Iran: A Bridge Too Far?

Information Clearing House ^ | Oct 26 2004 | Mark Gaffney

[winodog]

Last July, they dubbed it operation Summer Pulse: a simultaneous mustering of US Naval forces, world wide, that was unprecedented. According to the Navy, it was the first exercise of its new Fleet Response Plan (FRP), the purpose of which was to enable the Navy to respond quickly to an international crisis. The Navy wanted to show its increased force readiness, that is, its capacity to rapidly move combat power to any global hot spot. Never in the history of the US Navy had so many carrier battle groups been involved in a single operation. Even the US fleet massed in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean during operation Desert Storm in 1991, and in the recent invasion of Iraq, never exceeded six battle groups. But last July and August there were seven of them on the move, each battle group consisting of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with its full complement of 7-8 supporting ships, and 70 or more assorted aircraft. Most of the activity, according to various reports, was in the Pacific, where the fleet participated in joint exercises with the Taiwanese navy.

But why so much naval power underway at the same time? What potential world crisis could possibly require more battle groups than were deployed during the recent invasion of Iraq? In past years, when the US has seen fit to “show the flag” or flex its naval muscle, one or two carrier groups have sufficed. Why this global show of power?

[winodog]

This probaly does not need to excerpted. I had not heard much about those carrier battle groups. How effective is the Sunburn?

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Mothball the carriers?
Ha.
Let one of those sunburns take out a U.S. carrier, and a crater will occupy the spot formerly known as Beijing.

[45Auto]

Conclusion

"Friends, we must work together to prevent such a catastrophe. We must stop the next Middle East war before it starts. The US government must turn over to the United Nations the primary responsibility for resolving the deepening crisis in Iraq, and, immediately thereafter, withdraw US forces from the country. We must also prevail upon the Israelis to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and open all of their nuclear sites to IAEA inspectors. Only then can serious talks begin with Iran and other states to establish a nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ) in the Mid East –– so essential to the region’s long-term peace and security"

If this is the guy's solution, to turn over responsibility of Iraq to the rotten, corrupt to-the-core UN, then we are, indeed in for trouble because wherever the UN goes, the body bags mount up fast, and not because they are fearsome warriors, but because they are inept, bungling, money-grubbing fools. The problem with Iran going nuclear is not about nuclear parity between nations, about a balance of power, its about the lunatic mullahs giving the weapons to Al-qaeda or some other stateless terrorist organization. That is the concern for anyone who has half a brain and can apply even a little logic.

[JeeperFreeper]

I read it all. Sounds like a worst case scenario with doomsday for the U.S. naval forces and ground forces in Iraq if Iran is attacked. Makes a lot of assumptions. I'm no expert, just like to play one on Free Republic, but the article needs a enema and then buried in athimble.

[Williams]

OK I read it. All over the place and the conclusion is that the US must be prevented from attacking Iran's nukes by turning authority over to the U.N.

By the way, I love inane historical references, such as the slaughter of the Romans by Hannibal at Cannae, which this author throws in without drawing any analogy, just to depict a horrible defeat like the one awaiting us.

Now for the real conclusion to Hannibal's campaigns. When hannibal was camped outside the gate of Rome, he learned the land he was camped on had been sold at public auction in Rome at the going market rate. He also learned that several Roman legions had left the city - sent to deal with another problem in Spain!

Faced with the Roman's fearless resolve and knowing that if he attacked Rome and lost he would be destroyed - Hannibal turned tail and ran. Just as most nations on this earth must consider the consequences of going toe to toe with the USA. Carthage was eventually destroyed by Rome.

[45Auto]

What's really troubling is that the guy who wrote this is a flaming commie who thinks the problems in the Middle East can be solved if Israel gives up its security. His analysis of military matters may be not too far off, but his solution won't accomplish anything except to lead to the very disaster of which he is afraid.

[buwaya]

A rather propagandist and sensationalist site.

The missile has been around for 20 years almost.

Other versions of Soviet supersonic missiles have been around longer - in fact they are a major reason the USN Phoenix missile for the Tomcat fighter was designed as an missile interceptor for the likes of the AS-6, designed for launch from "Backfire" bombers.

No, I don't think anybody knows how effective it will be, or how good USN defenses are.

[konaice]

I agree. He doesn't seem to do very good research. He calls the RAM missile the Rolling Action Missile (its a Rolling Airframe Missile). The russian missiles are already in US possession and have been for ten years. And as they all plunge into the sea short of their target their shooters will wonder what the cause was. And we are going to keep them guessing. The only truth he mentiones is that our Navy in the Gulf is at risk from a mass missile attack. But such a move would bring a nuclear response, and the Iranians know it.

[JasonC]

Silly pro-Iranian apologetics. The standard and harpoon are about as capable, especially when the much greater vulnerability of every enemy platform is taken into account. The US navy has individual ships with more air defense ability than Iran's entire navy, and a single US warship can dish out dozens of equally capable strikes in a matter of minutes. The article confuses the existence of effective weapons with victory. A rifle will kill a man, but having rifles doesn't ensure defeating an army. Those wielding them have to survive the replies.

Iran might succeed in making trouble for a few months at most in the gulf, largely by attacking not US warships but civilian shipping. Meanwhile we'd prevent a single freighter from reaching them - something we can accomplish from well outside the gulf, easily - and our air power would destroy every fixed surface target they have. If we want to, we can also send hundreds of M-1s and the like to Teheran, and all the Iranians can do is bleed on them.

