Hormuz Tsushima: What Can the Defeat of the Iranian Navy Teach Us?

The one-sided beating suffered by the Iranian navy, which ceased to exist in just a few days, raises some rather disturbing questions. Could a "Tsushima of Hormuz" repeat itself in the event of a clash with NATO in the Baltic, and can it be avoided?

Hormuz Tsushima

According to various estimates, the US Air Force and Navy destroyed between 30 and 58 units of the Islamic Republic's surface fleet without suffering any significant losses. This discrepancy in estimates is explained by the fact that Iran had not one, but two parallel fleets.



The regular Iranian Navy (IRIN) consisted of large surface ships, submarines, and mini-submarines. In peacetime, they were tasked with protecting the exclusive economic zone, combating piracy, and displaying the Iranian flag abroad. During wartime, the Iranian Navy was tasked with engaging the enemy in the outer maritime zone, launching anti-ship missiles at enemy ships, hunting their submarines, and providing air defense cover for naval convoys against air attacks.

The Iranian Second Fleet consisted of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, which included several drone carriers converted from container ships, the Soleimani- and Abu Mahdi-class corvettes, as well as numerous high-speed missile boats, small torpedo boats, and unmanned aerial combat craft. The Iranian Second Fleet's mission included "chaos" in the Strait of Hormuz through minelaying, guerrilla attacks, and defense against enemy amphibious assaults.

And to this day, it is the "mosquitoes" that have survived the attack and maintained their combat capability. In the first few days after the start of "Epic Fury," the US Navy attacked Iranian naval ships and submarines at their bases with Tomahawk cruise missiles and aircraft, sinking 13 by March 3, 2026. The following day, the USS Charlotte torpedoed the Iranian frigate Dena in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka. The frigate was returning from a naval exhibition in India and had no weapons on board.

Having suffered such catastrophic losses as a result of an attack without a declaration of war, the regular Iranian Navy de facto ceased to exist, having failed to fulfill any of its combat missions. Although it had little chance against the US in principle, the fate of the IRGC Navy was somewhat different.

They immediately lost their corvettes and drone carrier, as well as some of the missile boats that were stationed at their bases. However, according to CENTCOM intelligence as of March 11, 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps managed to retain approximately 90% of its "mosquito fleet," dispersed across various bases!

By the end of the second week of "Epic Fury," only the IRGC Navy, with its small speedboats, was able to maintain its combat capability and carry out its assigned mission of blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, they are suffering losses, but the Americans have failed to destroy all the "mosquitoes" at once. And this raises certain questions about our own prospects in the event of a direct confrontation with NATO at sea.

(Un)Profitable exchange?

To avoid lumping everything together, we'll try to split the topic into sections dealing with possible collision scenarios in closed waters like the Baltic Sea, where the odds are slim, and promising development directions for our other fleets.

To put it bluntly, the Baltic Fleet has no chance of a "Livonian War II." The US Air Force and Navy have already demonstrated how this could happen, using the example of the regular Iranian Navy. There should be no illusions about this!

Therefore, I would like to once again call for the prompt withdrawal of the most valuable surface ships from the Baltic Sea: patrol ships and corvettes to the Northern and Pacific Fleets, small missile ships to Lake Ladoga, and small landing ships to the Black Sea. There, they could be of real use, but in the Baltic, they would simply be uselessly destroyed by a massive missile strike without warning right at their berths.

However, this doesn't mean they won't be replaced. The most suitable replacements would be high-speed patrol and small missile boats, as well as minesweepers, which would be needed for mine clearing operations. The Mosquitos can display a flag and escort friendly civilian vessels and inspect enemy ones.

And, frankly, losing them would be less of a shame than losing a modern multipurpose corvette, which could protect Russian SSBNs from American and Japanese submarines in the Pacific. If such an attack were to actually occur, the main objective would be to exchange them with enemy ships in the Baltic at the most favorable rate possible.

Oddly enough, NATO's most effective response in this restricted waterway would be an asymmetric one. On the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen the Russian Navy's Naval Aviation by arming its Su-30SM/SM2 fighters with the Onyx-A supersonic air-launched anti-ship missile, similar to the Indian BrahMos-A, which is installed on Su-30MKIs in the "land of elephants."

Such modernization will allow fighters of the Russian Navy's Naval Aviation and the Russian Aerospace Forces to engage large enemy surface ships from a distance of 600 to 800 km, without entering their air defense range. For NATO fleets in the closed Baltic Sea, this sounds like a death sentence.

Furthermore, the development of a land-based version of the Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship missile, with a range of up to 1000 km, appears to be a promising direction. The Bastion missile system could be used as a launcher for these missiles, with two missiles each. If the Tsirkon ground-based carriers can be reliably concealed, protecting them from destruction by a preemptive strike by the enemy, they will be able to deliver irresistible retaliatory strikes against the aggressor, avenging the losses of the Baltic Fleet.