Posted on 05/17/2019 4:00:48 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
USS Stark FFG-31 is struck by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi aircraft. The first missile does not explode, but it's fuel causes extensive fires aboard the ship. The second missiles strikes the Stark on the port side just above the waterline. the 360 lb. warhead blows a 10 x 15 foot hole in the ships hull. Heroic efforts by the damage control parties and ship/s crew save the ship from sinking. Stark will be repaired and serve the fleet until decommissioned in 1999. As a result of the attack 37 Stark crewmen were killed and another 21 injured.
17 years later I can add that to the reasons we SHOULD have gone into Iraq and cleaned house. Just overdue.
This was in 1988, I believe? My only beef with your post was that the year wasn’t mentioned...most Americans either weren’t alive then or are too stupid or uncaring to know, thus diluting the effect of your naval day-in-history theme, which is a great concept btw!
Go Trump! But keep us out of WW3 with Iran
my bad, usually put the year down
I always looked at that incident as an object lession on how things can happen so quickly that decision times get so compressed that you simply won’t have time to make the correct decision.
Especially if the ROE put you in situations where a plane can fly that close and compress that time for you.
Thanks for serving, BTW.
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