In the historical case the title refers to, the guys on the other end were Germans not Iranians. They had several unidentified panzer divisions in the area of the operation, including tanks superior to anything in the entire allied arsenal. A rapid speculative offensive did not work on that occasion - but the enemy was still ground to sawdust in less than 8 months.

Iran is not Germany. Their technical standing compared to the US is not the world's first jets, rockets, monster tanks, all commanded by the best trained officer corps in history leading fanatics from the most educated nation in history. Magic bullet stories may help them to miscalculate, but are a mirage. They do not have a prayer in a general war with the US.

[konaice]

His analysis of military matters may be not too far off, but his solution won't accomplish anything except to lead to the very disaster of which he is afraid.

His analysis of military matters is just as contrived as his potential solution. Had he played his trump card first (his cut and run recommendation) the rest of the article would have been dismissed out of hand. You have to read all the way to the end to see why he wrote the article, and then you relaize you've been had.

This guy must think the Navy is run by idiots and that only columnists can see these things comeing.

He has another scary bed time story posted here www.joevialls.co.uk/myahudi/sunburn.html

[Rockpile]

I may be remembering it wrong but it seems to me that the Iraqis fired an anti-shipping missile at the Wisconsin during the first Gulf War

---

only it never reached the battleship because a British destroyer shot it down.

[Rockpile]

"Never in the history of the US Navy had so many carrier battle groups been involved in a single operation."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Uhhh, Mr. Gaffney, you see there was this event called "The Second World War" and believe it or not during this war the United States ended up being able to muster more than seven aircraft carriers for a single operation.

{By the time of the Japanese surrender I think we had 99 flight-decks ranging from escort carriers to fleet carriers}.

[Strategerist]

This author is a stupid tool.

Forgot one important thing.

You have to have targeting info for the Sunburn. Really hard to do that "over the horizon" without air superiority.

And no, satellites don't really work (Not that Iran has any) You don't get a continuous movie of the globe from them; you get a brief snapshot a couple times a day of any given spot.

And the Sunburn has been around for 20+ years. If it was designed to deafeat AEGIS, AEGIS was designed to defeat it. They didn't just invent it and much thought in the US Navy has gone into the problem of defense against ASMs.

[Strategerist]

Yeah, I'm getting sick of these "the bad guys have uberweapons WAAAAAAH" pants-wetters.

I'm sure he has some stupid article on the Shkval high-speed torpedo somewhere along the same lines as this one.

[Strategerist]

Technically the Phoenix was designed to shoot down the Backfires BEFORE they launched their ASMs.

The Phoenix probably would have had a difficult time hitting the ASMs themselves.

[Born to Conserve]

Gosh, I had no idea how stupid we are. The Pentagon has completely missed this development. You would think they would have developed some supersonic stealth aircraft that can fly missions from the States, and air born anti missile lasers, and spoofing jammers, etc, etc. We are so dumb.

Uhm, I've got a retirement fund that says we royally cream anyone shooting at one of our carriers. Any takers?

[winodog]

lol

[dvwjr]

Originally posted by Rockpile:

Uhhh, Mr. Gaffney, you see there was this event called "The Second World War" and believe it or not during this war the United States ended up being able to muster more than seven aircraft carriers for a single operation.

{By the time of the Japanese surrender I think we had 99 flight-decks ranging from escort carriers to fleet carriers}.

Right on! The US had 99 available carrier decks at height of its Naval power at the end of WWII. Sure only 19 of them were Fleet carriers, but they all contributed. Heck, even the Brits mustered 53 total carrier decks...

When WWII started in 1939 RN still was the strongest navy in the world, also because it was the only navy with a decent chance of deploying everywhere (which is a damned important asset for a great power navy). RN could go straight to the Far East and fight there with a decent chance of success, but both USN and IJN were just strong regional navies. That changed very much for USN during WWII, but hadn’t yet in 1939.

I am not so sure they were the strongest Navy, they did have the most cruisers for their Empire before the War. I thought that the 5:5:3 ratio was to keep them in the game versus the US and Japan...

               Type               Pre-war      Pre-war       Aug 1945     Aug 1945
                                 Royal Navy    US Navy      Royal Navy     US Navy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Carriers, Fleet                  5           7              5          19
     Carriers, Fleet Light            2           2              8           9
     Carriers, Escort                 0           0             40*         71
     Battleships/Battlecruisers      15          15             15          25
     Cruisers, Heavy & Light         66          37             67          72
     Destroyers/Destroyer Escorts   184         171            308**       738
     Submarines, Fleet               60         112            162         232
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Total Major Warships           332         344            605       1,166

Notes:
* = Includes 39 Lend-Lease Escort Carriers from USA
** = Includes 50 Lend-Lease Destroyers from USA

Source: Royal Navy and World War 2, Losses
Source: Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center, Prewar
Source: Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center, Postwar
Source: Hazegray Naval History

The August 1945 US Navy totals do NOT include ship classes such as Mine Warfare, Patrol(Corvettes, PT boats, etc), Amphibious (LST, LSD, etc), Auxiliary (tankers, cargo etc) in any way. If all the ships in commission in August 1945 were listed the the US Navy would have an end strength of [u]6,768[/u] ships. The largest Navy which has ever existed in the history of the world.

It will be nice when Britain finally gets back into the big carrier business, maybe then they will buy the necessary escorts for their two planned big-deck carriers. These large carriers combined with their version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will again make them the solid number two Navy in the world.

dvwjr

[nuconvert]

Interesting until it got to the "Conclusion"