Fair point Yama, I was basing my initial description on what i know happned in 1971 with the attack on Karachi, i got things wrong because for me i thought that was a attack across a large distance so could equate to a green water…mea culpa

Karachi attack was very successful operation involving missile boats. However, missile boats were present largely because at that time, large surface combatants generally did not carry SSM’s. Role of the surface warship at that time was to protect aircraft carriers which would do real damage to the enemy. It might be that if Indian frigates had carried missiles, FAC’s would not have been used. At any rate, Karachi attacks were not swarm attacks, but rather traditional FAC stealth attacks.

It’s true that FAC’s can carry similar missiles as employed by cruisers etc. large warships. However, FAC can never replace cruiser simply because by definition, cruisers are meant to ‘cruise’: whole cruiser concept puts emphasis on endurance and sea keeping.

If you look at the aforementioned Millenium Challenge 2002, there the Red Force used small boats to scout out enemy’s position, actual damage was mostly done by land based anti-ship missiles. This tactic can work in confined waters, such as Persian Gulf.

Finnish Navy studied a concept which was somewhat similar to your original idea of specialized small vessels. It was called Squadron 2000, where a squadron was meant to comprise one conventional missile boat acting as a sort of command vessel, and four smaller hovercraft FAC’s (based on LCAC) carrying out the attacks. It was abandoned, probably because hovercrafts were one-trick ponies with very limited capabilities for the cost.

I was talking about Operation Praying Mantis in 1988 (First Gulf War) and Operation Desert Storm in 1991 – and the Iranian boats in 1988 and the Iraqi boats in 1991 were operable.

I know what you’re talking about. During Praying Mantis, Iranians had ONE barely operable (ie. most systems probably non-operable) missile boat facing very strong USN surface action group, so I am not sure what this is supposed to prove. Iranian frigates did not fare any better. As for the 1991 engagement, Iraqi had captured Kuwaiti missile boats which they had had for few months, which is way too short time to achieve any realistic operational readiness even if you have instructors, which they had not. So no, those actions really proved little if anything regarding usefulness of missile boats.

Yes – because they usually had only limited chances of success against bigger warships (even though there are some examples, e.g. also the sinking of HMS Manchester).

Thing is, large warships seldom came anywhere close where FAC’s operated. Which of course meant that FAC’s were successful.

Ok. But as I mentioned before: the Iranian and Iraqi navies FAC were decimated by the Royal Navy and US Navy in the First and Second Gulf War – in coastal areas and in a conflict between powerful, well funded navy and a small, weak navy.

Those boats were barely operable. Those incidents really prove little, if anything.

Obviously FACs were very attractive for small navies, but they were not effective. And I guess that is one of the main reasons, why many navies stop to buy them.

It has nothing to do with it. For most nations, threat of seaborne invasion has really receded over last few decades, and since that’s why FAC’s are for, they are not needed. Notice similar drop in submarines and coastal artillery and missiles.

Those nations which still see seaborne invasion as a threat, continue buying FAC’s.

Are there example of successful use of FAC or similar craft except the one I had already mentioned?

Yes, literally hundreds. FAC’s were quite successful in both World Wars, for starters.

One additional point: small boats probably cannot use some weapons systems, because they are to heavy and would impair sea-keeping – which is certainly a general problem of FAC.

Well, main armament of most today’s missile boats are exact same missiles used by frigates & cruisers….

It’s not the lack of offensive power, but staying power, which is the issue.

Yes and no…

Smaller craft can be more cost-effective in ASuW role (ever since the fireships were invented :)), however the cost difference is not as big as often thought. You don’t get twenty 200-ton Missile boats at the cost of one 4000 ton frigate. It’s more like five to ten, depending on how they are equipped and armed etc.

However, traditional FAC role has always been “stealth” approach (as it would be known today), crawl closer preferably using coast/islands to cover your approach, fire ordnance and GTFO. This does not really work in open seas:

-First of all, small craft can’t carry any kind of long range air defence, making them horribly vulnerable to anti-ship airpower if caught.

-sensor ranges from small craft are severely limited, esp. as they can’t carry their own aviation component

-poor seakeeping might mean that your sensors or weapons become useless while enemy can still operate. Having dedicated “command boats” does not really mitigate this problem.

-finally, endurance is limited, you might have to return to port for more food/fuel while enemy is still at station.

Basically, IMO, even though modern networking and sensor fusion do open new doors for this kind of naval defence concept, you would need your own maritime aircraft in support of these craft for this to work. It would be different if you could use archipelago, ground-based sensors/communications etc.

Other countries normally don’t do such things. IF they do then it’s cleared by the country, in which case it’s not a violation.

Finnish airspace is routinely violated by Russian, Swedish and NATO aircraft, often military aircraft, no biggie. We haven’t shot anyone down (yet). I understand that back in the day NATO aircraft used to rather deliberately violate Austrian airspace.

Puzzled:

The Navy has said it does not wish to mix both classes of LCSs [in Singapore]….LCS 1-class ships are better suited to operations in the Arabian Gulf

I’m puzzled too, as there is no such thing as ‘Arabian Gulf’… 😀

My money would be on some form of nav-attack pod, my only question mark would be poor field of view.

Might also be a training round for some land attack missile: though I’d expect it to be more obviously marked then.