Word: flotilla
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When the U.S. Navy launched its Mobile Riverine Force in South Viet Nam's canal-laced Mekong Delta, it soon became obvious that servicing the mini-flotilla was a maxi-headache. Riverine's little boats would slip into the maze of marshlands for long patrols, far from the medical and military aid of the mother ship anchored in one of the larger rivers. The most obvious means of supply was by helicopter, but most of the Delta is too wet and soft to support the weight of a chopper...
Last year, for example, over one-fifth of the 2,000 soldiers and 1,800 sailors in the flotilla were killed or wounded as their craft, weaving through the narrow canals, were targets for snipers and mortar and rocket attacks. Navy personnel, who regularly man the Delta craft, stand a 70% chance of being wounded during a year's service with the Riverine Force. The Aid Boats, bristling with machine guns, grenade launchers and a cannon, are able to go to the rescue. Wounded are picked up and shuttled away from enemy fire, then quickly evacuated on "dust...
...perceptive students of naval warfare, Gorshkov and his admirals were impressed with the performance of the U.S. Navy in World War II. When they began to build their own navy, they consciously patterned much of it on the successful American model. Soviet admirals even refer to their new Mediterranean flotilla as "our Sixth Fleet...
Bridge of Trouble. The imperial reach of the Soviet navy has already begun to have its impact on world events. In the tense Sea of Japan, a flotilla of 16 Soviet cruisers and missile frigates has in the past few weeks shouldered its way between the coast of North Korea and the U.S. Navy task force that was sent into the area to add some muscle to U.S. diplomatic demands for the return of the Pueblo and its crew. Soviet destroyers have also closely shadowed the carrier Enterprise, which withdrew because of North Korean protests shortly before the Soviet navy...
...would have been easy enough for the U.S. flotilla to harass the Soviet trawler, but that would have invited similar treatment for any U.S. ELINT, or electronic intelligence-gathering vessel, in any other part of the world. Even in the seamy business of espionage, some gentlemanly rules prevail, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as first-rate maritime powers, generally try to observe them scrupulously. North Korea, with only a bathtub navy, obviously feels no such compunction. "The North Koreans have made their own rules," said Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas Moorer, "and they are new rules...