The US Navy’s Riverines are up-gunned, high tech and ready to lean into great power competition

The Mark VI patrol boat bristles with heavy automatic weapons, and that’s the way its crews like it.

“I tell the crews that you want to look like a porcupine,” said U.S. Navy Senior Chief Derrick Cox, who trains the sailors that man the Mark VI as part of Coastal Riverine Squadron 2’s training evaluation unit. “You don’t want to kick a porcupine because you know there will be consequences.”

The Mark VI is a replacement for the Riverine Command Boat, which gained notoriety three years ago when two of them, along with their crews, were captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard when they strayed into Iranian waters near Farsi Island in the Arabian Gulf.

“This has double, maybe even triple the firepower of the RCB,” Cox said.