Iran's Bavar 2 Flying Machine Gun Boat

Iran is flying 3 squadrons worth of ocean going ground effect vehicles. Armed with a machine gun and surveillance cameras, they can operate in high waves by flying over them rather than crashing though them. Their construction, size and altitude may make them difficult to detect. They top out at 100 knots.

 

Iran claims that they are technologically advanced. Well, their open cockpits and kit plane construction argue against that, but these things are an impressive low-tech answer to our drone fleet. Manned aircraft are cheaper to operate than drones in less developed countries. See Iraq's Cessna Caravan fleet, which function as Predators on the cheap, as an example.

Military analysts mock the craft as flimsy, but if you are familiar at all with the home built community they seem positively robust.

Some sources worry that Iran might strap home-brewed anti-ship missiles on them to threaten Western patrol vessels in the Gulf. It would be a pretty cheap way to sink a very expensive piece of equipment, that's for sure. We 'd obliterate them, of course, but Iranian doctrine isn't to win; it's to make the price of an American victory too high to for us to bare.

This thing pleads for a scale RC model. Goes without saying.

Check out video of this clever little warbird here.

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Image courtesy of the good people of The Islamic Republic of Iran