How do we cope with Iranian armed-boat

We know the Hormuz Chennal is really narrow and curving. So I think so many small boat equiped missile and roket will be serious menace. For attack these boat, there are so few guns on US navy's fightingship could be faced so many boats whereas using missile would be waste. So do you have good way to solve?

Simple. Armed helicopter gunships. SeaCobras, specifically.

Flies day or night, armed with canons, rockets, guides missiles, and can inflict a severe amount of damage against a relatively small, maneuvering target.

Quick response time, and can be forward-deployed on even the smallest naval frigates, if necessary. I have personally seen this happen, coincidentally against Iranian Boghammer and Boston Whaler-type small baots, except the aircraft that were used were US Army AH-6 and MH-6 helicopters, not Cobras.

exactly right, look at how the Iraq navy was dealt with during the first gulf war (and to a lesser extent in GW2) They were taken out using helicopter fired missiles. One of the most effective were the navy linx's flying from british frigates and firing the Sea Slug missile (doing the job it was designed for - killing small surface targets). The threat from small attack craft is not a new one, and the western navies are well versed in how to deal with it!.

Problem is that these little boats carry missiles that can be fired from outside gun range. I know that the Standard missile can be used for surface targets and those might work. In my opinion this is one of the flaws in VLS ships. The best thing would be to use small boats of your own to screen your forces. I believe that these are in developement.

Originally posted by paperplane_uk
exactly right, look at how the Iraq navy was dealt with during the first gulf war (and to a lesser extent in GW2) They were taken out using helicopter fired missiles. One of the most effective were the navy linx's flying from british frigates and firing the Sea Slug missile (doing the job it was designed for - killing small surface targets). The threat from small attack craft is not a new one, and the western navies are well versed in how to deal with it!.

Don't you mean sea skua missile mate?

oops, yes Sea skua not sea slug.

en.wikipedia.org...

The problem with using helicopters is first of all Hormuz is quite narrow but not only that it allows for the use of surface to air missiles on land to be used to provide protections for small boats for air atatcks like the Iranian SA-5 with extended range has a max range of 315km which is huge an dcould be placed on land.

Also lets not forget the Iranian improved SA-2 based on the chinese HQ-2 missile system which has a range of 75km and they have been making extended range Hawk's. Also another problem with using helicopters against fast attack boats is that Iran also has Cobra gunships that it makes itself and those can be armed with Infrared/AR Air-to-Air missiles which could be used to take out other helicopter gunships.

And Iran has also been making Short range man-portable SAM's like the Misagh-2 which could be strapped to the side of a boat or a dedicated firing pod oculd be placed to provided air coverage.

I'm sure Iran has plans to deal with helicopter gunships. Best posibble way to take out small boats would probably be ship bases artilley cannons and .50BMG guns.

The Iranian boats look like they are using MLRS fitted onto the boats they look like the chinese Type 63 107mm rockets which have a range of about 8.5km the main cannons on a major american ship have a range of about 30km they would probably pose little threat.

www.sinodefence.com...

The main Iranian threat which is usally overlooked is there chinese mines that they have i can't rember there name but they contain a rocket/torpedo in them which hits a ship when the ship comes close those a very dangerous mines.

So you dont think they can deal with these fishing boats becasue they are armed with missiles? Not saying they arent good missiles, from what I read of them on Global Security they are, but to think that they wont be taken out because of them is just silly. How many of these boats do they have, something like a thousand isnt it? You think they can put thse missiles on all of the boats? Not to mention the size of thsse missiles would limit the ammount they can hold. I wont comment on the accuracy of the missiles because I dont know about it. But I guess well see in hte future whats going to happen, maybe we wont have to destroy the boats. But one more thing, helos can launch hellfire missiles from around seven kilometers, I think Helos are more than capable of taking out these boats.

[edit on 4/25/2006 by ludaChris]

anyone who thinks this glorified PT boat is a threat is a moron. They could never stand up to a destroyer, and a single F18 could massacre ten of thee things.

All very good - but how are you going to avoid killing the thousand of civilian refugees who will be fleeing from iran in small boats...?

Originally posted by Wembley

All very good - but how are you going to avoid killing the thousand of civilian refugees who will be fleeing from iran in small boats...?

easy, the civilians in small boats will look different from the enemy.....they wont be shooting and will probably come up with a way to ID themseves.

Aren't we forgetting about something?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What about Dropping Mobile EMP Devices prior to moving in ?

There boats look funny,our fishermen could run them over,Im not going to worry over irans tiny boats,our boats with one wave would rock over them,yet,one of our USA bombs would wipe them off the sea,yet air,Most funny yet

Some Thoughts.

It is highly unlikely that we would be met with any single or even 'doctrinally expected' combined-arms approach of doctrine.

We would have to assume that any attempt to deny the straits of Hormuz would occur as a function of overlapping layers of systems.

Mines to block inshore pursuit. MRL or tubed artillery to deny approaches to mine clearance. AShM to interdict larger combattants directly. For which small boat warfare would be largely tangential (SOF inshore raider interdict etc.), except en-masse.

And we would be foolish to give them even the /option/ (cost:gain) of a high density target set to justify a suicide-with-suitcase-nuke (or dirty bomb) play against.

I also believe that the Iranian Ekranoplan is an intended direct-counter to Attack Helicopters. Whether with guns and small SAM. Or by simply running past them at 200+ knots to engage small surface combattants directly. Don't forget that when the Stark was hit, the Exocets came off the pylon at about 7-8nm and though we had had intermittent track on the Mirage F-1EQ6 that did it, it wasn't until about 12nm that the Standard system really /could/ have engaged.

