Bring a missile to a gunfight: Martlet sharpens the Wildcat's claws

摘要

During the mid-1980s UK Royal Navy (RN) small-ship aviators, operating as part of the Armilla Patrol in the Gulf, first encountered the threat from what are today generally known as fast inshore attack craft (FIACs). With the Iran-Iraq conflict raging, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) began to employ swarms of small but heavily armed craft - typically Boston Whaler-type skiffs and Swedish-designed Boghammar fast interceptors - to close in on and harass merchant shipping. Equipped with rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns, these swarming FIACs rarely sank a ship, but could still inflict serious damage and/or cause casualties among crew.