On January 6, 2024, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) accepted the lead rocket catamaran of the “Shahid Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis” type, also known as simply “Shahid Abu Mahdi.” This came after the first in a series of larger rocket catamarans, the type of “Shahid Soleimani,” was delivered. The name is given in honour of a foreign military figure closely associated with Iran. Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, passed away in January 2020 as a result of a strike carried out by the United States in Baghdad. General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also passed away at the same time. Their names were subsequently put into the new rocket catamarans that the IRGC had constructed.
If the “Shahid Soleimani” catamarans are roughly the size of corvettes, then the “Shahid Abu Mahdi” is more likely to be a huge missile boat. However, the exact specifications of the new ships are still unclear.
According to the information that is currently available, its armament appears to consist of six anti-ship missiles of the Ghader/Ghadir type, which have a range of up to 300 kilometres in the latter case; eight guided missiles of the Kowsar type, which have a range of up to 15 kilometres, housed in the round containers near the UAV platform; a thirty-millimetre artillery installation; and most likely four twenty millimetre artillery installations. These missiles are not the same as the old lightweight anti-ship missiles with the same name; they are new lightweight multi-purpose missiles that may be used against various targets, including aerial ones, and can be deployed even on the lightest boats.
