Couple of Seals wouldn't hurt, either.
Posted on 01/13/2012 8:11:23 PM PST by traumer
If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy has a backup plan to save one-fifth of the world's daily oil trade: send in the dolphins.
The threat of Iran closing the strait has reached a fever pitch, reports today's New York Times, with U.S. officials warning Iran's supreme leader that such moves would cross a "red line" provoking a U.S. response. Iran could block the strait with any assortment of mines, armed speed boats or anti-ship cruise missiles but according to Michael Connell at the Center for Naval Analysis, “The immediate issue [for the U.S. military] is to get the mines.” To solve that problem, the Navy has a solution that isn't heavily-advertised but has a time-tested success rate: mine-detecting dolphins.
"We've got dolphins," said retired Adm. Tim Keating in a Wednesday interview with NPR. Keating commanded the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain during the run-up to the Iraq war. He sounded uncomfortable with elaborating on the Navy's use of the lovable mammals but said in a situation like the standoff in Hormuz, Navy-trained dolphins would come in handy:
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlanticwire.com ...
Couple of Seals wouldn't hurt, either.
General “Buck” Turgidson: Mr. President, if I may speak freely, the Russkie talks big, but frankly, we think he’s short of know how. I mean, you just can’t expect a bunch of ignorant peons to understand a machine like some of our boys. And that’s not meant as an insult, Mr. Ambassador, I mean, you take your average Russkie, we all know how much guts he’s got. Hell, lookit look at all them them Nazis killed off and they still wouldn’t quit.
PS Commie dogs are more patriotic than American dolphins? Why, that’s nonsense. I’d put Flipper up against any of their canine cosmonauts any day of the week. (Snort)
I am not going to speculate on anything like revealing secret technology, Google does that all the time.
If we have drone aircraft we have drone dolphins.
Simple as that.
I feel better already...../sarc
Wasn't there an old US scheme involving pigeons cooped up in the nose cone trained to peck at a TV image of the target? Project Orcon?
I don’t see why we gotta protect the strait. Seems like all of the oil exporting countries that depend on it would have a vested interest in keeping it open. Why must they continually rely on us? Why can’t they police their own?
For once, let Iran’s arab neighbors put pressure on them!
Used to encounter them when I had my boat on the sandbar in Kanahoe Bay.
The control boat with the handlers was always a couple of hundred feet away, and we would wave. We all knew what the skinny was on it.
You go, Flipper !!!
How would you control them? Telepathically... ??
Well
Just once
Uh no twice
I think
The same way guard dogs are controlled, through training. Dolphins perform several missions, but are most commonly used to locate mines. They wear a small “pinger” that acts as the sounding device for a remotely operated sonar. They are also used to retrieve objects using devices they carry in their mouths. In an antipersonnel setting, they will swim around until they find a target, return to a buoy or boat and get the okie-dokie and the weapon. I don’t know if that system is currently deployed or operational, but it has been developed. Sealions perform many of the same duties.
Have the dolphins figured out how to avoid fishing nets yet?
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