IMO, there are further questions as to the viability of single guns engaging small craft at over 8nm (where FFG/DDG should presumably be safe from these mini-MRLs). Because time of flight will favor the boat as an agile target _not being there_ when the round impacts. Even if it is Excalibur or like autonomously guided.

Indeed, for me the question is whether these mini-MRLs are intended to directly saturate a target hull-area with shotgun like effect of 'one salvo and run!'. Or if they are supposed to employ chaff or smoke to allow terminal zone penetration for a ram.

Again, you need only see what happened to the Cole to figure out that ANY breach of the inner zone by more than 1-2 targets is going to be dangerous. We just don't have enough heavy guns on deck with the required depression to stop a massed attack anymore.

So the real question becomes whether and how you intend to kill the threat where it's not one. At anchor.

The Brits spent the better part of three years never-catching the EBoat threat and indeed, it was not until Air Supremacy over the Channel was absolute in 1943 and Coastal Command could hunt them to within site of the Occupieds that they ceased to be effective. Of course, they didn't have radar to see through camouflage and penetrating PGM to kill pens either.

Here the problem is less that of the weapons delivery than of realtime targeting against soft-hides and it is one for which the mod Tiger-SA-2/5 combination is valid. But only to the extent that they are willing to trade a site for an RQ-4 or a like-configured UAV (Predator at lolo with Lynx might be below LOS). If the site dies via Tomahawk or CALCM or JASSM or even a LASM, an E-8 can then come up and destroy multiple boats under any conditions with AMSTE driven JDAM.

With a backup alternative of AIM-7 off of fighters. Though old, this weapon is actually quite adept at tracking low speed targets in clutter (MH especially) and would be my choice for popping individual gunboats, inshore, rather than risk helicopters with their long sortie delays and terrible vulnerabilities to light trashfire.

The ultimate reality of course is that we may need to recrew tankers passing through the straights and/or accept a certain fraction of losses -to force- the Iranians into a naval action. And this should be 'briefed' as a function of letting the American people know what is coming via another sanction war (ala Libya and Muamar's 'Line Of Death').

At which point, directly hostaging their oil infrastructure and denying them landwards access to China and Russia to repair it and recoup military losses may be the best means (along with decapitation) to regain dominant diplomatic positioning on their nukes.

This coming out of Diego if not AfG itself and routing EAST.

IMO, any naval war is going to be one of 'proving rights to navigation' on an attritional basis for which a few more lost VLCC is not going to mean much.

While /winning/ any such war is going to be largely a function of taking the fight deeper and harder than the in-your-face fight would suggest from an initial exchange of "Thou shalt not walk on our lawn then!" response to sanctions.

This because Iran cannot sustain her force structure (such as it is) or internal political position (much more open than Saddam's regime) for more than a few years without oil exports and would quickly have to count the costs of her 'anticipated' small-boat fleet losses vs. her production infrastructure.

While if we were to initiate emergency measures (right-now ending the protected status of the Alaskan preserves, doubling Gulf exploitation) beginning with a full-tap of the SPR, we could largely obviate their influence on our economy until standups were available.

I hope.


KPl

Originally posted by emile
We know the Hormuz Chennal is really narrow and curving. So I think so many small boat equiped missile and roket will be serious menace.

The possibility of an attempted closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been a focus of the international community for decades. Currently it is recognized that Iran could ‘temporarily’ close the strait using differing options available to her, however it would not remain closed long. However, there also exists today some increased infrastructure which can alleviate some (certainly not all) of the oil flow in the event the strait is temporarily closed.

The US and her interested allies rehearse this type of scenario every few years, on site and in the Gulf region, during an exercise named Arabian Gauntlet.

Arabian Gauntlet 2005 News Release.

Arabian Gauntlet Overview


mg

Just imagine the fear that would be struck into the hearts of an Arleigh Burke's crew when they detected those 3 mighty pleasure vessels vectoring in on them.

Do you think the captain gets his own cabin ? Those chairs turned sideways on the roof are very intimidating though.

Iran - the World's next self illuminating, glass topped parking lot.

hit em from the air and use the tactical advantage of the trillion dollar airforce that would spoil anyones picnic. f-16's or apache's could clear the way for boats easy.

Originally posted by MDE762

Originally posted by Wembley

All very good - but how are you going to avoid killing the thousand of civilian refugees who will be fleeing from iran in small boats...?

easy, the civilians in small boats will look different from the enemy.....they wont be shooting and will probably come up with a way to ID themseves.

So how do you tell? if a small boat with a lot of people on it starts approaching, how close does it get before you can say 100% that it's hostile? because if you wait until they're close enough to get off a torpedo, it could be very expensive.

Could a USN fleet sink one of the small boats, obviously yes. Do these boats, in general, pose a very real threat to lesser armed USN warships (landing ships, auxilleries etc) and even frigates and destroyers, obviously yes. This is an example of asymetrical warefare.

Do any of you ignorant Americans know anything of your history, i'll give you a clue Kami Kaze do these words sound familiar. In the pacific theatre Japanese pilots piloting flying bombs attacked well armed and protected American surface units which resulted in the sinking/damage of hundreds of ships with the loss of thousands of lives. You continue to underestimate a potential enemy and overestimate your own capablities. Your not building liberty ships any more, modern ships take years to design and build and once lost or damaged cannot be easily replaced. It dose not matter if one fishing boat out of twenty gets through your defences to sink a warship its hardly a good exchange is it. And can you all be more realistic about these serious issue's rather than the typical gung ho attitude.