back to article US navy to battle Iranian mini-ekranoplan swarms with rayguns

The US military-industrial complex has unveiled its answer to the much-vaunted "swarm" tactics of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces, which might see squadrons of "stealth" flying boats and attack craft overwhelming the defences of US warships in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy will deal with this, apparently, using …

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  1. Mike Hanna
    Coat

    Am I stupid? Let the flaming commence...

    Am I stupid in thinking that the laser could be deflected by a mirror?

    Mine's the one with flame retardant shell...

    1. jake Silver badge

      @Mike Hanna

      Not stupid, ignorant. Which can be cured ... That's what education is all about :-)

      These thingies don't work on wavelengths that you & I can see. Mirrors do. Which is kinda the point, if you get my drift ...

      1. TimeMaster T
        Megaphone

        Nice one Jake

        Insult a commentator and then go on to not explain why they are wrong.

        So, for Mike: Mirrors generally reflect light in the optical (visible) range but actually absorb light at other wavelengths, like infrared, and would over heat and melt pretty fast.

        The Laser weapons being developed are in the infrared range and a normal mirror might buy you a few more mili-seconds but otherwise it would be useless. Mirrors made specifically to reflect IR, like those used in the target/focus systems of these ray guns, would be more effective but still problematic. They must be kept clean, dust or salt crystals on the mirrors would still superheat and damage the mirror, which would cause it to absorb more energy until it failed.

        Still, looking at history we see that the more advanced the offensive weapon the easier it sometime is to defeat. Just look at radar guided missiles, they cost thousands apiece but can be thrown off target by a few dollars worth of Mylar strips.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Ignorance is bliss ...

          ... and only an insult if you are ignorant as to the meaning of the word.

          Ignorance can be cured, thru' education. Stupidity is permanent.

          Mirrors, by definition, reflect human-visible light. These "rayguns" aren't human visible.

    2. Matthew Smith

      Mirrors burn just the same

      A mirror would be little defence against 0.1 MW of energy; it would burn just the same. It would also defeat any idea of stealth.

      The odd thing is, just as a shiny surface is great for radar beams and runining stealth, the propeller on the engine would also be a giveaway. The best bet for the aircraft would be as stand-off platforms to launch modern, cheap Russian anti-ship missiles. But those things travel at +mach2. Firing one of those would probably have the same effect as if I strapped one to the top of my Ford Ka and fired it. I'd cause my damage to myself than the target.

    3. SgtBayonet

      Hit 'em again!

      I vaugely recall that a high power laser would quickly ablate/roughen the mirror's surface until it is no longer effective at reflecting light.

    4. F111F
      Boffin

      Probably Not...

      To both questions...lasers concentrate an extreme amount of energy in a very small space, overwhelming any ordinary mirror's ability to reflect enough energy to remain intact. Perfect (enough) reflectors are a) really expensive to make; b) hard to keep clean (enough) in a maritime environment; and c) make you a REALLY good target for other defensive weapons. Costs alone would probably dictate that any laser defense would be something else, like ablative material, but again, that stuff is usually expensive and adds weight/complexity to a weapon system. Or, coat your ship/plane with a metamaterial that makes you invisible/hard to target in the first place. The Iranians have a good idea, if you're willing to sacrifice lots of lives with cheap equipment for a limited objective.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      @Mike Hanna

      Mirrors for lasers over a few watts don't hold up well unless they are dielectric mirrors. The rub with dielectric mirrors is that they only work at a fixed wavelength and at a fixed angle of incidence. That's fine if the mirror is part of the laser or laser optical system. But not as a general shield against lasers of unknown attack direction, let alone a priori unknown wavelength.

      I know. I work with high power lasers in non-military applications.

  2. adrianww
    Happy

    A touch of the Benny Hill?

    Does anyone else think that the clip of the guys building the little flying boats should have Yakety Sax as its soundtrack?

  3. jake Silver badge

    Outside of pure research, this is a waste of money.

    "According to Northrop, the MLD "burned through small boat sections" in tests conducted last month at the Potomac River Test Range, indicating that its performance over water is up to the job."

    Somehow I suspect my .50 Browning will be more effective ... And I really doubt that Iran has more small boats than the US has the capability of putting .50 ammo down-range.

    1. Charles 9

      Don't be so sure.

      Rather tricky things, bullets. Especially when trying to score on a moving target whilst *yourself* moving. And unlike in the air, you also have the additional obstacle of the water, which has been demonstrated to do quite a number to a .50-cal round. Worse yet, bullets tend to go down (thanks to gravity) as they fly. So you're talking hitting a relatively small target in flight and low to the water. Not Easy, especially if your time is limited, as it might if you have to deal with multiple craft. Looking back to the kamikaze attacks of World War II (and to bee swarms), a similar swarm, especially low to the water, could be a recipe for trouble (even today) if they come in sufficiently large numbers.

      And one last thing: ships may really have more important things to stow aboard than tons of .50-cal ammo. If you're a carrier, you have the planes and their weapons to consider. If you're not, there's always the big-gun ammo and their charges...and the fuel.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @Charles 9

        "So you're talking hitting a relatively small target in flight and low to the water. Not Easy,"

        Oh, I dunno ... My Standard Poodle rarely gets mad at me when we go duck hunting.

    2. Gary F

      Hail of bullets will do a better job

      How long does the laser need to "burn" through the attacking craft? An manned or AI controlled gattling gun every 30 meters along a warship would be able to lay down a thick blanket of bullets or take out each craft within seconds one after the other.

      I think focusing R&D on rapid and accurate targetting is more important.

      1. Ammaross Danan
        Go

        Title

        They did this on the USS Enterprise during WW2. Granted, it took down a fair portion of Zeroes, but, guess what? The ship still sustained heavy damages throughout the war. A small assortment of laser weapons (perhaps 3 per side?) with some method of auto-targetting (the background noise of radar posing a problem in this case) and a means of directing the laser rapidly (deflector mirror of some sort, rather than mechanical turret-style) and you could easily insta-zap hundreds of targets in a matter of seconds. That is, once they figure out that running these things with a nuclear reactor rather than gas-powered turbines is the smarter avenue...

        1. Mark 65

          I'm with the .50 cal concept

          Surely phalanx systems or the like deal effectively with shit like this and NG are just out for some Govt. pork by researching a solution to a problem that already has one?

