The American destroyer off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula was taken unawares by a small fiberglass skiff with two men on board. Before the crew knew what had happened, an explosion tore a hole 40 feet wide in the hull, killing 17 crew members and wounding 39 others.<\/p>\n
That was in 2000 and the ship was the U.S.S. Cole, which narrowly avoided sinking after the devastating attack<\/a> by suicide bombers from a group most Americans had never heard of at the time \u2014 Al Qaeda \u2014 using a small boat laden with explosives at the Port of Aden in Yemen.<\/p>\n It was a pivotal attack on the United States by members of Al Qaeda before its 9\/11 assault a year later, at a time when most Americans were not focused on terrorism. The lessons the U.S. Navy learned from that episode \u2014 in which an inexpensive boat nearly sank a $789 million destroyer \u2014 could help determine how its ships fare a quarter century later near the Strait of Hormuz in the war with Iran.<\/p>\n Iran has established a chokehold on transit through the critical waterway, threatening destruction to any ship that tries to pass through it without permission. In response, the U.S. has moved in a flotilla of ships, including about a dozen Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, patrolling the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea south of the strait. The aim is to further pressure the Iranian economy by blocking oil exports from Iranian ports.<\/p>\n Tehran has issued a series of bellicose warnings since the war started, laying naval mines<\/a> in the strait, and on Saturday two Indian-flagged ships reported coming under fire. The U.S. added to the hostilities on Sunday when a Navy destroyer attacked and seized<\/a> an Iranian cargo ship that U.S. officials said had defied their blockade.<\/p>\n One major question facing the American military is this: If the standoff on the seas turns into a military clash, will the changes made in response to the Cole disaster enable the U.S. military to repel any new attacks from the Iranians?<\/p>\n The U.S. Navy now has multiple options for defending its ships, analysts say. Following the Cole attack, Navy leadership created a task force called Hip Pocket to develop a range of new defensive weapons. They quickly added more automatic weapons to warships, as well as grenade launchers. And the current generation of Seahawk helicopters carried by Navy destroyers have advanced sensors and weapons that are far superior to those when the Cole was attacked.<\/p>\n Still, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, in the narrow confines in and around the Strait of Hormuz, a swarm attack by unmanned maritime drones could be hard to defend against. \u201cThe problem is, you may have more than you can handle, 30, 40 drone boats; you\u2019re not going to get them all with guns,\u201d Mr. Clark said. \u201cSome may leak through.\u201d<\/p>\n The evolution of naval warfare has been on daily display in Ukraine, where the Russian fleet lost numerous ships to a mix of anti-ship missiles and unmanned sea drones. In April 2022, Ukrainian forces sank the Moskva<\/a>, the flagship of Russia\u2019s Black Sea fleet, starting fires and flooding that quickly put the vessel on the seafloor. Over time, Russian ships were forced to retreat to safer ports as Ukraine drove Moscow\u2019s once-feared navy mostly out of the fight.<\/p>\n Iran has been paying close attention, experts said, and also learning from its proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, a militant group that used a remote-controlled boat<\/a> packed with explosives to attack a Saudi frigate in 2017, killing two.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. Navy took note of that as an important technological development with regard to the ability of weaker adversaries to attack stronger ones at sea,\u201d Michael B. Petersen, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said of the Houthi attack. Iran does not have the resources to develop an advanced navy to take the U.S. head on, but \u201cthey do have the resources to build large swarms of small boats,\u201d Mr. Petersen said.<\/p>\n Experts said the American decision to situate destroyers in the Gulf of Oman points to a degree of caution among senior military leaders \u2014 keeping their warships far enough away from the strait to give them the best odds of countering potential Iranian attacks, while at the same time staying close enough to screen ships trying to enter or leaving Iranian ports. If U.S. vessels tried to venture through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran could quickly launch attacks, it would swiftly become a riskier proposition.<\/p>\n During a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday morning, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said American warplanes and surveillance aircraft were flying over the Navy destroyers enforcing the blockade. He showed a chart of the Gulf of Oman that included the rough locations of the ships.<\/p>\n The dozen Burke-class destroyers pictured were more than 400 miles southeast of the Strait of Hormuz and roughly 150 miles south from the nearest point of Iranian land \u2014 perhaps a tacit admission that the Navy wanted to keep its ships far enough away to better detect and defend against any attack launched from Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they were confident that this anti-navy was no longer a threat, they might have established a \u2018close blockade,\u2019 which can secure tight control over a limited area, but carries enhanced tactical risk,\u201d Mr. Petersen said.<\/p>\n Iran has built up a stockpile of anti-ship cruise missiles, which are launched from the back of trucks and can skim the wave tops as they approach a targeted vessel. For a warship close to shore, the amount of time to detect and engage such a missile is greatly reduced \u2014 and the Iranian launchers can be extremely difficult to locate.<\/p>\n The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps also has a \u201cmosquito fleet\u201d<\/a> of small, agile fast boats that specialize in hit-and-run attacks. And Iran can launch aerial drones like the Shaheds<\/a> that have featured so prominently in this conflict either from boats or from land, as well as explosive-laden unmanned maritime drones.<\/p>\n The U.S. Navy has added new capabilities that may offer its warships a better chance of survival than the Russians have succeeded in implementing in Ukraine so far.<\/p>\n After the attack on the Cole, the Navy initially rushed more automatic weapons to the fleet, and by 2007 it had settled on a mix of<\/a> twin 7.62-millimeter<\/a> and .50-caliber<\/a> machine guns to boost the short-range firepower of its warships.<\/p>\n The Navy also developed two new 5-inch diameter shells for the largest guns that destroyers and cruisers carry, designed specifically for attacking smaller, more nimble boats at a range of several miles. Those shells were optimized for these kinds of attacks by creating a shotgun-like effect of tungsten pellets to shred incoming attackers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. has been operating in the Persian Gulf, dealing with terrorist threats for a long time, preparing to a degree more than Russians have,\u201d said Mr. Clark, of the Hudson Institute, who served in the Navy headquarters staff from 2004 to 2011.<\/p>\n