The Iranian Navy's Zolfaghar variant of the IPS-16a Peykaap II Fast Attack Craft. Photo courtesy of Vahid Reza Alaei thru Borna News Agency.[/caption]I initially wrote this blog a couple of months ago, but eventually cancelled it. The reason for the cancellation was because I realized that the “Swarm Boat tactics which these missile armed Multi-Purpose Attack Crafts (MPACs) are supposed to use have NOT worked in actual combat situations so far, at least not without using SUICIDE as a weapon. During the “Yom Kippur War”, for example, Egyptian and Syrian Missile Boats used TEXTBOOK PERFECT Hit and Run Swarm Boat tactics against the Israelis, but only ended up being massacred when their missiles missed and the more heavily armed and more sophisticated Israeli Missile Boats counter-attacked.[1]
The Sea Tigers (the Naval arm of the Tamil Tigers) have had considerable success of using Swarm Boats tactics against the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN), but only because they used suicide to go along with their Swarm Boats. Eventually the SLN did find a way to neutralize them by using SMALL, FAST BOATS of their own as part of a LAYERED DEFENSE.[2] Now, I don’t imagine our Navy espousing the use of suicide as doctrine to offset China’s qualitative and quantitative advantage, so I thought of just forgetting about writing a blog on building a better MPAC.