      2. Charles 9

        Okay...

        ...now, as my previous post stated, where do you store all that lead? And if the assault is sustained, there's still the distinct possibility of running out of ammo.

        1. jake Silver badge

          @Charles 9 &@ Tim Elphick

          Same place they store it today. Carrier groups displace a LOT of water, a largish percentage of that tonnage is ammunition ... Iran doesn't have the capacity in "small boats" to extinguish the manufacturing/replenishing capability of the US (or any small European nation, for that matter). Several dozen pairs of properly trained humans throwing lead down range is the cheapest, easiest, and most foolproof method of dissuading this form of attack, and will be into the foreseeable future. Rayguns are SciFi today ... and probably won't be seen in the field on a regular basis until long after everyone reading this is pushing up daisies.

          Tim: If you have to ask, you aren't properly licensed. If you're a Yank, here's a good place to start learning (probably NSFW in the UK and Oz ...):

          http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=70

    3. Tim Elphick
      Grenade

      You have a .50 Browning?

      Where can I get one?

    4. Intractable Potsherd
      Black Helicopters

      @ Jake

      I know absolutely nothing about the practical application of guns (I'm British - we aren't allowed to), but my mind went immediately to the multiple-barrelled guns slung under helicopter noses - are they called Miniguns? Radar controlled walls of bullets seem to be the order of the day!

      Perhaps it is also the fact that I have absolutely no experience of high-powered lasers, and cannot comprehend how one could reliably put enough energy into something in a fraction of a second to significantly damage it whilst both the target and the platform are moving at significant relative speed. All I've seen is that half-arsed Boeing contraption, and was not impressed.

      No doubt my ignorance will be corrected.

      (Helicopter, obviously)

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong again

    "the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has air and naval units as well as land ones, would like to be able to choke off the Gulf"

    Really? Perhaps the author has been taken in by US / UK propaganda, but when was the last time that Iran was the initial aggressor in any Persian gulf conflict? That'll be "never," I think you'll find.

    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Stop

      @AC

      You seem to have some sympathy with Iran, but then deny that they have the simple ability to learn new tactics. Simply, you are engaging in a logical fallacy - just because Iran *has not* been an initial aggressor in the past, it does not mean that it *will not* decide to doe so in the future.

      Past performance is no indicator of future performance.

      1. Frank Bough
        WTF?

        Oh, but it is...

        ...and thus we can assure ourselves that it will be the US or Israel that will instigate any conflict with Iran. The Iranian govt might be a joke, but their security concerns have always been legitimate and reasonable.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Pots and kettles?

      "squadrons of "stealth" flying boats and attack craft overwhelming the defences of US warships in the Persian Gulf..."

      Erm, remind me what legitimate business US warships have in the Persian Gulf? A long thin body of water, its width is around 56 kilometres (35 miles) - not much, especially since it is fairly shallow and hence not uniformly navigable by very large ships such as laden oild tankers. If Iran were to claim a contiguous zone of territorial waters (as does the USA), 24 of those 35 miles would belong to Iran, leaving only 11 miles for shipping of other nations.

      Besides, imagine the trouble there would be if a foreign nation were to sail nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (probably equipped with nuclear munitions) within, say, 30 miles of the US coast. (Not to mention if one of that nation's anti-aircraft cruisers were to shoot down, quite deliberately, a US airliner full of civilians following a standard airline route.

      Actually, we have already seen something like this scenario (but not nearly so extreme) played out - the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. At that time the USA made it very clear that it would not tolerate nuclear missiles on Cuba - which, at its very nearest point, is well over 100 miles from the USA.

      There seems to be a double standard in operation.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Tom Welsh

        'Erm, remind me what legitimate business US warships have in the Persian Gulf?'

        Any business they choose - most of the Persian Gulf is international waters and anyone can sail their ships there.

        Whether or not that is a wise idea is another question.

  6. JDX Gold badge

    lasers, where?

    All I saw was a bunch of motorised pedalos. Where was the Short Circuit style laser that blew them all up?

  7. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    WHAT??!!

    NO SHARKS WITH FRIGGIN' BIG LASERS???!!!

    1. F111F
      Go

      We JUST Got Our Jetpacks...

      Directed energy-equipped Selachimorpha are coming....patience grasshopper.

  8. Tom_

    mirror

    Mirrors only reflect some of the energy in a laser beam. The remaining energy damages the mirror surface. The damaged surface reduces the ability of the mirror to reflect laser energy, so the mirror degrades faster and faster until it's completely destroyed.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    US Navy versus Royal Navy

    As long as the US navy don't allow their personnel to listen to iPods and surrender at the first inidication of risk, they don't need these expensive new devices...

    Senior Service = an indication that they need a cosy chair, a pipe and some comfy slippers.

    The only reason they want the new multi-billion dollar carriers is because they want to see if they can turf the decks and set up a 9 hole golf course.

    Look who's taking on the Somali pirates. Not the UK's Senior Service. Give them a laser and they'll try and remove excess hair with it.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      WTF?

      What are you, some testosterone-filled flyboy?

      Get back to your ship and help your commander reach his well-deserved pension scheme status.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      Relevant link

      This helps add context to your post...

      http://www.playdota.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=964&pictureid=17471

  10. Trygve Henriksen
    Thumb Down

    What about Phalanx?

    I would much rather depend on a tested system capable of shooting down cruise missiles than a Friggin lightbulb laser.

    I wonder what those 'small boat sections' were...

    The hull fabric of an old canoe?

    And what about range?

  11. TeeCee Gold badge
    Stop

    Why lasers?

    Apart from the obvious "look, it's NEW, can we have a fat development grant please?" angle of course.

    They already have those "turn a passing shell into swiss cheese" computer controlled gatling "goalkeeper" thingies. I'd have thought a selection of boring old skool 20mm cannon distributed around a ship coupled to a control system borrowed off "goalkeeper" would ensure any "swarm" of speedboats / crap seaplanes / mullahs in dinghys would be toast before they got close enough to be worrying. A dozen* 20mm rounds each will put paid to such, if you can guarantee that they'll hit the damned things and computer control would sort that nicely.

