Or it could start with "spotlight and loud hailer", and crank up the power to "a few rounds from a Browning M2" if they don't surrender, and get pretty much exa

Or it could start with "spotlight and loud hailer", and crank up the power to "a few rounds from a Browning M2" if they don't surrender, and get pretty much exactly the same effectiveness in the operational context at hand -- specifically, that of needing to be able to keep a swarm of small kamikaze boats from getting close enough to blow a hole in a warship. If an M2 doesn't do the job, a few shells from a 20mm Oerlikon certainly will, and neither requires the development of delicate and expensive boondoggles. (Oh, and don't buy that "this has nothing to do with Iran" nonsense, either. On the one hand, you can scare pirates into surrendering easily enough with real guns too; on the other, it's no accident when you get a phrase like "the Arabian Gulf", which couldn't be better calculated to piss off any Persian who hears it, in press release like this one.)