Posted on 09/18/2012 9:35:09 AM PDT by topher
UK Joins Persian Gulf Naval War Games amid Iran-Israel Tensions
Subtitle: Three British warships joins 30-nation minesweep exercise, seen by military analysts as warning to Tehran to tow the line
Vanity:
With the ships of 30 nations involved in Naval Exercises in the Gulf, it would seem that Israel would have much to gain with an attack on Iran at this time.
Iran might might make a knee-jerk reaction and attack some of these ships of different nations. This probably would result in some of attack in response to Iran's attack.
But is it as simple as that to goad Iran into a war with countries other than Isreal. How would other Mid-Eastern countries respond?
What if Israel locates one of Iran's submarines and sinks it. Iran purchased three Russian Kilo class submarines in the 1990's.
(See article: Iran deploys Russian-made submarine in Gulf
What would the US do? Attack Israel? Attack Iran? Withdraw the Persian Gulf.
Increasing the number of nations involved in the war games in the Gulf increases the odds, in my opinion, of a shooting war if Israel attacks Iran.
Or would the US convey information to Iran of such an attack?
In this case, it is believed that these exercises will instill peace. But can there be peace in the Middle East with Iran bent on building atom bombs and using them on Israel?
Then again, there is the possibility that in 6 weeks we will be engaged in a war with Iran and protests escalating in the Middle East against US embassies and interests.
There is already the disturbing trend of more violence towards Americans in Afghanistan.
1. Israel launches EMP attack on Iran so cover commando raid on nuclear facilities.
2. Communications blackouts caused by EMP bombing has Iranian forces (air forces and naval forces) randomly attack ships in the Gulf.
3. One or more Allied ship is damaged. Furthermore, Allied ships are affected to a limited extent by EMP attack.
Scenario may be an unlikely scenario, but an interesting one...
An attack before the election has the possibility of affording Obama a wave of patriotism that he can exploit if he returns an Iranian attack on our forces and thus winning reelection.
The Israelis know this. Hopefully the attck with take place post election after Obama is defeated. The question then is would Obama comitt to an attack or end his term with a whimper. My guest is that he’ll do the Saudis bidding and attack.
The publicized dust up between us and Israel may be a cover.
Can an EMP attack be counted on to really work? Is it a finite science or is the range of effectiveness contingent upon weather conditions or not predictable?
I have heard chatter the IDF is readying their forces
By the way, it’s smarter to draw the Iranians out a bit.. Take a couple hits in the process but draw them out before executing an EMP strike to ensure vital equipment is neutralized.
With all due respect, I’m tired of threads cheering on Israel attacking Iran when it should have been the USA. After all, the USA is the “Great Satan” in their eyes, and hiding behind Israel plays into the antisemitic propaganda coming out of Europe.
When Israel took out the nuclear reactor in Iraq, all the ME countries publicly condemned them but privately said, “Thanks, well done”. They collectively don’t like or trust Iran so I think they’d publicly condemn and privately thank.
Freepers, what really is an EMP attack. I read it many times, but don’t know what it is. Tks.
At the time we were fully supporting Saddam with with weapons and money, as well as our Sunni masters who were firmly with Saddam(since he was fighting a war with iran). Iran was actually the first nation to bomb Osirak nuclear facility but did not destroy it completely, and Israel finished the job. It was only after Saddam (and probably rightfully so because kuwaitis were stealing oil) attacked one of our masters(kuwait) that we turned our guns on him.
People need to realise that everything we have been doing in the middle east since we have been there has been for the benefit of Sunni muslims, which by far and large have perpetrated the most attacks on our citizens and soldiers throughout the years and are far more hardline when it comes to Islam than their shiite counterparts.
A nuclear bomb detonated hundreds of kilometers in the air would create an electromagnetic pulse. There are also non nuclear ones but they have a very small range, whereas a nuclear one I believe can have an enormous range.
Forgot to say that it basically would cause volatage and current surges which would damage electronics.
EMP = ElectroMagnetic Pulse. How it works is, a nuclear detonation is achieved high up in the sky, OVER the target area or city. The pulse or radiation shock wave resulting from the blast disables all electronic equipment in it’s path, essentially by flooding components with voltages exceeding their capacity. It ‘fries’ components, making equipment such as computers or anything electronic useless.
By the way, Israel I’m sure is considering a Neutron Bomb attack which maximizes damage to people but minimizes damage to buildings and equipment.
A high altitude nuclear explosion is one way to generate this. The fact that the explosion is in the atmosphere and not on the ground will preclude probably loss of life.
However, a jet airliner flying nearby will crash because all of its microchips will be fried by the EMP of the explosion, even if the jet liner is not close enough for other effects of the explosion.
The dependence on the world on microchips means that a high altitude burst over the United States would make cars and cell phones useless as well as many other devices (TV, computers, DVD players, etc).
Reading this thread you might get a better feel for what EMP can do.
Obviously, there must be ways to protect against it, but this is the average piece electronic gear that would have protection. Even then, there are limits to how much a piece of hardware might be able to be protected.
In the end, what would you rather have:
1. Iran with nuclear bombs so close to the Persian Gulf
2. Iran crippled by EMP attacks and its bomb making destroyed but a low intensity conflict in the Middle East (possibly including the United States, Israel and Iran).
None of the above is probably the best answer, but we may not be that lucky.
Did Israel develop that capability, or can we just assume that Israel has that capability.
The paper below looks at a number of different technologies available:
Non-Lethal Technologies: Implications For Military Strategy
If one thinks EMP is science fiction, there are also some other technologies out there:
Directed Energy-HPM
Acoustics (sound waves at certain frequencies)
EMP
HPM
The article does assume a knowledge of some of these technologies and does not go into much detail.
Additionally, the article is written 20 years ago. It is safe to say there have been developments in some of these areas since then.
Just to give one a feel for what might happen with Iran-Israel and maybe Iran-SAS (UK)-Special Forces(US) clashes.
Folks at Langley and the Pentagon would definitely have an opinion on some of these technologies and how they might be used...
HPM is more effective than EMP and would be able to take out guards surrounding a nuclear complex.
However, the range of HPM is limited compared with EMP.
HPM does not require something like a nuclear explosion or some other significant burst of Gamma Ray radiation.
HPM has a range defined in meters. EMP has a range defined in kilometers.
Finally, it is unclear how effective shielding techniques are to protect electronic devices and if there are counter measures to the shielding techniques.
Many of the questions in this thread would be highly classified -- to say the least...
There were reports of busloads of Israeli troops being transported to the Wailing Wall for final prayers before being transported to the ‘front lines’.
Something is definitely brewing, whether that is simple preparations to the general uprising going on in the Arab world or preparations for an Arab response to something Israel is going to do I can not say.
Israel is currently operating under the thought that if they were going to do anything about Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon or Iran's threat to kill all Jews they only had 30 days to get the job done.
I do believe that we only have these 30 days before we see Israel take preemptive actions against Iran. The current troop callup definitely shows us that Israel is very actively preparing for something in the very near future.
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