    Best of all, defending the ship from such becomes a matter of: press "auto-defence" button / make tea / see what's on TV....

    *Economical with the ammo too, always important in a recession that.

    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD

      Why Lasers

      I dunno. All conjecture here as I don't know much about shipborne lasers. I don't know they've proven lasers are as effective as point defence than 20mm (or like) auto turrets.

      Maybe they can mount them higher up on a mast with less weight problems and hence have a further reach.

      Less moving parts = smoother quicker tracking?

      Assuming they have some sort of equivalence in the ability to affect a kill as a 20mm gun, as a result of the above, faster kills from further? And hence the ability to deal with more threats (compared to a 20mm gun system)?

      But all this boils down to what these skimmers can carry. If they shoot fire and forget missles from over the horizon or close enough to be safe, it might negate all the hype and proposed benefits of a laser based AA system.

      Then it will be a question of how good the system is then in shooting down inbound missles.

      Frankly... one missle? Ok... perhaps a given. The system will deal with it.

      BUT 10 or more simultaneously launched missles? That might pose a bit of a problem and it might hurt a little. Good Russian ones are supersonic skimmers, but even slow subsonic ones may overwhelm the system in sufficient numbers.

      Unless Jobs does the firmware (and the hype)... Then 'everyone' will believe it will work :P

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mirrors

    A reflective surface should deflect the beam fine. Just possibly not one made of metallized glass. After all when a solid state laser is lasing, photons are merrily bouncing around inside a crystal. A rough surface of a crystalline material which does not attenuate the particular wavelength too much where the facet size is a few orders of magnitude larger than the wavelength backed by a layer of fluid of some sort over a dark painted surface might just work.

  13. solarian

    Ah, those guys...

    The Iranians excel at producing "weaponry" so primitive that modern weapons struggle to cope. Take the "Ambassador of Death", which some Israelis were concerned about because it flies so goddammed slow that they weren't sure if they could shoot it down properly. Now it's these flying boats that manage about 40mph at an altitude of less than 20ft and have no discernable military purpose. Why even bother to shoot them down? What are they going to do, unless we're talking kamikaze tactics? Even for reconnaissance they're no better than a microlight, in fact they're probably easier to shoot down and can't fly as high. Can't wait to see what happens...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Wrong War.

      The English were able to use Swordfish torpedo bombers because the calibration of their sights were set for faster speeding aircraft.

      This is gone when you use radar guided and tracking since the radar will accurately identify the speed and distance of the target and compensate for that when displaying the tracking and sighting information.

      As I said in a different post the real advantage is under RoE.

    2. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      Megaphone

      Kamikaze.

      Hmm.. maybe that's the line. Put enough explosives on board and drive it in and get a guaranteed X number of virgins in the afterlife.

      Don't phalanxes and like point defence systems automatically target only objects fulfilling certain criteria (ie altitude and speed)? I believe 40 mph is below that what is normally tracked and assessed as a target.

      This may work. LoL.

    3. Paul 129
      Coat

      Best bang for your Buck

      I wonder how many missiles a carrier group has. The Strait of Hormuz is 54Km wide A nice russian supersonc missile will cover that in a little over a minute. Add to that the clutter of lots of cheap flying revolutionaries, especially if they can get a cheap torpedo onto even a few of these. You could end up with a scenario where the US runs out of missiles before it runs out of targets. I wonder how many you could buy for a billion.

      No wonder its a scary scenario.

      Mines the one needing the multi megawatt ranged foam cutter. Just for security

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Pirate

        Iranian bluff followed by US techno-bragging.

        ".....A nice russian supersonc missile will cover that in a little over a minute...." OK, let's pretend that the US satellites haven't noticed the Iranians moving missiles into lauch positions near the coast, and neither has the CIA, and the Iranians manage a (very unlikley) surprise launch. Firstly, what are they going to launch? They don't have any new Russian cruise, the best they have are some old Chinese junk (Silkworm) that British missiles from the 80's can deal with. No new missiles for the Iranians - they're under UN embargo. Then, you have a missile that has to start from zero - not Mach 2 - and accellerate upwards to gain height as it gains speed (otherwise they fall into the ground). Launch means a big IR splash (visible to recce aircraft if not shipborne sensors and probably from satellites), and even the slightest upward launch means a radar spike with modern radar systems. Even if the missile managed to accellerate and complete its flight in a minute, that's plenty of time for even antiquated platforms like Phalanx to get a lock and fire, let alone Sea Sparrow or PAAMS.

        This whole "all-Iranian superduper stealth seaplane" rubbish is just the usual Iranian noise machine - pinch an idea from the West or the Russians, copy it (badly), then dress it up as some war-winning superweapon to try and make the Iranian people think they live in some technically advanced wonderland, rather than the truth - modern day Iran is less advanced in many ways than most African countries. The Bavar carries a single light-machinegun - not much threat to a frigate, let alone a carrier. At best, it migh be able to get airborne with an infantry antitank missile (though how the pilot would guide it and avoid return fire at the same time is anyone's guess) - again, not much of a threat, even if you had a few dozen. Even if they went kamikaze, the tiny payload would do little more than dent a carrier's deck. Ooh, no, here come the Bavars, better get the brooms ready!

        A few F-18s would make mince of the Bavars in minutes, even SeaCobras would find them sitting ducks! No need for lasers. Which is why I also think the whole laser thing is just American bravado to accentuate the difference in leagues between them and the Iranians - look, the Iranians can only copy funny ekranoplans, lets show them and teh World who's the high-tech superpower and make some lasers!

        /Yeeaaaarggghhhh! Well, why not?

  14. georgia_jim

    .50 cal ????

    I believe the U.S. Navy protects most of its high value targets with 20mm gatling style rotary cannons - the infamous R2D2's. Those wing in ground effect airboats appear a straight knock off of the 70's era Lippisch X-113 Am Aerofoil Boat, and look to have the same payload - little to none.

  15. ratfox
    Go

    Call Blake and Mortimer

    They know how to defend the strait of Hormuz

  16. Mectron

    another reason

    to complety desroy all of Iran military/nuclear installion NOW. Iran is a enemy of humaniy and should be destroy ASAP.

    1. W. Keith Wingate

      Ayatollahs with A-bombs?

