Iran builds another mock aircraft carrier to use in drills.

Iran's fake carrier. Maxar Technologies/AP.

Iran has built another mock aircraft carrier to use in live fire drills. AP. The mock up resembles the Nimitz class carriers that are often seen in the area and would be a major threat to the Iranians of a war were to happen. Though it has not been announced yet by the Iranian government the mockup will likely be used like a similar one the Iranians built and sank in 2015. The replica is considerably smaller than the original and features a squadron of fake planes on it. Though tensions with Iran have faded from the news, the are still high since the death of General Soleimani, who was killed in an US airstrike in Iraq. 

My Comment:

Just a quick post about something I thought was pretty funny. I am guessing that this mockup is more for propaganda purposes than anything else. The Iranians want to show their people that the big bad American carriers aren't that big of a threat even though in real life if a war happened between Iran and the United States they couldn't realistically attack them via small boats like they did in the 2015 demonstration. 

The entire thing seems like a major waste of money as well. Iran is having economic problems as it is and is still dealing with the fallout from the Coronavirus. Though this mockup probably wasn't anywhere near as expensive as building a real warship, it still likely cost a lot of money since it is fairly large and well detailed. That money could have gone to something more productive and they could have just used any old large ship at the end of it's life cycle. 

I do have to say in spite of that that they did a fairly good job with the mockup. It's obviously smaller and not completely accurate but you can easily tell that it's supposed to be an aircraft carrier. It even has a squadron of fake planes! Again, it's a waste of money but at the very least they got what they paid for. 

As for Iran-US tensions, I don't see this contributing much either way. The United States isn't going to care too much if they blow up a fake carrier, other than the fact that they will observe the exercise to determine what Iran's capabilities are. But that's about the extent of it. 

I do think that tensions are ratcheting down a bit. Iran did just release one of their US prisoners and it seemed likely that some kind of deal was in place, even though both sides denied it. It's possible that there are some behind the scenes things going on that may lead to a more permanent deal. Here's hoping at least.