Posted on 01/10/2008 10:02:48 PM PST by BlackVeil
The US Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said on Thursday there was "no way to know" if a threat radioed to US warships in the Strait of Hormuz came from Iranian speedboats, casting doubt on the earlier US version of Sunday's confrontation.
"There is no way to know where this (radioed threat) exactly came from. It could have come from the shore... or another vessel in the area," Lieutenant John Gay told AFP by telephone.
But he stressed that "the Iranian fastboats were acting in a very provocative and aggressive manner" towards the US warships in the strategic waterway at the time.
The audio and video recordings were made separately, but were pulled together by the US navy.
US military officials, including Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, the most senior US navy commander in the Gulf, cautioned that they had not been able to definitively connect the radio call with one of the Revolutionary Guards boats.
The US Navy never clained that the sinister message came from the boats. It stated that there was no way to establish this, The message could have come from a shore radio, according to the Navy.
It was the media that the sinister message came from the boats.
Regardless of from where the sinisr transmission was broadcast, it is stretching credulity beyond all reason to think that the message and the presence of harrassing small craft was coincidental.
AFP is spinning the story when it claims that the credibility of the Navy has been trrown into doubt by a supposed change in its version of the events.
Absolute nonsense. It is very, very easy to determine the direction of a broadcast signal with the proper equipment. Air Traffic Control has been using a method called a "DF Steer" for about 70 years....
The fstboats were lucky R2D2 didn’t finish them off in about 10 seconds.
It was only after it was it was show around the world and noted that the audio and video did not match that it was admitted that they had been spliced together. Naturally, that it the way we all take and produce our videos, but then we do not have the high tech equipment of the US Navy. After splicing, can we sure that the video and the audio were recorded at the same time, the audio could have come from the archives.
Then we have voice making the threat was not the voice of the person in the Iranian video. That there was no background noise with the threat which would have certainly been the case if it came from an open speed boat. Plus the fact that the threat made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
If this had come from Reuters or AFP, Freepers would have been falling over themselves and giving themselves high fives for highlighting the inconsistencies. There might even been jokes about how the Iranians had filled the boxes with incubator babies.
Direction Finding equipment is not used for standard communications, and a recording would be useless.
Oh please, the NSA at Fort Meade knows exactly where the threatening message came from.
The source of the radio message could not be confirmed with lawyerlike certainty
No, it's not, but I'd bet all three of those ships have the capability......
These were the "secret Allah box weapons" they threw overboard.
I should hope so - as you say it is about 70 year old technology. But it would not be tuned to local VHF frequencies as there would be no reason for that.
True, but having hired several Navy electronics techs when I was in the wireless telecom biz, I have full confidence that the techs on those ships could cobble something together that would do DF. A yaggi hooked to a spectrum analyzer would be all they needed for a crude direction finder. The guys I hired were some pretty smart fellas with excellent troubleshooting skills, even on devices they'd never seen before. Considering they had no real formal engineering training, their level of knowledge of complex circuitry was quite impressive. I'm told the Navy teaches their techs a lot more theory and less about how to just fix a particular box, compared to the other branches of the military. This is especially true for the sub guys. After all, there ain't no service calls out in the middle of the ocean....
... as there would be no reason for that.
Seems like there is a pretty good reason to have the capability now.....
It's an AFP story, and I think they're probably distorting what LT Gay told them.
MSM are liars. All the time. About everything.
“The MSM is once again splitting hairs and trying to make the military look bad.”
It’s a puzzle, you must assemble the pieces. Here they are.
These were ‘cigarette’ type boats.
The passengers were wearing life-jackets.
The boats came near the US Ships.
The boats were ‘jumping’ the wakes behind the huge ships.
The boats put out white boxes (styrofoam coolers).
The Ships were trying to contact the boats.
The Ships were giving off every conceivable visible and audible signal possible trying to Warn Off the Iranian boats.
During this time, a voice is heard on the Local Comm Freq, but in English, threatening the US Ships.
Just as the Captain has given permission to fire, the Iranian boats turned and left the area.
“If you have boats close aboard and you get a loud clear VHF call its pretty darn reasonable to believe it came from one of those boats.”
The CHANNEL that the ‘voice’ was heard from is comparable to Channel 9 on CB radio in the U.S.
“Did these have women water skiers in a pyramid ?”
No. The Iranian women are not allowed to water ski, or even go out in the boat.
This was a guy’s only, jump some big wakes, wave at the Navy Ships, have some fun being stupid thing.
When the alarms sounded, they threw their alcohol and drugs out of the boats (white boxes).
When they saw big guns trained on them and crews at the ready, they scurried off.
They are gonna have some great stories to tell their grandkids.
It was a sucker play we didn’t fall for, and we can thank the fine men and women of our Nation who did THE RIGHT THING.
Many say it was a test. If so, we ‘passed’ with flying colors.
Perhaps the MESSAGE received on the local COMM FREQ was not for the U.S. Ships.
Maybe it was the Iranian Guard Boats trying to tell the pleasure boats to back off!
There is not doubt they could do it, but to counter threats made by a vessel in line of sight would not win them any prizes for brilliant thinking or utility.
The chances of any vessel warning the US Navy that is it is going to attack them is only credible to gullible.
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