Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War 969
Hugh Pickens writes "The high stakes standoff between Iran and the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-fifth of the world's oil, escalated this week as Iran's navy claimed to have recorded video of a U.S. aircraft carrier entering the Port of Oman and the deputy chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami rejected U.S. claims that it could prevent Iran from closing the strait. To drive the point home, Iran has started a 10-day naval exercise in the Persian Gulf to show off how it could use small speedboats and a barrage of missiles to combat America's naval armada while in a report for the Naval War College, U.S. Navy Commander Daniel Dolan wrote that Iran has acquired 'thousands of sea mines, wake homing torpedoes, hundreds of advanced cruise missiles (PDF) and possibly more than one thousand small Fast Attack Craft and Fast Inshore Attack Craft.'" (Read more, below.)
Hugh Pickens continues: "The heart of the Iran's arsenal is its 200 small potential-suicide boats — fiberglass motorboats with a heavy machine gun, a multiple rocket-launcher, or a mine — and may also carry heavy explosives, rigged to ram and blow a hole in the hull of a larger ship. These boats will likely employ a strategy of 'swarming' — coming out of nowhere to ambush merchant convoys and American warships in narrow shipping lanes. But the U.S. Navy is not defenseless against kamikaze warfare. The U.S. has put more machine guns and 25-millimeter gyro-stabilized guns on the decks of warships, modified the 5-inch gun to make it more capable of dealing with high-speed boats, and improved the sensor suite of the Aegis computer-integrated combat system aboard destroyers and cruisers. 'We have been preparing for it for a number of years with changes in training and equipment,' says Vice Admiral (ret.) Kevin Cosgriff, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command."
Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil (Score:5, Funny)
You really can't be that stupid can you?
Did you ever here of the North African Campaign.
Why did you think the Germans were in Africa? Looking for the Lost Ark?
Re:Suicide boats is not Iran's primary weapon (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, so, you mean it's not like Battleship?
We're going to have to re-write some of our training manuals...
Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil (Score:2, Funny)
Religious freak dreaming about 72 virgins in paradise or authoritarian regime on brink of collapse is not something reasonable.
And genocidal fundamentalist regime of Israel declaring Palestinians are less than animals, dropping Mtons of bombs on Lebanon and threatening Europe with nuclear strike lest they decline to support Israel in a potential conflict is reasonable, right?