In April 2006, Iran successfully test-fired a new high-speed torpedo called Hoot. It was test-fired again last July, along with various other missiles.
“The torpedo is capable of destroying the largest warships and any other vessel on the surface or beneath the water, and split it into two parts,” according to an Iranian Naval Forces official.
Technical specifications (pdf) for components of the Hoot torpedo are presented in an Iranian document (in Farsi) that was provided to Secrecy News. The document appears to have been produced by a subunit of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, according to a colleague who reviewed it.
“Only Iran and another country possess the technology to build this [torpedo],” the Iranian press reported after last July’s test, apparently referring to Russia and its Shkval torpedo. On 4 April 2006, Izvestiya Moscow said that the Hoot resembles the Shkval technically and in appearance, and that Shkval torpedoes may have found their way to Iran via China, where they were delivered in the mid-1990s. But Iranian officials insist the Hoot is a completely original production.
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