would happily expend one or two of our carriers and many thousand servicemen's lives to get re-elected.
Posted on 07/27/2012 1:11:47 PM PDT by Dysart
It's getting easy to overlook the tired rhetoric and hollow tension surrounding Iran, the U.S. and Israel.
It's been months, and months since the back-and-forth began. First, Iran's shutting the Strait of Hormuz, then its saying it'd never shut the strait. Then Israel's planning a solo attack. No, they're not.
It's frustrating, but that doesn't mean the situation couldn't turn ugly at the drop of a hat.
Joby Warick at The Washington Post reports improved Iranian weapons and an enhanced plan of attack could nail the U.S. fleet parked in the Gulf and there may be little Navy officials can do about it.
From The Post:
[Iran's] emerging strategy relies not only on mobile missile launchers but also on new mini-submarines, helicopters and hundreds of heavily armed small boats known as fast-attack craft. These highly maneuverable small boats, some barely as long as a subway car, have become a cornerstone of Iran’s strategy for defending the gulf against a much larger adversary. The vessels can rapidly deploy Iran’s estimated 2,000 anti-ship mines or mass in groups to strike large warships from multiple sides at once, like a cloud of wasps attacking much larger prey.
“This is the scenario that is giving people nightmares,” said [an] official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in discussing strategy for defending against a possible Iranian attack.
We recently wrote on one strategy for thwarting a multi-pronged attack against a naval task force, but Raytheon's new system isn't up for handling the hundreds of heavily armed small boats officials believe Iran would send against the U.S. fleet.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
what a crock. you really think the USN is going to sit there and wait? 30 minutes after the war starts 80% of the Iranian assets will be slag.
Reminds me of Dan Rather on the eve of the Iraq war going on and on about how powerful Iraq was, how their artillery was so much better than ours blah da lib blah blah. How did that work out ?
A carrier would have a couple launcher pods of RAM missles plus 3 more Phalanx gun pods. Ya gotta hope the screening force would thin the herd a bit before the carrier would need to worry about them. :)
I would hope so, but I have no doubt that Iran is able to muster a virtually unlimited number of suicidal conscripts. Better safe than sorry.
“shootmeplease.net”?!
:-D
I’m looking for a “Persian Gulf of Tonkin Incident” long about October, at the latest.
They are planning to get 72 virgins on eternal R&R.
Funny but those boats don;t look like they can stand up against a tactical nuke....
Cool tour. The stairs were a little spooky though.
We should never underestimate an enemy. The military knows that, but I’m not sure that Obambi knows it. If the imams manage to inflict significant damage/casualties on a major US warship I would think that Iran’s economy for the immediate future would be, as another freeper once put it, “measured in cave paintings.”
Waves of dead rag heads pal... that is all that you are seeing here.
LLS
During the first Iraq war our A-10s and F-16s and the Navy Hornets went on a virtual cost free killing spree. They created the “Highway of Death for Sadamn’s tanks” Boats are a lot easier to kill than tanks.
Our AWACs will know where each and everyone boat is when they leave port. Those small boats will die on the ocean and there will be no port for them to return to.
I think this is the October surprise planned by Obama to win re-election. Obama is a despicable man.
The traffic lane in the SOH is narrow enough that a disguised vessel(s) outside the lanes but inside Iranian waters armed with a hidden Russian made gatlin gun could within a few seconds preemptively blind the radar sets of every port, or starboard looking SeaRAM and CIWS on a carrier.
The reaction wouldn't be pretty, and would afford Obama The Oppressive to look god again. I have to wonder if the reaction would be the same were the damage inflicted by their mines. Can think of no reason why the method would matter in the response. They must recognize that.
“Iran said to have hundreds of these babies ready to attack in wave”
We have a few of these that might be able to stop a couple of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdp9llrBLnA
They aren't rags, they are sheets.
Correct. The naval battles during the Russo-Japanese War prove your point. No one expected the Russian fleet to be humiliated by a supposedly inferior Asian power.
America is not Russia, and Iran is not Japan. But still the lesson is there.
I put on the swami’s turban and predict—some limited success from Shore Launched Rockets and such and maybe a little from a few attack boats. They may sink a capital ship or two but then the full might of the USA will hit them like a steel monsoon of death. The Iranian coast will be occupied—in the end the Mullahs will be swept from power and a new Monarchy set up. The war—will be a full one and have several fronts—even including actions in the USA. One year of fighting at most—if anything—it will resemble the Spanish -American war of 1898.
A few points:
1) Quantity has a quality all its own. Just like with an assassination, if you’re not too worried about a successful egress, then all they need to do is get a few of those boats close enough to a carrier or a cruiser, and we lose the PR war even if we take out 95% of those floating subway cars.
2) I’m sure that they have a few tricks up their sleeve that we don’t know about, or don’t take seriously enough. Just remember, the Israelis were completely surprised in 1973, and though they eventually won (with a lot of material help from us), their reputation took a beating and they ended up losing territories in negotiations. Again, it is the PR war that matters the most in the end, because Iran isn’t going to defeat us any more than the NVs were going to.
3) Yes, I know, our Navy is the very best out there, and not by a small margin. I take nothing away from the Navy, esp. since my father was a vet. We, too, have things up our sleeves that the Iranians don’t know anything about.
4) I am far more concerned about what Iran is capable of doing away from the Gulf. These range from massive terrorist attacks nationwide (or, for that matter, worldwide), to unleasing Hezbollah and its 60,000+ rockets on Israel (and starting a general Mideast War), to sending a nuke from a cargo ship stationed off our shores up in a rocket and exploding it 100-200 miles above our territory - the resulting EMP would devastate our electrical grid for YEARS, possibly leading to literally millions of deaths in short order (think: no working refineries, fuel pumps, hospitals, food delivery, refrigeration, etc.). Yes, we could turn large parts of their nation into a parking lot, but that wouldn’t help much with the damage at home.
Bottom line - though we could easily devastate their armed forces or country if sufficiently provoked, we should not underestimate them. Bluster might feel better, but taking an enemy seriously is far more rational.
would happily expend one or two of our carriers and many thousand servicemen's lives to get re-elected.
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