The Iranians have some silkworms that could do some damage but we would detect one being launched immediately and we would start sinking their entire fleet. We have 80 attack aircraft on each carrier. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The Iranians know this. They are just pulling our chain. It is irritating though.
“It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
The Iranians don’t have to win a naval duel. They just have to block the passage, a task which could be made easier by provoking the US Navy to sink a lot of vessels in the strait. For a nation that used child-wave attacks against Saddam’s military in their Mesopotamian replay of WWI trench warfare, sacrificing their limited naval assets to block the strait would not be unthinkable.
If the net effect is to block the passage of oil tankers through the strait, whether by sunk vessels which have to be removed, or laying down mine fields which produce sunk vessels which have to be removed, or land-to-sea missile attacks which sink vessels that have to be removed, then ‘mission accomplished’ from the Iranian perspective.
Oil is fungible and both supply and demand are closely balanced and inelastic in the short run, so that spiking prices in Europe, where much of the Iranian oil currently ships, would translate immediately to spiking prices globally. The Iranian economy would be wacked too because of their low refining capacity, but if sanctions are already crippling their economy, they have less to lose than Europe and the rest of the developed world.
1 Exocet nearly sunk the USS Stark one exocet did sink the British Destroyer in the Falklands War. While the Silkworm is not as modern as the Exocet a direct hit could cause major damage.
Its looks like Iran wants a war. OBammy needs a war to help his Image.
Lord protect our sailors from harm.