The article says the inital force will consist of three squadrons of 16 boats each. No word on the type or the armament, but a 12.7mm M2 gun likely to be the main armament.

We suspect this force will come in handy in other much larger operations, and not just be constricted to the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers.

If that is so, then the US Navy will need to outfit these boats with something more potent than Ma Deuce: the 25mm Hughes chain gun comes to mind, the same weapon on the M2A2 Bradley IFV. A TOW system wouldn't hurt either.

We say the 25mm chain gun because virtually every littoral craft deployed by the Russians are equipped with a 30mm gun, and the Iranians regard Russia as their personal Wal-Mart for military weapons systems.

Vlad-Mart

And as we all know, the Chinese love to copy Russian weapons.