[JetMechZ16]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

This does lead to a valid question, can an aircraft carrier by itself successfully defend from a swarm of small speedboats? I'm assuming any deck guns wouldn't be able to angle down enough to shoot in the water nearby. And we all saw from the USS Cole attack how problematic a small suicide boat can be.

What if the Houthis, Iran's proxy terrorists, launched a swarm speedboat attack on one of our carriers? The Strait is pretty narrow in the area, I'm assuming the support ships of the task force wouldn't be able to surround and "protect the quarterback" the way they would in open water.

I'm not too troubled by this, because I'm pretty sure Iran knows that, while Trump does not want war, and will generally not take their bait, like our uber expensive drone being shot down, if they actually attacked our naval vessels, it would be an automatic fire and fury response.

CIWS should be able to take out small boats.

The overhaul in recent years has consisted of numerous upgrades to the weapon itself, converting the existing systems into what's called the Phalanx 1B configuration. At the same time, the CIWS overhaul also includes the development and ongoing integration of a new, next-generation radar for the system called the CIWS Phalanx Block IB Baseline 2, Navy officials explained.

The Block 1B configuration provides defense against asymmetric threats such as small, fast surface craft, slow-flying fixed and rotary-winged aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles through the addition of an integrated Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) sensor.

The Navy is now upgrading all fleet Phalanx Block 1B Baseline 0 and 1 Close-In Weapon Systems to the latest Phalanx Block IB Baseline 2 configuration, Eng said. The plan is to have an all CIWS Phalanx Block IB Baseline 2 fleet by fiscal year 2019, he added.