The navy fired the odd Tomahawk cruise missile from its submarines at the north African state and seized a rare opportunity to fire the guns of its destroyers, but the army scarcely got a look in.
Iran has since positioned two of its destroyers at the entrance to the Bab al-Mandab, ostensibly to fight piracy.Analysts have puzzled over Iran's intentions, but the industry has remained unperturbed.
The first Tonkin Gulf attack in 1965 involved one, not two destroyers.
According a to statement by CENTCOM, the US military command in the region, waves of land-based and carrier-borne fighter jets (including, for the first time in combat, the stealthy F-22 Raptor), armed Reaper and Predator drones and 47 cruise missiles, launched from guided missile destroyers in the Red Sea and the Gulf, pounded IS targets.
The navy's fleet of destroyers and frigates was cut to 25, about the minimum that is currently imaginable.Meanwhile, the ministry is wedged into several Cold War procurement programmes, including the acquisition of 144 mostly-unwanted Eurofighter Typhoons at £50m a pop.
And it is reported to have bought two Sovremenny class guided missile destroyers, which have far greater range than the most modern of China's surface ships.But when it comes to making China's mark in East Asia, what the PLA wants most is an aircraft carrier.
Besides new submarines and destroyers, the South Koreans, like the Japanese, are commissioning helicopter-carriers.Is this an arms race?
From the beach, this correspondent clocked a couple of Luyang-class destroyers and a missile frigate.
This week the American marines obliged with 14 jets.Despite the delivery of new destroyers and amphibious ships, the Royal Navy is in the doldrums.
But the RUSI paper claims that the commissioning of new frigates and destroyers is slower than at any time since the 1920s.True, the new ships are bigger and more capable than the ones they replace, but the authors argue that quantity has a quality of its own.
Nearly 5,000 landing ships and assault craft were escorted by six battleships, four monitors, 23 cruisers, 104 destroyers and 152 escort vessels, while 277 minesweepers cleared channels ahead of them.The Germans did not flinch.
