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In the strait Hormuz, Iran It has developed an asymmetric maritime strategy that impedes the passage of container ships. This “hemostat” uses guerrilla tactics, after the Iranian “conventional” fleet was almost completely destroyed due to American and Israeli attacks. Tehran can no longer rely on specialized military ships, as it uses an unconventional force consisting of dozens of small military ships armed with missiles, machine guns, and drones. Fast and nimble, this “mosquito fleet” is capable of attacking ships carrying tons of cargo.
In mid-April, US President Donald Trump reassured the public in a post on Truth Social that Iran’s Marqa fleet did not pose a major problem for the US and Israel. “The Iranian Navy lies at the bottom of the sea, completely destroyed: 158 ships,” Trump wrote. “What we didn’t hit were their small numbers of what they call ‘fast attack boats’ because we didn’t consider them a major threat.” Less than 10 days later, on April 22, an Iranian attack with small ships led to the seizure of two large container ships that had left the country. Strait of HormuzChanging the course of the war.
Enter the hemostat fleet
“Iranian fleets of small boats were created during Iran-Iraq war“With the aim of disrupting oil tankers in the Persian Gulf that supported the Iraqi war effort,” says Michael Eisenstadt, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy where he is director of the Military and Security Studies Program, comparing it to “the swarms of American torpedoes that disrupted enemy maritime traffic in the Pacific and Mediterranean during World War II.”
“The effectiveness of the Iranian small boat fleet comes from their numbers and their use in swarms, which makes countering them difficult,” Eisenstadt adds. “Iran has more than a thousand of these small boats armed with missiles, machine guns, anti-ship missiles and mines.” In this way, Tehran can pose a serious naval threat despite the destruction of a large part of its military fleet.
“As Iran demonstrated in March, it can close the straits by launching just a few dozen drones against oil tankers and cargo ships in the Persian Gulf,” says Eisenstadt, who in addition to his 26-year career in the US Army as a reserve officer has also served as a US Army analyst, with assignments in Iraq and Israel.
Eisenstadt says that between the number of ships at its disposal and the thousands of drones supporting air operations, Iran has “far more than it needs to effectively enforce the closure of the strait.” Then there is its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, which allows Iran to organize its deterrence against the passage of container ships and oil tankers. He adds: “Therefore, it is important to view the Iranian threat as multidimensional, and involving a variety of capabilities to exploit its favorable geographical location.”
A tactic in the hands of the Pasdaran
Iran’s “conventional” navy is separate from the navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also known as the IRGC or Pasdaran. But the parallel chain of command allowed Tehran to develop a diverse guerrilla doctrine, even in areas under their respective operations responsibility.
The hemostatic fleet is used by the Pasdaran. As the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, explains in an article a report Written by analyst Jan Kasapoglu, Kassaboglu adds that “most of the Iranian conventional platforms sunk or rendered inoperable by allied attacks were owned by…Iran’s regular armed forces. In contrast, the IRGC retains its asymmetric naval component, designed specifically for combat operations in the Strait of Hormuz, much of which remains intact.”