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The U.S. Navy’s new and improved Anti-Iranian small boat defenses

CORRECTION: Due to incorrect information provided by the Navy, an earlier version of this story stated that Adm. Greenert saw the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System aboard helicopters on the USS Stennis this year. In fact, he saw the system while visiting a different aircraft carrier. The helicopters currently aboard the USS Stennis were equipped ...

By Kevin Baron

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Scott Raegen/Released

September 21, 2012, 10:23 PM

CORRECTION: Due to incorrect information provided by the Navy, an earlier version of this story stated that Adm. Greenert saw the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System aboard helicopters on the USS Stennis this year. In fact, he saw the system while visiting a different aircraft carrier. The helicopters currently aboard the USS Stennis were equipped with 2.75-inch rockets.

What a difference a year makes. When Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief naval officer, visited the USS Stennis aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf last September, he returned saying that the strike group perhaps needed more "sawed-off shotguns" to go with all of that high-powered rifle firepower.

What the admiral meant is that the Navy was equipped with plenty of conventional long-range defenses in a body of water where they were more likely to face unconventional short-range threats — like, for instance, a swarm of Iranian or terrorist-driven fast-attack boats.

According to Navy officials on Friday, much has changed, thanks in part to an urgent request to reprogram hundreds of millions in fiscal 2012 funding. The Stennis, for example, one of two aircraft carriers deployed to the Persian Gulf for a multinational countermine exercise this week, has now equipped its helicopters with 2.75-inch rockets to defend against small-boat threats.

When Greenert visited another carrier, the USS Nimitz, in the Pacific this July he was pleasantly surprised to see that ship’s helicopters already had been upgraded with BAE’s Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS). Company materials boast the APKWS "turns a standard unguided 2.75-inch (70 millimeter) rocket into a precision laser-guided rocket to give warfighters a low-cost surgical strike capability."

That capability did not make it aboard the Stennis, yet, but in March, Greenert told Congress he expected to spend $250 million beefing up ships in the Gulf with these kinds of additions.

The Navy also added to the ships participating in the Middle East exercise more "Stalker" infrared sensor systems, which mount to ship masts which act as eyes that scan through the haze for fast approaching threats. The also added more wider-ranging Rover systems, another infrared surveillance capability put onboard helicopters that can beam whatthey see back to ship command centers.

On patrol boats that protect the big ships, the Navy added Mark-38 machine guns, and more boats are on the way to getting Raytheon’s Griffin rocket system. In June, Raytheon reported that in winter tests on water a Griffin simultaneously hit three moving speedboats from more than a mile away.

In March, Greenert told Congress he expected to spend $250 million beefing up ships in the Gulf with these kinds of additions.

Additionally, the Navy armed sailors with additional anti-small boat training before their deployment.

How’s that for a "sawed-off shotgun"?

Kevin Baron is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy, covering defense and military issues in Washington. He is also vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. Baron previously was a national security staff writer for National Journal, covering the "business of war." Prior to that, Baron worked in the resident daily Pentagon press corps as a reporter/photographer for Stars and Stripes. For three years with Stripes, Baron covered the building and traveled overseas extensively with the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, covering official visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East and Europe, China, Japan and South Korea, in more than a dozen countries. From 2004 to 2009, Baron was the Boston Globe Washington bureau's investigative projects reporter, covering defense, international affairs, lobbying and other issues. Before that, he muckraked at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron has reported on assignment from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. He was won two Polk Awards, among other honors. He has a B.A. in international studies from the University of Richmond and M.A. in media and public affairs from George Washington University. Originally from Orlando, Fla., Baron has lived in the Washington area since 1998 and currently resides in Northern Virginia with his wife, three sons, and the family dog, The Edge. Twitter: @FPBaron