Performance Boat Shop - How would the US navy counter Iranian swarms of speed boats?

How would the US navy counter Iranian swarms of speed boats?

Given the recent Iranian provocation of the US Navy with speed boats, what is the likley US navy response if they got too close? IM guessing that even if Iran sent 100's of these small boats the US navy would just machine gun them away. Surely the Iranians dont think they could succeed in blowing up a US Navy warship?

Public Comments

use with rotary machine gun. lots of them
NOT MAKING IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE
With ramification and consequences aside, I would sink one of them and see what happens after that. Iran is a waste hole of a country military wise. They couldn't take out Iraq during the Iraq/Iran war in the four years they were at it, how are they going to take us out? Russia though, for some reason, is backing Iran, so that might prove to be some trouble, possibly. Guess they don't want to let the sand and vodka trail lead us to them for nuclear power sharing. But, in the end, what would we have done really about those speedboats running around on the water? If we would have blown them out then we would be demonized. We did nothing and let them taunt us and still demonized now for being weak in the eyes of our enemies. It is a lose/lose situation.
Lie that they got them, like they always do.
I think that that story was probably made up. The US did the same thing in Tonken bay, saying American destroyers had been attacked by torpedo boats to get them into the Vietnam war. This was later described as "a mistake" by a US general. Of course, most people still don't know that the US reason for starting the Vietnam war was 'made up'.
It would depend on the engagement distance. Close in, the Navy would engage using the Phalanx CIWS. They would also probably engage with mounted .50 machine guns and with crew using M249 / M16 / M4 rifles that are usually more for port security then actual combat. At mid-range the US Navy would engage using SM-2 missiles - guided by the AEGIS system, the SM-2 missiles would devistate anything the Iranian Navy could put in the water. However, if Iran really wanted to, they could probably take out an American warship. Due to the current Rules of Engagement, the Iranians could probably take out a ship or two if they fired first. If Iran either rammed an American ship with an explosive packed speedboat (like the attack against the USS Cole only at sea) or fired a swarm of missiles and torpedos, it's likely they would at least get some hits in. The USS Stark should give a good idea of the vulnerabilities that even a modern American warship has. Granted, after the initial surprise attack it's unlikely Iran would have any significant success engaging any American ships and within a matter of hours wouldn't have a navy. For this reason, it's doubtful that Iran will do more then taunt and frustrate the US Navy. Keep in mind that similar naval incidents have repeatedly been used as cause for America to go to war - and have been shown to be fabricated or at least questionable. The USS Maine and the Gulf of Tonken Incident are two good examples, and even the Lusitania and Pearl Harbor have certain questions about them where they show the use of a naval incident to push a war the American people don't necessarily want. Just keep that in mind with whatever comes up with Iran - we have a rich history of naval incidents pushing us into war. Edit - None of the information posted in this thread is in any way secret or difficult to find. Anyone in the world can pick up a copy of Janes or even read Wikipedia and learn far more then anyone is going to read in this thread...the information I posted has been public for at least 20 years and if I did know anything that's classified about the US Navy I would know better then to post it here. Besides, the Iranian Navy has far better places to go then Yahoo Answers if they are trying to learn about the US Navy. Without looking to hard, you could probably find unclassified lists of exact SOPs, Rules of Engagement, Duty Rotations, the Order of Battle, and probably even the crew manifest for (most of) the ships in the Persian Gulf. The only thing that might be hard is to find exact coordinates and details of the subs that are there - and Iran knows that information better then any American Citizen can find out.
Mark 19 Auto Grenade Launchers, F18 Sorty's.
This is not appropriate. Our enemies could be listening. If you want to know, then we'll teach you, you just have to enlist.
exactly , what the guy above said. Why would we mention what we would use against them. That is giving out info.
I do, actually. Because by the time the RoE kicked in, they'd be so close you couldn't get them all in time. I do have one question though. These little fast boats, not one of them had a single marking that would mark them as Iranian. On what grounds is the US Navy saying these were definitely Iranians? Because as far as I could see from the video released by them, there was nothing on any of the boats that would mark them as definitely Iranian. And pardon my cynicism, but if one of them said 'I am Iranian and I'm coming to blow you up' I wouldn't automatically assume that he was telling the truth. Because, and I know this may be a shock to some people, some people don't always tell the truth. Catinthehat99 - get a grip of yourself. Close in weapons systems and small arms on US ships is common knowledge, primarily because the US is very keen on letting the world know just how many guns you can use. You sell most of them to the rest of the world, so it's hardly a secret that a load of US ships are armed with Phalanx CIWS... which frankly is nowhere near as useful as Goalkeeper anyway. I mean, a system that can only target one thing at a time? Goalkeeper is more versatile than that.
Called target practice. With 2 aircraft carries with all the speical toys the ships have it would a short assult. We have learn a lot since the USS Cole.
With swarms of bullets from the CIWS of course.
The Americans were wise not to blow them out of the water. Not because the iranians are anything to be feared. But rather, what a total waste of good amunition.
A few short bursts from John Browning's good old 50 caliber machine guns would deal with the problem.
If they told you everyone would know. Whats the point of that. You only warn the potential enemy. Don't fret, some Yank will spill the beans and it will be in all the papers.
this is a good one.... as i don't think the USA will do any-think first, as that would be a act of war, and yeah the speed boats might of been playing games, stupid ones its not a act of war..... but if the Americans did need to the ships are fitted with machine guns for close firing support for things like this.... but we will have to wait and see what happens.. and that's if its all true... plus can anyone tell me why do they have blue speed boats that's it MATTY start another war the Americans will not win and be asking the British to help them with... maybe one day us British might say no to the USA and leave you in poo... as we are spineless, as you say..
The US navy should have blew them out of the water. The British let thier Sailors down when they got kidnapped by the Iranians as the Royal Navy once so mighty are now enitrely spineless. So the US should blow them out of the water first chance they get so the Iranians dont get any more ideas and to show they mean business!
Theres no way to stop 100's of high speed small boats packed with explosives. Machine guns poke little tiny holes in anything they hit. And even if you hit the fuel it wont explode like in the movies. It shows that even 100 000 tons of aircraft carrier is vulnerable to a fast speed boat.
I can feel a war coming soon, only needs one idiot to pull the trigger then the shit hits the fan and then all the Gulf region is on fire. The Iranian coast is littered with anti ship missiles and imaging the carnage if US navy opens up on these small speed boats then the Iranian fire their anti ship missiles and sink half the US fleet in the Gulf, I can see a nuke heading to Tehran if that happens.
I have been in this situation before on a destroyer. All I can say is that all ships have heavy caliber machine guns manned 24/7 in the gulf. Where that incident occurred the ships were at, they're normally at the highest level of defensive readiness. I have personally manned a gun mount in that area of the world and with out getting into specifics it's dependent on proximity, visual cues of threat (weapons, persons, and actions), and rules of engagement due to real world intelligence. The US Navy normally practices engaging that kind of contact. If you want to know how bad we could f#@K them up I'll tell you this... 1 billion dollar destroyer/ cruiser vs a speed boat... who wins??? Rambo's M-60 is pretty effective against that threat and there's a few of those on deck when we're there and that's one of the lightest weapons on deck. Pretty much those retards were looking brave for the cameras because if they were a real threat they'd be sucking di#@s in hell.