laststandonzombieisland

CAPT. Edmund Hernandez, current chair of the Joint Military Operations Department at the U.S. Naval War College, has an interesting take on upping Naval numbers and capability by way of rebooting an old idea: the Mosquito Fleet.

PT Boats and Zeros Painting, Oil on Canvas; by Griffith Baily Coale; 1942; Unframed Dimensions 10H X 20W Accession #: 88-188-AF On the brightly colored waters of the lagoon, the PT’s are skimming about, darting here dodging there, maneuvering between the rows of machine gun splashes, incessantly firing their twin pairs 50 caliber guns.

From his piece in Proceedings this month

Today’s PT boat should be outfitted with the traditional array of .50 caliber machine-guns, 40 mm cannons, rockets, mortars, smoke generator, and radar. But the torpedo would be replaced by the modern anti-ship missile, one simple to employ and able to “fire and forget.” Ultimately, as in World War II, experimentation is required to find the right mix of weapons systems to meet modern mission requirements.

Of course, the age of the small missile-armed fast attack craft (FAC) really peaked around the 1960s-70s but was quickly killed by the antidote that was small seagoing missile-armed helicopters such as the Lynx/Sea Skua, Panther/AS.15TT, and Seahawk/Penguin combinations. For reference, just ask Saddam how well his FACs did in Desert Storm against a handful of Royal Navy aircrews. Lynx from HMS Cardiff, HMS Gloucester, HMS London, and HMS Manchester, armed with Sea Skua missiles, sank or disabled 15 Iraqi patrol craft, from the relatively immune range of 5 miles.

Anyway, interesting take, if they could add some air defense, but then again if you do, these crafts start looking more like corvettes.