      Remember that no nuclear power has ever been waged war on by another nuclear power. Ever. At least not yet. Bush & Blair underscored the point by attacking all the "hostile" countries surrounding Iran (they didn't have nukes, poor buggers) but leaving Iran untouched, since the mullah's there have been very good at playing the "well, we might just have them" game.

      That's not to say that nuclear powers in bed with jihadiis is not a scary proposition (e.g. Pakistan), but just what price is "The West" willing to pay to try to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle (were it possible), or at least keep the bottle out of the hands of "the axis of evil"?

    2. WonkoTheSane
      Flame

      @Mectron

      Especially now that Iran has been declared to have the world's second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia

    3. Autonomous Cowherd
      Welcome

      Yup

      Thats basically what they are saying. Perpetual war for perpetual peace. I suspect they have an evil-overlords madlib game somewhere:

      <Country name> is harbouring <bad thing> and supporting <morally untenable thing>.

      We need to ensure the national security of <country> against possible threats from <name of ragtag bunch of rebels we bankrolled in the 80's>.

      The <ragtag bunch of rebels> are incredibly fearsome fighters capable of shooting <fire/plasma/lighting> from their <orifice>. They are highly trained and highly organised, capable of wielding fearsome power via their <supergun/swarm robots/nuclear programme/chemical weapons>. *

      For the benefit of <humanity/god/the children, oh god won't someone think of the children> we must wipe this group off the face of the planet. This has nothing to do with the presence of <abundant and valulable natural resource>.

      We therefore in our infinite benevolence have begun <name of benevolent invasion>.

      Unfortunately due to the new and dramatic threat posed by people who object to <name of benevolent invasion>, we must remove the right to <civil liberty> and have implemented <expensive and degrading project> at all international airports.

      I for one welcome: <Too-horrifying-to-be-made-up reigime>

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Been tried before, didn't work

    The Germans tried to swamp allied defences with their K-Verband operations, using midget subs like the Biber, and Seehunde together with Linsen explosive boats. Most where detected by radar and destroyed. In the end they didn't swamp the defences, and where more of a threat to their operators than the allies. Schnellboots, fast attack craft armed with long range weapons where much more effective. The Iranians would be better off with trying to swamp the defences with chaff and sea skimming missiles.

    1. kneedragon

      yes, but...

      Lots of things were tried 66 years ago that didn't work then, but might work now.

  18. Lottie

    Hollywood goodness

    How awesome -in a B movie way- is this? Ekranoplan V Raygun!

    I'd pay to see it.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    A little reality.

    Here's the crux of the problem....

    RoE.

    Rules of Engagement.

    Sure we can blow them out of the water.

    But what happens if they're trying to play a game of chicken and provoke the US in to taking action and then crying to the world that we attacked them first?

    In Viet Nam, RoE made it impossible to use the advantage of over the horizon missiles because you had to visually identify the enemy. Again here RoE would make it difficult to remove the threat at a safe distance.

  20. Conrad Longmore
    Pirate

    Asymmetric warfare

    It's called "asymmetric warfare" - the Iranians know that that won't defeat the US and its allies by doing the same thing on a lower budget - they're looking at doing something radically different that the other side haven't planned for.

    If (and it's a big *if*) the Iranians were able to use these tactics to take out a major asset like an aircraft carrier then that would potentially be a game changer in any conflict. Of course, they could simply get slaughtered..

    1. MeRp

      The problem is...

      If they took out a Carrier with these, then the game might certainly change in such a way as to never allow that to happen again. Perhaps something along the lines of "Nuke them all from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

  21. Desk Jockey
    Grenade

    Bleep, bleep, whirrrr, squeak

    R2D2 style!

    The American way of dealing with a problem is just more ammo! They don't use lasers, it is nowhere near as much fun! Iranian swarm tactics can only work in what is termed the 'littoral' environment, in other words close to shore. This is because radar does not work quite so well in this environment and so the Iranians could sneak in and do a quick hit. Using lasers over phalanx does not solve this problem because the issue still remains that you need time to detect and engage that many targets. A number of phalanxes working together to put up a wall of lead does a better job than one or two lasers which would be the most that could operate per ship.

    Lasers are the wrong solution to this problem, if Iranian strategy is through volume of attackers then the defensive solution is through volume of firepower. Preferably delivered by a helicopter armed with hellfires and a couple of chain guns! Or dare I say it, planes armed with smart munitions that disperse hundreds of self targeting bomblets...

  22. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    The US shoots enough of it's allies now, next they will zapping their own

    Most of the US allies have suffered 'friendly fire', where carefree US soldiers and airmen casually fire off a few rounds that result in, usually, the deaths of UK, Canadian or some other alleged allied military force.

    Of course, I exclude this as a description of the out and out premeditated murder of they Reuters reporters depicted in the leaked video last year.

    With the ability to 'squirt' off bolts of laser it is likely the US will kill and maim as many friends as foe.

    I guess the only limiting factor in this is the availability of electrical energy: with lasers averaging 50-60% and the need for high volume water cooling, it is likely ships equipped with this latest military dream will require nuclear generated electricity.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: The US shoots enough of it's allies now, next they will zapping their own

      Ah, it's always fun to run into someone with their head so far up their rectum that they can't even speak sense for their frothing hatred of the US! Let's see what fun the clueless are serving up today.

      "......Most of the US allies have suffered 'friendly fire'....." So-called "friendly fire" has been a feature of military operations since long before the USA even existed! Military histories abound with stories of soldiers firing on not just allies but even their own colleagues going as far back as ancient Rome. You might have realised this if you had an ounce of historical knowledge.

      "....Of course, I exclude this as a description of the out and out premeditated murder of they Reuters reporters depicted in the leaked video last year...." Breaking news! Court of IndyMedia condemns US helicopter crew solely on the assumption that they are Merkins and therefore must be evil! Of course, back here in the land of reality, the US chopper crews haven't even been charged with premeditated murder. We've been over these baseless accusations before, JaitcH, and they were just as amusingly childish then.

      ".....With the ability to 'squirt' off bolts of laser it is likely the US will kill and maim as many friends as foe....." I'm beginning to realise what really troubles you is that they would kill many more of the enemies that you consider friends.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    This what Phalanx CIWS is for

    These are the ideal targets for the Phalanx CIWS an anti-ship missile defense system, only these targets are slower than missiles.

