How Iran’s Fast Attack Boats Evade Apache Helicopters and Threaten Tankers
Hello, this is The Captain. Iran has managed to lock the gates of the Strait of Hormuz and prevent oil exports from Persian Gulf states through several arms. The first is shore-fired missiles, the second is dangerous naval mines, and today we will get to the third, more than 3,000 fast and deadly boats, known as the “mosquito fleet.”
At first glance, it is a somewhat strange threat. No matter how fast a boat is, it cannot outrun a fighter jet or an Apache helicopter. Why not destroy them from the air, like other mobile targets? And at sea there is nowhere to hide, certainly when observing the battlefield from the cockpit of an F-15 or A-10.
What can I say, I wish life were that simple. Enemy boats have several unique characteristics that make them very elusive targets for aircraft, helicopters and drones alike. Spoiler: one reason is the venomous morality of the Revolutionary Guards.
Iran’s mosquito fleet was born during the Iran-Iraq War. In 1983, Iranian agents bought 50 fast patrol boats from the Swedish company Boghammar. They were fitted with machine guns, 107 mm rocket launchers, and their crews carried RPG launchers, quickly becoming the terror of the Gulf. Their mission was to strike the enemy economy through a naval blockade.
Oil tankers heading to Iraqi ports did not know what hit them. The Iranians arrived in a swarm skimming over the water, closed in and surrounded them, and poured fire from all directions. Iran’s boats were called Tark, but everyone called them “Boghammers” or “Nightmare.” By the end of the war, at least 67 ships had been attacked by the Boghammers and additional boats purchased from Czechoslovakia.
Looking more closely at those attacks, one interesting thing emerges. Only three ships attacked by an Iranian boat swarm suffered damage defined as severe, and only two sank. But that was enough for Iran, the goal was to scare shipping companies and prevent goods and products from reaching Iraq, and oil exports from it.
Wait, threatening a civilian ship is not such a big deal, how does the mosquito fleet deal with a warship? First of all, there was never a full swarm attack by Iranian boats against something that could shoot back. But one incident on July 3, 1988, exposed part of this threat.
Two U.S. Knox-class frigates were sailing in the Persian Gulf and responded to a distress call from a tanker. They approached and launched a Seahawk helicopter, which discovered a swarm of dozens of Boghammers. Thirteen boats broke toward the destroyers, began accelerating and split into groups of three and four. On the way, they also fired at the helicopter, which was forced to zigzag and escape.
The destroyers began firing their deck guns. The targets were too small and fast for other weapons systems, and there were also rules of engagement restrictions. One hundred and nineteen 127 mm shells were fired at the nimble mosquitoes, but only one boat was hit. At that point, the Iranians broke off contact. They may have been deterred by the hit, or they may simply have been ordered to withdraw. There is no way to know what it would have looked like if the Boghammers had reached rocket range.
If something like that happened today, the story could end very badly for the American ships, they would very likely leave the encounter with an unhealthy amount of salt water in their hulls. Iran has dramatically upgraded its small combat boats. They have become more elusive, received weapons with ranges of tens of kilometers, and their numbers have become simply enormous.
The Revolutionary Guards continued buying fast boats abroad, dismantling them and reverse engineering them, then adapting them for combat needs and producing them as warboats. The catalog is quite impressive. For example, the British Blade Runner 51 boat was turned in Iran into the Saraj, which reaches speeds of more than 120 km/h. Italian sport boats became the nimble MIL40 boats, which can reach 115 km/h. Dutch Damen police patrol boats received machine guns and anti-ship missiles. And the multi-mission Zolfaghar boat received advanced radar and four surface-to-air missile launchers with a range of 20 km.
Iranian engineers often improved the performance and capabilities of the civilian platforms, changed materials, and installed especially powerful engines. It is a bit hard to know where reality ends and propaganda begins. For example, the Haydar 110 boat was described as having a speed of more than 200 km/h, a speed at which it is not easy to aim machine guns.
So we understand, Iran’s mosquito fleet is very dangerous. But what chance do boats have against an airborne opponent? How would they survive an encounter with an Apache or an A-10? And what about fighter jets, which can raid a marina and send them dancing with the fish?
Not many people outside professional circles know this, but attacking ships is one of the most complicated missions for any air force, even with the most advanced equipment available, and in a moment you will understand why.
