Littoral warfare--"Things happen in seconds"

Sea Power, Aug 1997

In June, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen made the latest in a long series of visits by high-level Department of Defense (DOD) officials to the Central Region-the politically and economically strategic area that includes the Persian Gulf, the northwest Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the littorals around those bodies of water. Just prior to Cohen's trip, Iran conducted the first operational tests of its new C-801K air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles.

In a background briefing on the Iranian missile tests, an unnamed "senior DOD official" underscored the need for the LI.S. Navy's ongoing presence in the Persian Gulf. "We have vital national interests here [in the Central Region]," he said. "To protect those interests, we have been here in the Gulf with our military forces, especially naval forces, for 50 years. The vital interests have not changed."

The same official described Iraq as primarily a land threat to U.S. interests in the region-and Iran as primarily a maritime threat to those interests. He also noted that there has been a steady increase over the last several years in Iran's naval capabilities. "Obviously during the Iran/Iraq tanker war," he said, "they [Iran] had mines, they had small boats, which came out with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], they had tactical aircraft. They also, towards the end, had older shore-based cruise missiles. That was kind of the status quo for a period of time."

In the early 1990s, when Iran acquired Kilo-class submarines from Russia, there was a qualitative change in the threat, the official said. There was another qualitative change in February 1996 with the introduction into the area, for the first time, of Chinese-built C-802 sea-launched cruise missiles. Iran now has 23 boats and ships capable of launching surface-to-surface cruise missiles: ten Kamanclass patrol boats that belong to the Iranian Navy, ten Houdong-class patrol boats-acquired from China and under the operational command of the Revolutionary Guards-and three Alvand-class Iranian Navy frigates.

Before Iran's acquisition of the sea-launched C-802s, any cruise missile that could threaten a U.S. Navy ship in the area would have to be launched from a land site. With Iranian patrol boats and ships at sea armed with cruise missiles, an attack now could come from any direction. "That [360-degree threat] makes the surveillance effort-keeping track of the ships-much more important," the senior DOD official said. "But, again, by keeping track of them you have a pretty good idea [of the threat]. It's a tough job, but it's doable."

The combat equation changed again in early June when Iran launched Chinese-built air-to-surface C-801Ks. Iran's initial telemetry, or practice, shot on 3 June was followed by a warhead shot on 6 June. Both were successful. Both missiles were launched from an F-4 Phantom jet aircraft, which means that U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf now not only face a 360-degree cruise missile threat but also that the threat-alert time has been greatly reduced.