  24. Peter Simpson 1
    FAIL

    I wish them luck

    They'll need lots of it, if they plan to go up against the US Navy. But, the film was instructive, showing the Iranians have great skill in handling their crafts...in a Shriners parade kind of way. (for UK readers: Shriners are guys who drive little skateboard-size cars in clever patterns in US parades)

  25. Zero Sum

    Use of lasers to blind the enemy?

    I thought that the use of lasers as blinding devices was forbidden according to the rules of engagement.

    Yes, these lasers are designed to destroy boats, but couldn't the Iranians argue that they were just as likely to blind personnel?

    What's the story?

    1. Adrian Esdaile
      WTF?

      Yes, it is CRUEL and INHUMAN to merely blind people.

      I cannot for the life of me work that one out.

      It is against the Geneva Convention to use a laser to blind someone, but it's A-OK to hurl supersonic depleted uranium at them and, say, blow their legs off, blind them, rupture their eardrums and cover them in DU dust. Yep, thats fine, no problemo!

      Could someone please explain that without giggling?

      And is this the same Geneva Convention that says my baggage check ticket is NOT the Baggage Check Ticket Named In The Geneva Convention?

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Happy

        RE: Yes, it is CRUEL and INHUMAN to merely blind people.

        ".....Could someone please explain that without giggling?...." Sorry, I had to laugh just reading that. The concept is of deliberately disabling versus deliberately trying to kill someone leading to accidentally disabling them. Apparently, it's OK to attempt to kill someone but instead leave them crippled or disabled because you actually meant to do worse to them, but to deliberately try and cripple or disable them alone is unacceptable.

        Don't ask me, it's just more of the rubbish politicians come up with, and was actually an attempt by the anti-war types to limit the destructive capability of modern armies. Hence we have full-metal-jacket bullets which are only slightly less capable of dealing horrific wounds than so-called dum-dums (in fact, dum-dums are LESS of a threat to modern troops with body-armour as they don't penetrate as well); no "anti-personel" landmines, but plenty of "offroad horizontally-firing anti-vehicle devices" (landmines that stand on legs and are designed to chop up their victims' legs); and no use of nasty stuff like chlorine gas, just thermobaric bombs which are even more deadly.

  26. Nexox Enigma

    Does it look to anyone else...

    ...like those 'aircraft' were built by me? Well, I don't have plans for the weekend, might as well see if I can come up with something similar : -)

  27. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    New Scientist 1974

    That thing is a ground effect craft. IIRC it was called something like "Flescher" or "Flettner" but it has been a *long* time.

    Particular features are the downward angled wings.

    Those carrier decks are a *long* way above the sea. Could the guns depress fast enough to match them coming inward toward a carrier?

    Could a US super carrier be demolished by a couple of these firing not much more than a bunch of RPGs?

    A bit embarrassing (and expensive) if they succeed.

    I wonder if anyone remembers a US military pilot in the 1930s who shocked the navy when he dive bombed a battleship and *sank* it. A structure of 1000 of tons, sunk by a vehicle weighing 1000s of pounds.

    But *that* could not happen in the 21st century?

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      RE: New Scientist 1974

      ".....Could a US super carrier be demolished by a couple of these firing not much more than a bunch of RPGs?...." Very, very unlikely. An RPG is designed to punch a small hole into a tank by using a pencil-thin jet of molten metal, and hope that the hot jet will kill the crew inside or set it on fire. When used against ordinary container trucks in Iraq, all they did was make a small hole in both sides of the container and damage whatever was directly in the path of the jet. Unlike the movies, the containers didn't spontaneously explode. You also have to consider that ships in the Falklands took hits from Argentinean SNEB rockets - much more powerful than RPGs - with little ill-effect. Even modern thin-skinned warships still need a lot of damage to actually sink, as shown by the survival of the USS Cole despite being hit by a sizeable suicide bomb boat, a much larger amount of explosives than could be delivered by one of these toy ekranoplans.

      ".....I wonder if anyone remembers a US military pilot in the 1930s who shocked the navy when he dive bombed a battleship and *sank* it. A structure of 1000 of tons, sunk by a vehicle weighing 1000s of pounds....." Yeah, that was Billy Mitchell, and he bombed an unmanned and stationary warship that was unable to take evasive action, respond with return fire, or undertake damage control. The German warship in question had also not been designed to withstand air attack, and it still took Mitchell took several attempts to get it done. Which is why the whole exercise incensed the USN so much they got Mitchell fired. Sure, within a few years we had better dive-bombers sinking warships all over the World, but soon after that we had better defended warships with masses of triple-A keeping the divebombers at bay, and carrier-based fighters often shooting them down before they got within diving range. Evolution of tactics and systems means a respone will usually evolve to reduce or eliminate a new threat, whether it's biplane bombers or laughable Iranian ekranoplans.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Alert

        *CORRECTION*

        For some bizarre reason I mentally substituted "Patton" when I meant "Pershing" tank. Aplogies, normal service will resume after a reboot!

  28. psuedonymous
    Boffin

    That whole Cold War thing

    AEGIS cruisers were designed to deal with swarms of >20 Moskit missiles (think: fuck-off-enormous bastard of a Russian cruise missile, almost the size of an F-16) travelling at mach 2.5 at around the same altitude as these ikranoplans. I don't think these Bavar are going to be any trouble to existing CIWS, let alone requiring huge lasers.

    Not that I'm against more and huger lasers. Eventually they'll be big enough that you can just point them straight up and ride them to orbit.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What kind of armament will they have?

    Will the Iranians be attaching to them their new torpedoes that many think the US is incapable of defending against? This would create another Pearl Harbor situation for the US. The planes would provide an ideal situation for the Iranians allowing them to get the torpedoes withing striking range quickly before being detected. They could run practice maneuvers for weeks or even months creating a situation where the US does something stupid, or becomes complacent before they actually do attack. If they do attach them it would require the US to maintain a greater distance from the Iranian coast as a preventative measure.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: What kind of armament will they have?

      "Will the Iranians be attaching to them their new torpedoes that many think the US is incapable of defending against?...." The Bavars carry a single light machinegun or a camera. They couldn't lift a torpedo, they would need a considerably larger ekranoplan to be able to do so. The bigger the ekranoplan, the bigger the target for the USN and the less of them the mad mullahs can build.

