Guerrilla war at sea

We have been told that the Iranian Navy has been destroyed. In a conventional sense, that is true. Unfortunately, this is not a conventional war. The Iranians are now employing swarms of speedboats to attack commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf. These boats don’t stand much of a chance against the U.S. Navy. They are, unfortunately, a real threat to large unarmed merchant vessels.

Many of the boats in question are modified commercial or even recreational vessels. A number, however, were purpose-built for military use. They operate at high speed, have shallow drafts, low radar signatures, and good maneuverability.

No one knows how many of these vessels there are. Some estimates are in the thousands. What we know for sure, though, is that hundreds of them have appeared at a time in recent weeks in the Persian Gulf.

These attack boats are armed with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, anti-ship missiles, shoulder-fired missiles, and sometimes mines or explosive charges for suicide-style attacks. Some carry drones or serve as motherships for unmanned explosive boats. Often their attacks are coordinated with shore-based missiles, drones, and larger patrol boats. They can operate in large swarms numbering in the dozens or even hundreds that launch attacks from multiple directions.

“The IRGC navy works more like a guerrilla force at sea,” says Saeid Golkar, an expert on the Guards and a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “It is focused on asymmetrical warfare, especially in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “So instead of relying on big warships and classic naval battles, it depends on hit-and-run attacks.”

These boats are based in camouflaged sites onshore. The boats are often too small to appear on satellite images, and they are moored at piers within deep caves excavated along the rocky coastline, ready to be deployed in minutes, analysts say.

It is believed that Iran has constructed at least 10 well-hidden, fortified bases for attack boats. One, Farur, is the center of operations for the naval special forces, whose equipment is modeled on their U.S. counterparts.

“The IRGC navy has always believed that it is at the forefront of the confrontation with the ‘Great Satan’, and has been in constant friction with the Americans in the Gulf.”

Al Aawsat

Many of these bases are inside purpose-built caves. Inside these shelters, the attack boats are protected from strikes and can still be launched in minutes.

All this may seem fantastic, but the reality is that these swarms of small boats are having an outsized impact on the war. On Thursday, a ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized and taken toward Iran, and another was attacked and sunk. Per the British military, the seized vessel is now heading toward Iranian territorial waters.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said it had received reports that the vessel was taken by unauthorized personnel while anchored 38 nautical miles (70 kilometers, 44 miles) northeast of the UAE port of Fujairah, near the Strait of Hormuz. Indian authorities also announced that an Indian-flagged cargo ship sank off the coast of Oman after an attack sparked a fire aboard the vessel. Fujairah is an important oil export terminal and the UAE’s main port outside of the Persian Gulf. Vessels loading oil there in effect have bypassed the impasse at the Straits of Hormuz.

There is no sign that this problem is abating. As this article was being written, the maritime intelligence firm Windward reported 333 IRGC speedboats active in the Persian Gulf at one time. One swarm alone consisted of 122 separate craft.

We won the conventional war against Iran in a military sense a long time ago. That is now largely irrelevant. The Iranians have shifted the war into a contest over the control of Middle Eastern oil and gas. They are holding the world’s economy hostage, and they are fighting a guerrilla war at sea to do so.