“It’s the USS Boxer...a bad boy!”
I am not saying the Boxer can’t defend itself, but the Iranian strategy is to swarm a ship with so many suicide craft it can’t get them all before it gets hit. I’m guessing the USS Cole would have been sunk and the survivors captured if it had taken the same damage it suffered from a suicide boat while in the Strait.
During one of the most expensive war games ever, a US Marine general played the Iranians, and he was credited with sinking 16 warships and a carrier. That was a while back and I think the Navy took the lessons to heart.
The Navy has gone to a strategy called distributed lethality. I have no idea what that means in practice. But, I was peripherally involved in supplying hardware to programs that used AI controlled stealth ships (about sixty-footers) that were to be evaluated by the Navy. I presume that was part of their mission, though I was associated with the mine hunting features.
And there’s always the optional Marine Expeditionary Unit for added flexibility, sinking in destroying everything isn’t enough.
I know it’s probably named after the communist witch from California, but I have to say ‘boxer’ has a great ring to it for a warship. Maybe I’m wrong about the commie from cali, it bein the namesake.