      "......The planes would provide an ideal situation for the Iranians allowing them to get the torpedoes withing striking range quickly before being detected....." No really. The Iranians already have helicopters that can carry missiles or torpedos and fly that low over the water, but they're just as vulnerable to US CIWS and longer-range missiles.

      "....The planes would provide an ideal situation for the Iranians allowing them to get the torpedoes withing striking range quickly before being detected...." Ignoring the fact they stand out on AWACS radar like so many sore thumbs, the current USN CIWS should be bale to spot them long before the Bavars get close enough to fire their ineffectual machineguns.

      ".....If they do attach them it would require the US to maintain a greater distance from the Iranian coast as a preventative measure....." Why? They can' actually damage the USN ships, and they're sitting ducks for USN fighters or USMC SeaCobras, let alone Phalanx. If anything they'd just give the USN some target practice. Pease try thinking before you gush on about your "death to the imperialist Yankies" fantasies.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What colour are those lasers?

    So what if you'd spray-paint those bavar things a nice reflective colour? Perhaps with mirror-polish? Or even just titanium white, or perhaps several layers of mirror and white alternating?

    In the meantime, ground-effect craft aren't overly maneuvrable, so a goalkeeper/flyswatter/whatsisname plus a (multi)touch radar screen coupled to that ought to be enough. Just hope the operator can make proper friend-or-foe decisions quick enough, then let the automated tracking and shooting stuff do their thing. No need for multi-mega-billion overengineering projects, really. But then, what's the fun in making proper use of all the information you already have if you can come up with a new and untried toy to wage war with?

  31. Adrian Esdaile
    Boffin

    For small values of 'indefinitely'

    "could potentially keep on blasting as long as the ship had fuel left."

    And as long as the laser elements were kept cool.... which I can imagine might pose a small challenge in the Gulf...

    1. Charles 9

      Not really.

      After all, you'd be in the Gulf..which means you'd be in WATER. As machine gunners and PC overclocking enthusiasts will tell you, a nice supply of water can do wonders when you have a heat problem.

  32. Adrian Esdaile
    Boffin

    Hmm, laser defence, let me see...

    I think you'd find common-or-garden charcoal would make a pretty decent laser defence. Light weight, black, not very good at heat conduction, and oddly, very cheap to make... heck even balsawood would probably provide decent protection, especially if it is kept wet.

    Anything that chars easily, (marine-grade intumescent paint?) should do the trick. Fire bricks? Yep. Bathroom tiles? Yep. Clay bricks would also work a treat! Thats far too hi-tech for the Iranians though... oh. wait.

    I can see how a laser could bring down a light-weight aluminium structure like a missile or aircraft, but an ablative-coating-protected boat? Good luck! Boats can be made much heavier than planes, and only need to be armoured on the front quarters, too.

    * - oh the irony... this explains tribal canoes beating battleships in Civilization!

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: Hmm, laser defence, let me see...

      "....common-or-garden charcoal...." Does not make for a very streamlined aerodynamic surface, though. Seeing as the tiny engine on the Bavar struggles to get it aloft with just the pilot and a camera, it's not going to help to introduce a lot of extra weight and drag. Charcoal also absorbs water, making it heavier, which would only increase the problem of lack of engine power for the Bavar pilot.

      ".....balsawood would probably provide decent protection, especially if it is kept wet....." Balsa burns very nicely (a problem for the old Mosquito bomber). And wet wood would warp under the heat of a laser, reducing structral integrity ("twisting until it broke up the plane" to you), or just reduce aerodynamic efficiency (bumps in wing surface = bad for continued flying), or simply dry very quickly and then catch fire. And how exactly do you mean to keep the wood wet when it is travelling through warm and dry Gulf air? The Bavar doesn't have space or the ability to carry a big tank of water and sprayers to douse the fuselage and wings with. Maybe you think that every other minute the pilot should land on the water, get out and splash water all over his craft, then get back in and resume his attack on the running dog imperialist yankies? Could work - the Yanks might be so overcome with laughter as to be incapable of shooting straight!

      "....Fire bricks? Yep. Bathroom tiles? Yep. Clay bricks would also work a treat! ..." Until you consider that their aerodynamic qualities (high weight for all three and rough surface for two) would make them useless as a plane skin unless you had bags of spare lift and engine power to drive them through the air. Unfortunately for the Iranians, the Bavar has neither.

      "....Boats can be made much heavier than planes, and only need to be armoured on the front quarters, too...." So what happens when the patrolling F/A-18 or SeaCobra overtakes your slow speedboat and shoots it up from the rear? Or just sits off a few klicks and sends you a missile? Scratch one anti-laser-armoured Boghammer! That's even before you consider that the AP ammo in both Phalanx and Golakeeper will happilly drill holes through any amount of armour a Boghammer-size craft could support. And all that extra weight would make your uberBoghammer a very slow and easy target, even for the radar-controlled 5in guns on most USN escorts (think 68Lb HE shells with proximity fuses being accurately fired at 20 rounds per minute up-to-the-horizon for local radar control, or over-the-horizon with laser-guided shells if there is a friendly laser-pointer closer). Those guns and there systems are designed to shoot at low-flying jets and missiles - armoured Boghammers and Bavars would provide light relief.

      Please, for all those desperate to see the USN's dominance of the seas diminished by the "under-dog" Iranians, try a little scientific thought first.

  33. John F***ing Stepp

    Defense and a horrid thought.

    Hit AB over top of this lot of ground effect vehicles and they would pretty much blow apart.

    Horrid thought; if the Iranians sold us a (boatload) of these things we would lose a bunch of good citizens next (4th of July/Guy Faulk's day).

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Research budget fodder

    Lasers way overcomplicated,putting aside the various rapid fire gatlings etc, resurrecting grape or canister shot in some form would also work pretty well at this level of tech!

  35. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Joke

    And that's before they launch the concrete submarines

    Be afraid. Be very afraid.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Ground Effect Aircraft ?

    The Cunning Ruskies had the Ekranoplan......

    Actually the Yanqui Imperialists are quite frightened of these little things... 100Kg or so of high explosive and into the side of the ship they go or launch it...

