Iran-Iraq Naval War

Volume 2 - Convoy Battles, 1981-1984

by Tom Cooper, E.R. Hooton, Farzin Nadimi and Milos Sipos

Series: Middle East@War

Imprint: Helion and Company

80 Pages, 8.25 x 11.7 in, 26 b/w photos, 49 color photos, 18 color profiles, 5 color maps, 2 color diagrams

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9781915070807
July 2024
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9781804516485
July 2024

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Description
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Praise

Draws upon unique access to Iranian naval archives and examines in detail the naval war between 1981 and early 1984

Well away from the major battlefields on the ground in the Iran-Iraq War, and hidden from the gaze of the curious public, the navies and air forces of the two belligerents contested the waters of the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf. This naval aspect of the war still remains largely unknown and hugely underreported in the West other than in terms of the ‘Tanker War’ and the impact upon international shipping.

Yet this was a war in which Iran and Iraq pitted the best technologies available to them – bought from the world’s leading arms manufacturers and exporters – against each other’s vital oil production and exports, and against vital maritime lifelines. Iran in particular relied upon ‘caravans’ of shipping to import raw materials, provide logistic support to the land war, and to export oil-based products. Iraq would make the first (and by far most extensive) combat use of the famous Exocet anti-ship missile long before its first claimed use by Argentina in the Falklands/Malvinas War and would make extensive use of French-sourced electronic warfare capabilities and Soviet anti-radiation missiles. Iran would make the first combat use of the F-14 Tomcat and its associated AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile and would be the first to launch the RGM-84 Harpoon surface-to-surface missile in anger. Far from being a backwater, this was the testing ground for many cutting-edge technologies.

Volume 2 of Iran-Iraq Naval War draws upon unique access to Iranian naval archives and examines in detail the naval war between 1981 and early 1984 as Iraq struggled to defeat Iran’s highly organized maritime ‘caravans,’ how each side experienced successes and failures in the employment of new technologies, and their efforts to counter these. This book is illustrated throughout with original photographs, many in color and never previously published in the West, and with specially commissioned color maps and the @War series’ signature color artworks showing the ships and aircraft employed in this war.

Tom Cooper is an Austrian aerial warfare analyst and historian. Following a career in worldwide transportation business – during which he established a network of contacts in the Middle East and Africa – he moved into narrow-focus analysis and writing on small, little-known air forces and conflicts, about which he has collected extensive archives. This has resulted in specialization in such Middle Eastern air forces as of those of Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, plus various African and Asian air forces. Except for authoring and co-authoring more than 30 books - including about a dozen of titles for Helion’s @War series - and over 1000 articles, Cooper is a regular correspondent for multiple defense-related publications.

E. R. Hooton is a successful retired defense journalist, including acting as a Jane’s yearbook editor. He is the author of more than a dozen military history books ranging from the Balkans Wars 1912-1913, air operations over the Western Front 1916-1918, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line 1918, the Red Army 1937-1941, air operations 1939-1945 and the Communist Chinese victory of 1945-1951.

Farzin Nadimi is a writer and researcher of the Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf defense and security affairs, with a focus on Iran-Iraq War military history, energy security and geopolitics, economic warfare, and oil and gas industries. He has a Master's degree in War Studies from King's College London and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester. He lives in Washington, DC.

Milos Sipos is a Slovakian military historian. While pursuing a career in law, he has collected extensive documentation on inter-connected political, industrial, human resources and military-related affair in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. His core interest is a systematic approach to studies of their deep impacts upon combat efficiency and the general performance of local militaries. After more than 10 years of related work on the ACIG.info forum, he co-authored the much acclaimed book ‘Iraqi Mirages: The Dassault Mirage Family in Service with the Iraqi Air Force’. This is his second instalment for Helion.