Posted on 02/23/2024 2:17:13 PM PST by hardspunned
Yeah, well, like usual you are ignorant of the important details, or more likely, deliberately leaving them out.
At any one moment we only have 3 of our anti-missile destroyers to cover an area way too big for 3 destroyers to cover. The Ford can help some, but if a cargo ship can be reached by a missile faster than the Ford can get a plane in position to intercept, that’s not much help. That’s probably 80+% of the area in question. (Notably, the US has shot down a lot of drones. One USN pilot (in a Harrier with old radar) shot down 7 himself B4 his ship, the Bataan, went back to the Red Sea.
Virtually all sea traffic to Eilat goes through the Bab-el-Mandeb. Ships in the Med would go to Israeli ports in the Med — shorter, and you don’t have to pay half a million dollars or so to go through the Suez canal. Be able to hit one ship out of 100 in the strait, and, yeah, you pretty well shut off Eilat. Any ship bound there goes around Africa and to the Med ports. It’s cheaper than the insurance, and any shortages created drive up the prices of the goods you carry.
Also, missiles with 1k+ mile ranges are no big deal to make these days. The Iranians certainly do.
Well, the real threat is the longer range missiles, and those you’d have to be a QUITE wealthy “hobbyist’ to fire off many of. USN has been pretty effective (if at high $$ cost) knocking down the drones.
As for the “daring”, well, hey, they are a semi-starving death & martyrdom cult. And we are “led” by Biden. Still, they need the arms from Iran: This crap wouldn’t go on for long under Trump...
Yeah, it’s actually MUCH harder to subdue a group like the Houthis (who basically have very little to lose) than to slap sense into the Iranian mullahs for a while...
We have a VERY large economic interest in policing the Red Sea. It is mostly indirect, but very large nonetheless.
It is NOT our problem .
The problem is that only the US has a good number of capable AD ships (our Arleigh-Burke destroyers). And for whatever reasons we’ve only deployed 4, usually with one of those on any given day needing to make a run to resupply...
There are ships from several other countries assisting in various ways — Ward Carroll and “What’s Going On With Shipping” (see below links) have posted long vids about the situation in the last day. Lots of info. there! But even WGOWS agrees we need quite a few more of the Arleigh-Burkes there to be truly effective, and even that defense would likely be penetrated once in a while. 100% AD is nearly impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCLFXkTUNS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5AtpKOp7Qs
Uh, the incentive if there is any risk at all, unless someone really wants to pay a high dollar to get normal delivery, is to go the long way around Africa. The shipping companies actually make more money. What’s Going On With Shipping has gone into this in considerable depth.
It’s not my “opinion”, it is the analysis of people who know the industry a hell of a lot better than I do, and evidently a double hell of a lot better than you do.
We’ll see what you say when the economic effects come to roost on you and me.
BullShiite
Well, the real threat is the longer range missiles
Just heard the World Caribbean 9 month world tour is skipping the route of the Red Sea. Probably a good idea.
That would be a good place to start.
Where do they get all their weapons & supplies? Cut off as many supply routes as possible.
There are also the grain ship and the Rubymar (UK registered, Belize flagged, carrying fertilizer to Bulgaria, IIRC), but apparently several Indian-connected ships (with nothing to do with Israel) have been targeted. In fact, the Indian response has been second only to the US. However, it appears none of the parties defending (US, UK, India, Japan, France) are in any kind of formal or overall cooperation. There HAS been cooperation at some particular incidents cooperation, however.
A huge,inverted U cloaking ship made of a small number of mass-produced parts could be used to shield a cargo ship in transit.
When the cloaking ship gets hit just weld on a patch.
Red Sea/Suez threat is to EU,
NOT our problem.
Or do you think that EVERTHING is our business ??
Not to worry, the Iranian ship tagging the targets is back on duty after being shut down by a U.S. cyber attack. All I can say is don’t pay for protection on your ships if you don’t feel it’s worth it. It’ll be up to the other ship owners to make their own decisions as well.
You can interpret what you hear on WGOWS the way you want. I’ve already interpreted those shows the way I want. Personally, I don’t drink so I’m not obviously half soused from the drinking game while watching. Yes, he does know a lot more about shipping than I do. You obviously don’t and you obviously have a very, very hard time learning.
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