    They are dirt cheap to build, fast, light, and can be parked in a thousand and one locations along the coast and inland....

    Reminds me of a program I saw, "Designing for" and this episode was "For War" - and they cited how the Germans had an infatuation for high class machinery.... And when the Tiger tank was captured and taken back to the UK for examination, the guy who lead that - said it was a brilliant piece of work - real craftsmanship, and they had things like all the armor plate was machined to make accurate joints - before welding etc.

    But with the cost, the time, the resources etc., needed to build it, for every Tiger tank the Germans built, the Soviets and Englanders could build 2 or 3 of their own tanks...

    So now the Iranian guard has dirt cheap piston engined ground effect craft... lots of them.

    And it would only take a few hits to cripple and even sink a carrier..

    I am not sure of the real costs but I think $3,000 to $5,000 for a plywood / fiberglass craft...

    Aside from the engine and the explosives - there is not much in them - especially from a well set up production line or lines...

    These really are better quality backyard workshop manufacturing programs...

    Not like a US shipyard.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      RE: Ground Effect Aircraft ?

      Slight problem with that - the Iranian ekranoplan in question can only carry a light machinegun OR a camera - definately NOT a "100KG bomb" or even close. Always amusing to see people fall for another Iranian bluff, but these are toys for the propaganda consumption of the Iranian peiople, their allies, and dimwits in the West.

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Happy

      RE: Ground Effect Aircraft ?

      Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Tiger and Panther were not "beautifully made" - both had a long history of mechanical problems, some down to shoddy manufacturing in the crumbling Reich, but most due to hurried designs. Many of which were never fixed in the Tiger's case (for example, it always leaked fuel into the fighting compartment due to a bad fuel tank design, it was very large and hard to hide, and it had too many vertical plates). With welded plate, you always machined the interlocking faces to get the strongest weld possible, it's just the UK was still largely using bolt-on-armour instead of welded plate. Where the Tiger did win was that it had armour and a gun superior to just about anything else at its time of introduction. By the end of WW2, the US had the Patton, which was in many ways better than the original Tiger, the Ruskies had the IS2, and we were just getting the first Centurions. The problem here is the Iranians have just introduced an ekranoplan which has LESS capability than many of the biplanes used during WW1! Rest assured, even if the Iranians mass produce these (and manage to mass train enough pilots), they are little to no threat to a warship even armed with just Phalanx or Goalkeeper.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Yes Matt.....

        I saw THE guy on TV, who was one of the earliest tank commanders to engage in a tank battle with the Tiger tank, and he talked about seeing his friends getting shot up in their tanks by the germans in the Tiger...

        He was also THE man who was commissioned to take it back to England and strip it and give an engineering report on it's strengths and weakness's.

        Those were his words - "It was a superbly made piece of machinery".

        The basis of the show was the principles of design, in a simplistic sense, was to polarise the differences between "fine craftsmanship" and the costs, and complexity of manufacturing them, vs. utilitarian cheap and functional, and it's advantages.

        Sure there may have been SOME faults with the Tiger, AND one must be mindful of the fact that these were being assembled by underfed people at gun point, who I imagine were not adverse to the idea of leaving a few loose bolts in the transmission....

        And as far as the Iran Eraknoplan's, while you may think me a fool for saying that they could carry 100Kg of explosive - in case you had not of noticed - that what appear to be identical models, come in single seater and TWIN seater version.

        So I'd imagine that the single seater - could easily carry an additional 100 - 150Kg of high explosive.

        LIFT is a simple equation of force divided by area; which equals width by length.

        Since the speed is "low-ish", overcoming drag is not the principle use of the engines power, and I'd imagine that fitting one to carry 500Kg of high explosive would not be that big an issue.

        A lot can be done by a bunch of mugs in a rubber dingy - with an outboard and a pile of explosives - just look up the history of the USS Cole. That only took about 450Kg of high explosive to put a 13 meter hole in the side.

        https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

        Sure the Imperialist Yanquies have automated gattling guns... but a heap of small, highly manouverable, sea skimming aircraft, coming from a whole heap of different directions at the same time...

        There in lies your problem.... well the Imperialist Yanquies problem - and thus back to the idea of cheap, easy to make and large numbers - and their advantages over expensive, hard to make, and small numbers......

        One of the other things covered by the show "Designing for" (War), was the sten gun.

        The British, like the Iranians - were hard pressed for industry, manufacturing, resources, raw materials, people etc., etc., etc.....

        Rather than make "neato machine guns" - that technologically speaking, are really nice pieces of work, they opted for the Sten Gun, made from a bed spring and exhaust pipe - that could be made soooooooooooo very cheaply (like $2 each) in huge numbers, on very very limited machinery, by very few people, and most of the manufacturing was from pressed sheet metal toy makers, of which at the time, England had a great many.

        https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sten_gun

        1. Charles 9

          Speaking of the Sten Gun...

          "Rather than make "neato machine guns" - that technologically speaking, are really nice pieces of work, they opted for the Sten Gun, made from a bed spring and exhaust pipe - that could be made soooooooooooo very cheaply (like $2 each) in huge numbers, on very very limited machinery, by very few people, and most of the manufacturing was from pressed sheet metal toy makers, of which at the time, England had a great many."

          Even America thought about the costs of war in World War II. Rather than order a lot of those tried-and-true-but-expensive Thompson SMGs (you know, the ones the gangsters put to good use around the 20's and 30's), they took a page from the England playbook, saw how the Sten was made, and came up with something they could make on the cheap: the M3 "Grease Gun". A fine example of the KISS principle applied to war. A fraction of the cost of a Tommy Gun and quick and easy to make. The range wasn't that great, but if you're in a city or wooded setting (which was noted to be common in the European theater), range isn't your biggest concern. And it worked: more than half a million of them were made, and they served their duty.

        2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          RE: Yes Matt.....

          ".....And as far as the Iran Eraknoplan's, while you may think me a fool for saying that they could carry 100Kg of explosive - in case you had not of noticed - that what appear to be identical models, come in single seater and TWIN seater version....." Western analysts have pointed out that there is actually only one version (Bavar-2), and that the one seen with a passenger actually had the passenger sitting in the well used for the camera kit when carried. They've also pointed out that the Bavar-2 has only been seen taxiing on water with the two-man crew, not flying, which would seem to indicate it's another Iranian bluff to exaggerate the Bavar's capabilities. From a practical viewpoint, opinion seems to be that several Bavars could be used to carry a small team of special forces swimmers to a drop-off point on a (close) foreign shore, though what advantage this might have over a normal speedboat is unclear.

