Notable, in part of timeliness and also because its a rare day when Jane’s publishes with this kind of Daily Mail-ese headline:

Iran’s mock aircraft carrier lives to die another day

The replica US aircraft carrier that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy (IRGCN) used as a target during an exercise in February was not destroyed, recently released Google Earth satellite imagery shows.

Iranian media showed the carrier being hit by at least one anti-ship missile and being bombarded by rockets fired by a large number of fast inshore attack craft (FIAC) during the ‘Great Prophet 9’ exercise on 25 February. Iranian television also showed footage of a large explosion ripping through its hull that was probably staged for the cameras.

The satellite imagery shows it survived the explosion and had been towed back to the port of Bandar Abbas by 25 March. A large section of it flight deck had been ripped open.

Earlier satellite imagery of Bandar Abbas on 7 February also provided an indication of the size of the IRGCN’s FIAC fleet. Over 100 small craft ranging between 8 and 20 m in length had assembled on that date in the build-up to the exercise.