The Persian month of Azar, or November-December in the Gregorian calendar, is the official month of the Iranian navy. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Iranian navy’s national day fell on November 29, marking the reclamation of three islands, Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, from British forces in 1971.
After the Islamic Republic came to power the national day was shifted to November 27, to commemorate the missile boat Peykan, which was sunk while resisting an Iraqi naval and air attack in 1980.
In a series of three articles, we will explore the establishment and changing fortunes of Iran’s modern navy, from the damage it sustained during World War II to the emergence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a naval power and the struggle to build a fleet of submarines.
This article, the second in the series, focuses on the Revolutionary Guards Navy, which has come up against the US Navy several times over the decades.
The navy of the Revolutionary Guards has consistently championed speedboats as the force’s most important piece of military equipment.
All Guards’ naval news outlets, whether reporting on the tanker wars of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) or the seizure of foreign vessels in the Persian Gulf, focus on the speedboat as being crucial to the operation.
Initially, the Islamic Republic Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy relied on a simpler model of the speedboats, which transported troops along waterways, including along sea coastlines.
In August 1985, at the request of Mohsen Rezaei, who was then commander of the IRGC, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, ordered the formation of “triple forces”, including the IRGC Navy.
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