Well I don't know if it was bad translation but the Iranian DM said that the Zafar is the fastest AshM in the world.
Something like the Moskit would be a more likely candidate for the Zafars early discription. Now they show a missile of the Nasr/C-704 family.
Poor propaganda or the real Zafar being too sensitive to show? Maybe.
But I think its actually possible that the Zafar is the described super-sonic AshM.
Some reasons:
Given the composition of the IRGC surface fleet, only a AshM in the class of the Nasr is useful, everything bigger would only be useful for land based AshM batteries.
If the ship using it, is to operate alone without outside targeting information, only a AshM with the range of the Nasr 35-40km makes sense.
An AshM of this range need no mid-course update even if its subsonic, therefore there is so reason to travel at super-sonic speeds in the cruise phase.
Detection of sea-skimming targets is possible at ranges around 15km and missile/gun based CWIS systems have a maximum range of about 10km.
For these reasons the most efficient AshM for the IRGC fast boat fleet would be something in the size and range of the Nasr with a super-sonic kill stage for the last 10km of flight. Something like a small Klub AshM.
There are some indications for such a kill-stage in the Nasr even if they seem to hide it.
The black colored sections of the missile seem to indicate booster sections, compared to the Nasr, the Zafar has two of them. But for some reason there seem to be no fin actuators in the forward area.
At e.g mach 3 the kill-stage would hit its target at something like 10 seconds which should be too much for an unguided even un stabilized flight. Then there are photos showing a separated forward section with fins but this is supposedly a test assembly for guidance testing.
We will have to wait and see if the Zafar really is a super-sonic AshM with kill-stage, at this point there are some indications for and against it.
Topic: Iran unveiled anti ship Zafar cruise missile (Read 6746 times)