The US Navy is deploying more weapons and vessels and upgrading other equipment with a view to a rapid response to any Iranian action in the Strait, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
The bulk of the equipment is aimed at detecting and countering any mine laying, which is expected to be the main effort of any Iranian initiative in the strait. Other equipment is geared to responding to the threat posed by Iran’s fleet of hundreds of small and fast attack boats.
Among the plans as described by the Journal are:
• The purchase of more Scan Eagle surveillance planes, which are small drones that can be flown from Navy warships to detect swarms of small attack boats before they come over to the horizon to confront US ships.
• Buying more SeaFox vessels, which are small drone submarines that can patrol the Strait of Hormuz, locating and exploding mines.
• New technologies designed to foil Iran’s small boats by fouling their propellers.
• Decoys that can be tossed off ships to draw away incoming Iranian torpedoes.
• New submarine detection equipment to locate the small Qadir subs that Iran is now manufacturing in quantity.
• Upgrades to the MK 38 naval gun, which spews bullets like confetti and is seen as a major weapon against small boat attacks and against incoming cruise missiles.
The US Central Command has said it wants the mine-detection equipment in the Persian Gulf by this fall.
A request to approve $100 million for these programs was sent to the Congress February 7, the Journal reported. That money is additional to $200 million approved last year for the Central Command upgrades.
Most analysts doubt Iran would try to block the Strait of Hormuz so long as it is still able to export crude. Every last drop of Iran’s crude exports must go through the Strait of Hormuz. But there is widespread speculation the Islamic Republic may well take actions like dropping a handful of mines in the strait to cause a disruption that would send crude prices soaring.
The high prices would simultaneously punish the West and make up for at least some of the revenue Iran is expected to lose from the latest sanctions.