Location
Open water · central strait
Mosquito Fleet · Mission 9 · Open water · central strait
OPERATIONAL ORDER 2027-01-05-LRK-058 Eyes only. Captain R. Tahami, Boghammar-7. Coordinated 360° presence demonstration against FGS HAMBURG (F220, German frigate) escorting M/T HARMONY transit eastbound. Squadron of five (Boghammar-7, -12, -14, -16, -19). You have tactical command. Approach. Photograph. Withdraw. No engagement. Frigate's helo will scramble at 80m. Tanker will radio mayday at bow proximity. — Cmdr. M. Alavi, Larak Naval Station
Cockpit and net traffic recorded during the operation, timestamped from mission start.
The IRGC Navy's signature threat is the massed small-boat swarm: dozens of fast craft attacking a large warship from multiple bearings at once to saturate its defenses. The concept's most famous illustration came not from combat but from a 2002 US war-game, Millennium Challenge, in which retired Marine general Paul Van Riper, commanding the notional Red opponent, used swarming small boats and unconventional signalling to "sink" a large portion of a US fleet — a result controversial enough that the exercise was partly reset.
Iran has rehearsed the tactic in the open: in 2015 the IRGCN attacked a full-scale mock-up of a US Nimitz-class carrier near the Strait of Hormuz during its "Great Prophet" exercises. Swarming trades survivability for numbers and geography, betting that enough cheap boats, mines and shore-launched anti-ship missiles can raise the cost of operating inside the strait beyond what an adversary will pay. It is the doctrinal answer of a force that cannot match US firepower ship-for-ship.
A scene from the campaign's narrative, shown after a successful run. Mild spoilers.
The five boats are tied up in a row at Larak. The bow numerals look the way bow numerals look in IRGC publicity photos because tomorrow morning they will be in IRGC publicity photos. A drone shot from the *Hamburg*'s helo is already on a Tehran television loop, captioned with words Yusef does not need to read.
Yusef is at the head of the dock. He has been folding a small piece of cardboard into something that might be a boat and might be a fish.
"Doctrine has changed three times in my career," he says. "Mass swarm. Asymmetric swarm. Distributed swarm. The boats are the same boats. The strait is the same strait."
He sets the cardboard thing on a piling. The wind takes it and it falls into the water.
"What changes," Yusef says, "is the photograph."
He watches the cardboard thing drift on the swell. It is a boat now, by the way it sits.
"You held the line tonight, Captain. The line was a circle."