US Navy says Iran building suicide boats

For all the good it will do them...

We can destroy any small craft long before it poses a threat to a single ship, so the idea that Iran is constructing these kamikaze boats matters little except perhaps for their own morale.

But Iran does have some older ship to ship missiles that might cause us a problem if they launched several at the same time.

Reuters:

Iran has built up its naval forces in the Gulf and prepared boats that could be used in suicide attacks, but the U.S. Navy can prevent it from blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the commander of U.S. naval forces in the region said on Sunday.

Iran has made a series of threats in recent weeks to disrupt shipping in the Gulf or strike U.S. forces in retaliation if its oil trade is shut down by sanctions, or if its disputed nuclear program comes under attack.

"They have increased the number of submarines ... they increased the number of fast attack craft," Vice Admiral Mark Fox told reporters. "Some of the small boats have been outfitted with a large warhead that could be used as a suicide explosive device. The Iranians have a large mine inventory."

"We have watched with interest their development of long range rockets and short, medium and long range ballistic missiles and of course ... the development of their nuclear program," Fox, who heads the U.S. Fifth Fleet, said at a briefing on the fleet's base in the Gulf state of Bahrain.

Iran now has 10 small submarines, he said.

Military experts say the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet patrolling the Gulf - which always has at least one giant supercarrier accompanied by scores of jets and a fleet of frigates and destroyers - is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's navy.

Any attack on Iran launched by the Navy would have several initial goals after knocking out their radar installations - one of which would be to take out as many of their ships as possible. There are also shore batteries of anti-ship missiles that will be attacked, as well as the small fleet of submarines that will need to be destroyed. All of this, the US Navy is fully capable of accomplishing in a short period of time.

Suicide boats or not, Iran doesn't have a prayer of damaging the fleet.