Seventeen meters, 60 to 70 knots, torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles. That is how the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence described Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fast boats in a fall 2009 study, reported by Reuters. Small hull, serious firepower, and a doctrine built around them.
The American side
The U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain and answers to the same commander as U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. As of a December 2022 MarineLink report, that was Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, who also headed the Combined Maritime Forces, a 34-nation partnership, and the International Maritime Security Construct, a deterrent force working in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb.
Not everything in the Gulf is a destroyer. The U.S. Coast Guard runs six 154-foot Fast Response Cutters out of Bahrain, replacements for older 110-foot boats, on patrols that range from the Arabian Gulf to Pakistan and Djibouti and last two to three weeks. The Fifth Fleet has also gone looking for cheaper eyes. Cooper set up Task Force 59 in 2021 to fold unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into fleet operations. “We believe this technology can enhance our maritime domain awareness by putting more eyes out on the water,” he said. The goal then was 100 unmanned surface vessels across the theater by summer 2023, with hubs in Bahrain and Jordan.
The Iranian answer
Tehran’s reply to a fleet of that kind has never been a matching fleet. The 2009 study said the IRGC Navy took “full responsibility for operations in the strategic Persian Gulf in the event of a conflict”, while the regular Iranian navy moved its larger ships toward the Gulf of Oman. Fast attack boats and cruise missiles were spread through the Strait of Hormuz under a restructuring that began in 2007.
CNN, writing on May 8, 2026, called the result a “mosquito fleet”: small, missile-armed boats that sit low on the water and are hard to pick up on radar, plus drones and mines. A Hudson Institute report quoted by CNN says the approach is “designed to impose friction and attrition rather than to seek or win a decisive naval engagement.” Iran builds the boats cheaply, the report says, so they stay “affordable, evade sanctions, and be easily replaceable in wartime.”
Anti-ship missile launchers sit hidden along the rocky southern coast, and mobile ones are harder to find and destroy. The geography helps. The strait has no alternative route for shipping. A Royal United Services Institute analyst told CNN that area defense for commercial vessels would be “immensely resource intensive.” UK Maritime Trade Operations data cited by CNN counted 26 vessels attacked since the conflict began.
Iran does not need many hits. Analysts quoted by CNN say a few successful strikes can persuade insurers and shipping companies that the risk is too high. In 2009 the Navy’s own intelligence study reached a similar view: disrupting traffic, “or even threatening to do so,” could serve Iran well.
Sources
- The More 'Eyes On The Water', The Better (MarineLink)
- Iran's "mosquito fleet" means its battered navy still has bite (CNN)
- US study: Iran expands naval clout in Gulf (Reuters via Ynet)