          ".....LIFT is a simple equation of force divided by area; which equals width by length....." Yes, but you're thinking of lift in isolation. Lift is generated by getting air to flow over the aerodynamic surface of the wings - the more air going over the more lift for the same wing (well, up until you get high-speed effects closer to the sound barrier). Before the Bavar can get to the speed to generate enough lift to fly it has to follow an even simpler physics problem, namely acquiring enough speed to generate enough lift to unstick (and with flying boats its worse as water needs more lift than a solid runway). The heavier you are the more power you need to reach take off speed. Since power cannot be added (the Bavar seems to be struggling along on what looks like a small two-stroke engine and not even a turboprop, so not much power available to start with), adding 100Kg of weight alone would probably exceed the small engine's ability to get the Bavar going fast enough to unstick.

          "....Since the speed is "low-ish", overcoming drag is not the principle use of the engines power...." Actually, that's complete rot. Car designers will tell you that aerodynamic drag becomes a serious factor in car design as low as 30mph. But, if you want to look at drag, let's consider what adding a bomb means to the Bavar. If you want to drop the bomb then you need to hang it externally, which in the Bavar's case means adding further hydrodynamic drag at take-off as the only places to sling your bombrack are going to be underwater, so making it even harder to get unstuck. Not externally but stuffed into the fuselage? No hydrodynamic or aerodynamic drag to worry about, but you still need to deal with the added weight, that problem hasn't gone away, and the subsequent changes in trim (just ask a microlight pilot what happens if you start putting 100Kg lumps at different points in his aircraft). But let's imagine the Bavar manages to struggle into the air with 100Kg of Semtex and a willing Shaheed at the controls, then all we have is a very slow and unmanouvereable target that will be hacked out of the sky long before it gets to do a deathdive. Seriously, did you ever stop to think that people as millitirastic, desperate and given to wild exaggeration as the Revolting Guard wouldn't have displayed it with a missile/bomb/torpedo warload if it was capable of carrying anything other than a camera or a light machinegun? Even they simply describe its role as recce.

          "....just look up the history of the USS Cole...." The USS Cole attack was only successful because the Cole was in "friendly" waters and not employing the same rule of engagement as would have been used at the time in the Gulf. The dinghy used was also carrying more explosive than could be lifted by half-a-dozen Bavars. The US issues a standard warning to all vessels (and aircraft) in the Gulf stating the exact distance they must stay away from USN vessels to avoid being engaged. Any Iranian (or unidentified) vessel approaching a USN craft in the Gulf gets a series of warnings over radio, loudhailer and morse flashed by searchlight, followed up by warning shots, long before the suspect vessel gets within what is considered the dangerous range. Any vessel ignoring the warnings is considered to be showing "hostile intent" and likley to be boarded or - if there is not time - simply fired upon. Seeing as there is little chance of boarding a Bavar in flight, the response to too close a flight will probably be warning shots followed up by a deadly burst if the Iranians play chicken for too long.

          "....but a heap of small, highly manouverable, sea skimming aircraft, coming from a whole heap of different directions at the same time..." Present less of a threat than the high-speed massed cruise missile attacks the modern USN escorts have been designed to combat.

          "....The British, like the Iranians - were hard pressed for industry, manufacturing, resources, raw materials, people etc., etc., etc....." Wrong, the situation was completely different. The British had much more manufacturing ability in the 1940s than modern Iran has today. The Brits had lost a lot of hardware at Dunkirk and needed to rapidly arm the newly conscripted army and the remains of the BEF ASAP. The Sten gun was simply a very cheap and fast way to arm masses of infantry, not a replacement for traditionally manufactured infantry firearms such as the SMLE and the Bren which were still produced in massive numbers (likewise, the Germans still armed the majority of their soldiers with the Mauser Kar98K rifle). The Iranians have a different probelm - they don't have the ability to manufacture high-tech weapons like the F-22 to match the US, so they make Mickey Mouse toys like the Bavar and pour out propaganda (mainly for domestic consumption) implying that it is some revolutionary piece of wholey-Iranian tech. But the Sten gun is compareable in one way - you'd have as much chance going up against an Arleigh Burke class USN escort with an old Sten in a microlight as the Bavar would.

          ".....made from a bed spring and exhaust pipe...." Erm, not quite. In fact, the engineering that went into the design was a lot more complicated than just pulling bedsprings and an exhaust out of the cupboard. I would suggest you do some reading rather than relying on junk TV shows and Wikipaedia.

  37. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Stop

    RE: Speaking of the Sten Gun...

    The original military M1928 Thompson (not the 1921 model as made famous by the Chicago gangsters) was both expensive and time-consuming to make, requiring a lot of machining. The Sten was quicker and cheaper as it used more stampings and welding or rivetting in the production process, and was a pure blowback design (the original Thompson used the Blish lock design which required high-quality materials and carefully machining). To counter, a cheaper and simpler version of the Thompson was made as a blowback, and was the most popular and soughtafter of Allied SMGs. British troops would happilly give up a Sten for a Thompson M1, to such an extent that the Brits produced the much more polished Sten Mk V so the troops stopped complaining about the low quality Sten (it didn't work, the M1 was still preferred). Interestingly, the SAS preferred the much-malighned M1 carbine over all Allied firearms, including the Thompson M1, but that's another story.

    But the Sten is a poor comparisson in this instance. There was little difference in performance between the cheap Sten and the most expensive and traditionally-made SMGs (and the UK's benchmark was the Suomi M/31, not the Thompson). There is a yawning chasm in different capability between the Bavar and the type of modern anti-shipping helo used by most forces, let alone a modern strike jet like the F/A-18 or a Tornado (which is about the level of capability needed to have anything like a chance of sinking a modern USN escort or carrier). The Sten was meant for infantry fighting other similarly-armed infantry at short ranges. To compare it to the Bavar going up against the USN is to imply the Sten was used instead of anti-tank guns for fighting Panzers, it's just rediculous.

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