yeah, I heard about that Orion, so much for thinking outside the box.
what the hell happens if they come out with a hundred suicide speedboats packed full of dynamite?
But, I ain’t saying the Iranians are bright. They fired an anti-ship missile and put it on Youtube, they took down a drone in peacetime. Talk about showin’ your hand. We should just challenge them to a game of poker, winner gets the oil.
but serious, before we challenge these fuckwads, we should have every case scenario solved. That’d be the way to go. That, and figure out how to counter their stragedy used in Lebanon, and Iraq and elsewhere incase it turns into a land war.
The only thing the West lacks is will power and resolve. The Iranians suffer 10,000 casualties they just bang their heads on the ground a few times and carry on. The west suffers 100 casualties, blames themselves and the state begins to crumble.
… In the first days of the ‘war’, Van Riper’s Force Red sent most of the US fleet to the bottom of the Persian Gulf." (Ibid.)
The tactics adopted by this Marine Corps general were astounding and they produced “The Worst US Naval Disaster Since Pearl Harbor”.
“The war game was described as ‘free play’, meaning that both sides were unconstrained, free to pursue any tactic in the book of war in the service of victory … Much of the action was computer-generated. But representative military units in the field also acted out the various moves and countermoves. The comparison to a chess match is not inaccurate. The vastly superior US armada consisted of the standard carrier battle group with its full supporting cast of ships and planes. Van Riper had at his disposal a much weaker flotilla of smaller vessels, many of them civilian craft, and numerous assets typical of a Third World country.” (Ibid.)
"But Van Riper made the most of weakness. Instead of trying to compete directly with Force Blue, he utilized ingenious low-tech alternatives. Crucially, he prevented the stronger US force from eavesdropping on his communications by foregoing the use of radio transmissions. Van Riper relied on couriers instead to stay in touch with his field officers … At every turn, the wily Van Riper did the unexpected. And in the process he managed to achieve an asymmetric advantage … Astutely and very covertly, Van Riper armed his civilian marine craft and deployed them near the US fleet, which never expected an attack from small pleasure boats … Force Red’s prop-driven aircraft suddenly were swarming around the US warships, making Kamikaze dives. Some of the pleasure boats made suicide attacks. Others fired Silkworm cruise missiles from close range, and sunk a carrier, the largest ship in the US fleet, along with two helicopter-carriers loaded with marines … the Navy was unprepared. When it was over, most of the US fleet had been destroyed. Sixteen US warships lay on the bottom, and the rest were in disarray. Thousands of American sailors were dead, dying, or wounded.
“If the games had been real, it would have been the worst US naval defeat since Pearl Harbor.” (Ibid.)
“According to the GAO (Government Accounting Office) report, ‘the key to defeating cruise missile threats is in gaining additional reaction time’, so that ships can detect, identify and destroy the attacking missiles. The thorny problem, as I’ve pointed out, is that the Navy’s long-range AWAC’s and intermediate-range Aegis radar defense systems are significantly less effective in littoral (or coastal) environments, the Persian Gulf being the prime example.” (Ibid.)
Here we have two distinctively different problems, which combine to produce a very fatal result.
American anti-ship missile protective radar cannot reach a solution quickly enough to fire the protective guns fast enough to kill the incoming supersonic missiles flying at 1,700 miles per hour.
American radar systems were not designed for coastal situations, where an enemy can hide and pop out to fire quickly at a passing ship and then get out of harm’s way. No, U.S. radar is designed to track an enemy vessel “over the horizon”, plot a solution, fire the missile, and kill the enemy ship without ever physically seeing it. Smaller vessels firing a variety of close-in weaponry – including the supersonic ship killers – can get in under this American radar, and score the kill.
You just do not change this kind of wrong weaponry problem overnight. Meanwhile, the Russians are proceeding quickly to make their ship-killers even more deadly.
"The other important factor is that cruise missile technology itself is racing ahead. The GAO report warned that the next generation of anti-ship missiles that will begin to appear by 2007 will be faster and stealthier, and will also be equipped with advanced target-seekers, i.e., advanced guidance systems. In fact, one of these advanced anti-ship cruise missiles is already available: the Russian-made Yakhonts missile. It flies at close to Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound), can hit a squirrel in the eye, and has a range of 185 miles: enough range to target the entire Persian Gulf (from Iran), shredding Gen. Kernan’s glib remark that in a real war the US expeditionary force will stand-off in safety ‘over the horizon’ while mounting an amphibious attack. Nonsense. Henceforth, in a real Gulf war situation there will be no standing off in safety. The Yakhonts missile has already erased the concept of the horizon, at least, within the Persian Gulf, and it has done so without ever having been fired in combat—yet … By their own admission the Russians developed the Yakhonts missile for export. No doubt, it was high on Iran’s shopping list." (Ibid.)
As much as I would like to see neocons humiliated, the price of several thousand dead sailors who would know all along that they will get slaughtered and would go anyway is a tad high.
I prefer people to die because of their own reckless idiocy, not that of blustering chickenhawks.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The only thing the West lacks is will power and resolve. The Iranians suffer 10,000 casualties they just bang their heads on the ground a few times and carry on. The west suffers 100 casualties, blames themselves and the state begins to crumble.[/quote]
Well, it also lack missile effective defenses, enough troops and even the tiniest bit of understanding of their opponents mindset.
It also lacks humility and hubris is not a good substitute.
4,5 tons, 750lbs warhead, speed of mach 2,1, erratic end manouvers to avoid interception and specifically designed to counter the ECM measures or an Aegis destroyer.
It also flies only a few feet above the water which makes it virtually undetectable.
Conclusion:
Unless you see it being launched, you have no idea that it is coming.
IF you see it being launched, you have no idea where it is going.
When you find out where it is going and it is your way, you have a split second at best which is best invested in praying.
Van Riper sank the US fleet, um, I am sorry, Team Blue with missiles that are the equivalent of throwing rocks compared to that.
Which would make it super fun is that US forces would have to fight in this bathtub, where incidentally 40% of the worlds crude oil are trafficking through.
They Iranians can stop this at any given point in time, which would almost immediately finish the US economically.
In other words, this whole saber rattling is beyond ridiculous.
Ah, just found out that that the Iranians have the Russian SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles too.
They are, like, mach 2,9.
So, now the real interesting question, can anyone think of any reason why the Russians would have an orgasm when a whole US fleet was sunk by Russian missiles that offset a conventional superiority in weaponry?
unless we can use tomahawks to destroy the missile launchers before they launch. now there’s the ticket. Arm some of those bastards that can seek out a target on their own and let um fly before the Iranians can move the missile launchers into position.
4,5 tons, 750lbs warhead, speed of mach 2,1, erratic end manouvers to avoid interception and specifically designed to counter the ECM measures or an Aegis destroyer.
It also flies only a few feet above the water which makes it virtually undetectable.
Conclusion:
Unless you see it being launched, you have no idea that it is coming.
IF you see it being launched, you have no idea where it is going.
When you find out where it is going and it is your way, you have a split second at best which is best invested in praying.
Van Riper sank the US fleet, um, I am sorry, Team Blue with missiles that are the equivalent of throwing rocks compared to that. [/quote]
Blocking the strait is the very LAST thing the Iranians would do. It’s virtually a scorched earth policy. 80% of ME oil goes through there.
Iran will respond by waging proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel etc using Hezbollah, HAMAS and Islamic Jihad etc.
The idea that the US Navy, with 10+ carrier groups could be completely wiped out by swarm tactics and missiles with a range of 180 miles is absurd. Swarm tactics, missiles, speed boats etc add to Iran’s assymetric capabilities. That’s all.
