Islamic Republic of Iran Navy 🇮🇷

Iran maintains two parallel naval forces: the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN), a conventional fleet tasked with blue-water operations in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), which controls the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz through asymmetric means — fast attack craft, naval mines, and shore-based anti-ship missiles.

The IRGCN constitutes the more operationally active branch. Its doctrine relies on swarming tactics using hundreds of small, fast boats, combined with a dense network of coastal cruise and ballistic missiles to create an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zone across the Strait of Hormuz. The IRIN, by contrast, fields larger surface combatants and submarines for conventional deterrence and power projection. Iran's Kilo-class and Fateh-class submarines remain its most credible naval assets.

Tehran invested heavily in indigenous shipbuilding over the past two decades, producing the Moudge-class frigates, Sina-class fast attack craft, and converting oil tankers into forward base ships capable of deploying helicopters and drones at long range. The IRIS Makran, commissioned in 2021, enabled Iran's first transatlantic naval deployment alongside the frigate IRIS Sahand — a significant milestone for a navy historically confined to regional waters.

Operation Epic Fury (February 28 – March 2026) fundamentally altered this trajectory. U.S. strikes on Bandar Abbas and Konarak naval bases destroyed the core of the IRIN's surface fleet in under 48 hours: both Moudge-class frigates (Jamaran, Sahand), the Alvand-class frigate Sabalan, both surviving Bayandor-class corvettes, and the Makran. The losses eliminated Iran's entire indigenous frigate program, its sole power projection platform, and some of the oldest commissioned warships in any active navy. The IRIN's capacity for sustained operations beyond the Persian Gulf has been effectively neutralized, leaving the IRGCN's asymmetric posture as Iran's primary maritime capability.