Fifth Fleet ready for Iran attack, experts say

Military experts say the Fifth Fleet has come a long way since Iranian gunboats crippled it within hours in a notorious war game five years ago.In fact, says John Pike, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based Global Security Web site, the Navy was well on its way to solving the challenge of fending off the swarming swift boats before the war game began.

In that test, an enemy "red team" headed by retired Marine Corps Gen. Paul Van Riper deployed the gun boats and propeller-driven suicide planes to paralyze the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.It took Riper less than two hours to knock it out of commission.Key to the shocking result was Van Riper's strategy of neutralizing the American advantage in big guns and cruise missiles by getting in close before hostilities began. But the Navy now has the MK 182, “the mother of all shotgun shells,” fired by 5-inch guns deployed on every major ship in the fleet, says Pike......................Source

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