Swarm warning
August 25th, 2010 | Aviation The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
Action movie directors are encouraged to make a summer blockbuster that includes Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobras defending a Navy strike group against a small-boat swarm attack. Because that would be epic. // MCSN Chad Erdmann / Navy
Eagle1 has some great coverage this week about Iran’s invincible, 29,000-vessel strong hyper-navy, which has just added a new, unstoppable, 60 knot missile-armed small attack craft. This sounds like another one of those game over situations; when Congress comes back from summer vacation, it might as well just disestablish the Navy and liquidate the fleet.
But hold on a tick! Eagle1 seems a little skeptical that the massive swarm-attack spells doom for American seapower in the Middle East. No matter how fast your missile-attack jet-boat, he writes, and no matter how many of them you’ve got, there’s still the matter of deploying them with a coherent strategy and with enough surprise that they can get close enough to attack:
To reiterate, it’s really hard to hide 20 or 30 or 100 boats getting underway and trying to sneak around in an area like the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Faster boats don’t add much to the picture — except they make faster fireballs flaming across the water.
The detail that seems to be missing from all the reports this week is whether there’s an anti-air component to Iran’s swarm strategy. In the notional Persian Gulf dust-up we all hope never happens, attack jets and helicopters would likely be what U.S. commanders send against the swarm, rather than letting things devolve into the knife fight the Iranians apparently want. (Those splashy, bouncy watercraft are said to make great targets for air-to-surface missiles.) So do the Iranians just assume they’ll have more boats than the Navy has weapons? Or would they also try to contest the ocean airspace as a part of their monstrous wave of death? If so, how? An aircraft swarm?
Comments
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A.J. Heredia Says:
August 25th, 2010 at 2:42 pmThere have been significant SuW studies over the course of at least five years (the summaries are public domain) sponsored by the Office of the CNO that validate a boat swarm is not only workable but in the right tactical hands, extremely lethal.
We in the West tend to downplay Iran’s capabilities but remember that the Iran-Iraq war showed that they are nothing if persistent and are willing to go the distance no matter the personal cost in lives. Even the showdown during Op Praying Mantis couldn’t keep their Navy from harassing the US in subsequent years. Couple that persistence with a real capability like the Bladehammer 51 boat and you might just have a fight on your hands if you happen to be a independent command or even a small TF transiting the Strait. We can all laugh and giggle at their deployments and announcements but recall that TF Hip Pocket was stood up because a small boat earned a little bit of infamy one October day in Aden along with the Cole…
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A.J. Heredia Says:
August 25th, 2010 at 2:58 pmDisclaimer: if there’s a big deck nearby, then disregard below since Strike trumps small boats almost any day.
Even with the latest LOGIR that comes out of the LCITS program, it’s basically going to be a fast-draw between the helo driver (heaven help the sole Romeo or Sierra that’s detached to a small combatant) and MANPADs teams on the small boats. There’s only one helo and depending upon the swarm’s tactics, he could be in range of multiple MANPADs before he can achieve a shooting solution using his own organic fires. Not what I would term a permissive environment.
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The Scoop Deck – Can the Navy close the flying boat gap? Says:
September 28th, 2010 at 3:34 pm[...] First he built a navy with 100 vessels for every one U.S. warship, then he built an indefatigable 60-knot attack craft and now, worst of all, he’s fielding entire squadrons of flying boats! That’s right: If [...]