're going to hit them with an enemy they've never had the displeasure of facing. We're going to hit them with the RIAA."
"They're not going to like the RIAA."

>

 

[shedofdread]

Is there actually, a much simpler explanation? Namely, the Iranians have built themselves an aircraft carrier. Ok, maybe not a very good or sophisticated one and maybe all that can be flown off it will be a helicopter or two but they can sail it around and say to the world; "Look! We've built a carrier! Hurrah for us!".

After all, it's just a big metal ship with a flat top...

 

[TomS]

It's a barge, which means it has no propulsion system.

 

[shedofdread]

It's a barge, which means it has no propulsion system.

Yes, I read that but it seems like an awful lot of work to go to and not add propulsion of some sort - hence my theory that they've built a crude carrier (as distinct from a carrier of 'crude'). I suppose, time will tell...

 

[archipeppe]

It's a barge, which means it has no propulsion system.

Yes, I read that but it seems like an awful lot of work to go to and not add propulsion of some sort - hence my theory that they've built a crude carrier (as distinct from a carrier of 'crude'). I suppose, time will tell...

Since this "ship" is in any case a huge object (2/3 of Nimitz is in any case larger than the Conte di Cavour the latest Italian carrier) and it is not exactly cheap, I would exclude the mere propaganda purpose or the practise target use. There are many other means today to reach the same aims without realizing a so big thing.


It remanins the fact that it could be some kind of "real" (even somewhat crude) aircraft carrier, ok it is unlikely but not impossible.
We know that (as for aircrafts) is not the cost of the frame itself that represents the big part of the money you should spent to have a real operative carrier, rather than the various systems you decide to place on board that make the final price.


The point is: if Iranians decide to turn such hulk in a real carrier who will provide them the systems needed to make it operational?
Russia?
China?
Who other?

 

[TomS]

It's actually not very expensive to build something like this if it's just empty steel and paint (maybe a few million dollars).

 

[pedal]

maybe a few reasons they used to get the $$$ to build it

1) movie prop

2) mobile platform for choppers or even some construction civilian

3) for target practice

4) my favorite

A weapon of some kind, either from a simple scuttle in the hormuz strait or a harbour etc or filled with explosives and rammed into ship or harbour etc

 

[TomS]

Re: 2) and 4) if this was so, why would you spend the effort to make it look like a carrier?

Re: 4) The main shipping channels in the Strait are two miles wide and between 50 and 80 meters deep.

I lean toward

5) a make-work project being justified as a movie prop but primarily intended to channel government money into private industrial companies controlled by IRGC leadership.

 

[Grey Havoc]

I lean toward

5) a make-work project being justified as a movie prop but primarily intended to channel government money into private industrial companies controlled by IRGC leadership.

Sounds plausible.

 

[pedal]

5) Sounds very good.

I bet they used 1-4 to get the $$$ lol

 

[Spook]

;D

 

[Dreamfighter]

Looks like some local model-hobbyist wants something really big for his next birthday.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

WTF?

 

[_Del_]

The last pictures doesn't show any means of propulsion. Back to the movie prop/elaborate target for missile test filmed for propaganda purposes.