Everything about Fast Attack Craft totally explained
A
Fast Attack Craft (FAC) (
German:
Schnellboot) is a small (100 to 400
tonnes), fast (up to ca. 40
knots) ship for offensive tasks, mainly equipped with
surface-to-surface missiles and/or anti-ship
torpedoes.
Because of their relatively small size, FACs are generally limited to coastal areas and relatively calm sea states. For example, navies operating in the
Mediterranean and
South East Asia use them, but in the
North Sea and the
oceans they're seen far less often.
History
With small gasoline motors coming up in late 19th century it was possible to build small fast boats for warfare. Invention started in the beginning of the 20th century in Italy and Great Britain. The first such boats were armed with small guns, and were later made more effective with self-propelled
torpedoes. The first famous success of the Fast Attack Crafts was the sinking of the Austro-Hungarian battleship
SMS Szent István by the Italian MAS 15 in 1918.
After
World War II, the use of this kind of craft steadily declined in the USA and Britain, although the
Soviet Union still had large numbers of Motor Gun Boats and Motor Torpedo Boats in service. With the rise in the use of surface-to-surface missiles in the
1960s, interest in the use of FACs was renewed - first in the Soviet Union then in the west, especially in
France and
Germany. France also built large numbers of this type of craft for export.
The
First Gulf War in
1991 brought to light an important fault in the FAC design philosophy after a group of
Iraqi FACs were destroyed by
British Lynx helicopters armed with
Sea Skua missiles - FACs had almost no air defence systems and, even if they were equipped with an air defence radar, the small size of the ship meant that it couldn't be mounted high enough to be of much use.
In recent years FACs have been increasingly equipped with
surface-to-air missiles and they've become bigger - up to ca. 800 tonnes. The biggest FACs are even capable of carrying a
helicopter.
Further Information
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