[April 02, 2006] Iran test-fires new high-speed torpedo Tweet (The Statesman (India) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Associated Press TEHERAN, April 2. Iran announced its second major new missile test within days, saying today it has successfully fired a high-speed torpedo capable of destroying huge warships and submarines. The tests came during war games that Irans elite Revolutionary Guards have been holding in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea since Friday at a time of increased tensions with the USA over Teherans nuclear programme. The Iranian-made torpedo, called the Hoot or whale has a speed of 360 km per hour, said Gen. Ali Fadavi, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards Navy. That would make it about three or four times faster than a normal torpedo and as fast as the worlds fastest known underwater missile, the Russian-made VA-111 Shkval, developed in 1995. It was not immediately known if the Hoot was based on the Shkval. It has a very powerful warhead designed to hit big submarines. Even if enemy warship sensors identify the missile, no warship can escape from this missile because of its high speed, Fadavi told state-run television. It was not immediately clear whether the torpedo can carry a nuclear warhead. State-run television, which stopped its normal programmes to break news of the test, showed a brief clip of the launch from a ship into the waters of the Gulf. Television pictures also showed the torpedo hitting the target, a ship on the surface of the water. The new weapon could raise concerns over Irans naval power in the Gulf, where during the war with Iraq in the 1980s Iranian forces attacked oil tankers from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]