Professor John Arquilla, who teaches in the special operations program at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California, and who is the author of “Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military,” published an important article recently in the New York Times entitled “The Coming Swarm.” In it, […]
Swarming Tactics
8 posts
A report in The Australian published on 8 December describes ‘a purge’ of the Royal Navy’s senior leadership over the embarrassment caused by the ‘fiasco’ when 15 sailors and marines were captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on 23 March 2008. Defence writer Michael Smith described the event and its […]
An article by Thom Shanker in New York Times on 12 January contains essential new information about how U.S. Marine Lieutenant General. Paul K. Van Riper, acting as the ‘enemy’ force commander during the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game, inflicted a major defeat on ‘friendly’ forces in a Middle Eastern […]
On reading reports and scanning the video of the recent U.S. Navy - Iranian Revolutionary Guard incident in the Straits of Hormuz I was struck by how restrained the American forces were and how rash the Iranian. The Revolutionary Guards broadcast their hostile intent on the radio, manoeuvered to deploy […]
A recent report in the U.K. press describes the return of RN warships to the northern Arabian Gulf following the capture of 15 British sailors and marines in a ‘swarming’ attack by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval forces on 23 March. This time, boats from HMS Richmond F-239 (a 436-foot […]
I have a very hard time understanding how and why HMS Cornwall, with the task force commander embarked, allowed her boats to be surrounded or cut off from herself. My understanding, from a former trainer of Canadian naval boarding parties, is that our protocol is that the frigate or mother […]
Controversy has broken out in the media, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S., over the behaviour, while captive, of the British naval personnel who were recently seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and subsequently detained by Iran's governing authorities. Their effusive expressions of thanks to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad […]
Today's Navy Times (28 March) has an article that reports 'swarming tactics' were used by Iranian forces when they captured fifteen Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel on Friday. Their use of this tactic should come as no surprise, and yet that appears to have been exactly the case. In […]