Name IIS Faramarz Ordered 1960 Commissioned February 1972 Launched 1969 Draft 3.25 m | Namesake Faramarz Yard number 1080 Construction started 1969 Length 94 m | |
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Builder Vosper Thornycroft, Woolston | ||
Iranian frigate Sahand (in Persian سهند), a British-made Vosper Mark V class frigate (also known as the Alvand class), was commissioned as part of a four-ship order. The ship was originally called Faramarz, named after a character in Ferdosi's Shahnameh. However after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it was renamed Sahand, after the Sahand volcano.
Service history
The Iranian Navy ship was sunk in Operation Praying Mantis on 18 April 1988. Located by two American A-6E Intruders of Attack Squadron VA-95 steaming roughly 16 kilometres (10 mi) southwest of Larak Island, she was hit by two Harpoon missiles and two AGM-123 Skipper II laser-guided missiles. A pair of Rockeye cluster bombs from the aircraft and a single Harpoon from the destroyer USS Joseph Strauss finished off the ship. Left heavily aflame, dead in the water and listing to port, Sahand burned for several hours before fire reached her ammunition magazines and they detonated, sinking the ship in over 660 feet (200 metres) of water southwest of Larak Island.
Iran is building a Moudge-class frigate named Sahand in memory of the original Sahand.