When analyzing a battlefield, the first thing to think about is the terrain, and from it the major constraints on our plan and the enemy’s are derived. For example, tanks will come from the depth to the front along routes that topography allows. You will not see a tank grow legs and climb a mountain, or start zigzagging through a dense forest. So if I want to catch those tanks, I will send attack helicopters to flatten the relevant routes.
Take, for example, the Battle of the Valley of Tears in the Yom Kippur War. The Syrian tanks arrived in a relatively open area where they could maneuver more flexibly. If we had had attack helicopters like the Cobra in that war, they would have dealt with the invaders relatively easily. The battlefield was an area of about five by eight km.
A naval battlefield, by contrast, operates under different rules. There is no real mobility restriction there, and the size is enormous, the Strait of Hormuz area is about 100 by 200 km, and that is still a fairly bounded area. Along with the size of the theater, consider the effect of the sea on detection. Signal reflections off the water make radar tracking difficult, especially when there are waves. In many cases, a ship will detect an aircraft before the aircraft finds it.
And we remember what Iran operates, small boats with hulls made of composite materials such as carbon and fiberglass, with a tiny radar signature. So it is very hard to find a boat from the air without knowing where it came from and where it is likely to go, and without prior intelligence you need a sensor that sweeps the operational area continuously. In the U.S. Navy, that mission was assigned to the MQ-4 Triton maritime surveillance drone and the P-8 Poseidon aircraft.
Even if enemy boats are found, they are not easy to catch. For example, standard fighter jets will have difficulty hitting them because of the boats’ agility, and if they do not strike on the first or second pass, they very likely will not have enough fuel for more attempts. That is why the United States mainly uses A-10 aircraft with cluster bombs against Iran’s boats, but they are vulnerable to the boats’ own anti-aircraft missiles. Apache and Seahawk helicopters are better for aiming and hunting Iran’s mosquitoes, but they have speed and range limits. Since the war began, it has happened that boats were located but helicopters did not reach them in time to have an effect. And that is only the tip of the iceberg. The Revolutionary Guards’ boat fleet has three unique characteristics that make it an extremely difficult target.
The first characteristic is location. Usually you can find vessels in one of three places, at sea, in a port or anchorage, or in a dry dock, a repair facility. Iran’s boats add another place to the list, underground. The Islamic Republic has dug many tunnels into cliffs adjacent to its coastline, and the boats go into the water through concealed shafts. So even after strikes on anchorages and damage to vessels found there, most of Iran’s mosquito fleet remains protected and ready for action. And if hunter drones are sent to wait around suspicious areas, they will be easily shot down by anti-aircraft missiles.
The second characteristic is Iran’s shocking disregard for human life. The Revolutionary Guards will send twenty boats with twenty crews twenty times to certain death, as easily as in the IDF they throw away burekas at the end of a mess-hall drink session. The enemy’s willingness to sacrifice people and equipment makes it easier for it to carry out deception operations and take irrational risks, which makes it harder for those trying to hunt the boats.
The third advantage is the fact that in order to seal the Strait of Hormuz, Iran does not actually need to send swarms of boats to begin circling tankers. It is enough for one Persian boat to go out to sea, launch a missile in the general direction of a civilian ship, and immediately turn around and flee back into hiding. Once launched, American, Omani and Emirati sensors will detect the missile and notify the ship’s crew, clear and immediate danger. What will it do? Reverse course. The incident will be reported immediately and automatically in the dedicated systems, and the other vessels will also move away from the area. What do we get? A closed strait and effective terror, maximum intimidation with minimal means.
And that is the biggest problem with Iran’s mosquito fleet. Its most effective weapon is fear itself. Shipping companies are afraid to endanger their vessels and crews, Gulf states are afraid to endanger their infrastructure and businesses, and politicians are afraid to endanger their public image. Most of these fears are justified, one must admit, but in order to defeat the common Iranian enemy, all those suffering because of it will have to overcome fear. The first step could be to systematically block the coastal tunnels, and begin taking territory and assets that will hurt the Revolutionary Guards to lose. The world is not standing there with an empty toolbox.
The first step is always hard, but the cost could be far lower than the potential gain, what everyone would achieve from a more sane Middle East, without unbridled Iranian bullying. Stay safe, stay alert, and we will win.
