Posted on 01/11/2008 5:55:17 AM PST by RDTF
The Pentagon said yesterday that the radio threat to bomb U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last weekend may not have come from the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats that approached them -- and may not even have been intended against U.S. targets.
The communication Sunday was made on radio channel 16, a common marine frequency used by ships and others in the region. "It could have been a threat aimed at some other nation or a myriad of other things," said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, a spokesman for the Navy.
In the radio message recorded by the Navy, a heavily accented voice said, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." But Farsi speakers and Iranians told The Washington Post that the accent did not sound Iranian.
In part because of the threatening language, the United States has elevated the encounter into an international incident. Twice this week, President Bush criticized Iran's behavior as provocative and warned of "serious consequences" if it happens again. He is due to head today to the Gulf area, where containing Iran is expected to be a major theme of his talks in five oil-rich sheikdoms.
Pentagon officials insist that they never claimed Iran made the threat. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of those boats, it only adds to the tension," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "If this verbal threat emanated from something or someone unrelated to the five boats, it would not lessen the threat from those boats."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
Next time turn them into swiss cheese.
Have any dRAT members of Congress called for a special prosecutor yet ?
Obviously, the Iranian boats were “testing” what our response would be. I suppose if war did start between the US and Iran, speedboats would be the Iranian’s only option to take on the US fleet.
However, it was a mistake by the Iranians because next time they try it, they will be blown out of the water rather quickly. The Navy will also be training for the possibility the speedboat attack is just a diversion and missile attacks from the coast are the actual attack. So, just a typical Middle Eastern military mistake.
So what? Use it as an excuse, please.
From what I remember, it was due to the sheer incompetence of the commander of the vessel. It’s pretty difficult to confuse an F-14 and a 747, transponder or not.
Uh, no. The official report confirms that the Iranian Airbus was in the normal commercial flight path, in the commercial air corridor, and squaking a commercial identifier.
Oh come ON!
Just jetisoning garbage!
This is the Iranian way of destabilizing ROE.And nullifying USN escort power for oil tankers. Thats the real problem here.
And no one is talking about it. Thats good.
Navy Seals! On deck!
( All your boats are belong to US!)
They support peace corp activity in the Straights of Hormuz.
The price of oil is at $300.00 per barrel.
Given the other more threatening actions by the Iranians, the radio threat wasn’t the only justification we had for blowing them out of the water. Why focus on just this?
Not enough guns on that badboy for my tastes.
Certainly the US Navy or other US agencies monitoring radio traffic in that part of the world, must have the means to locate where those radio transmissions originated. Clearly those transmissions were intended to goad the warships into attacking the speed boats.
The communication Sunday was made on radio channel 16, a common marine frequency used by ships and others in the region. "It could have been a threat aimed at some other nation or a myriad of other things," said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, a spokesman for the Navy.
In the radio message recorded by the Navy, a heavily accented voice said, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." But Farsi speakers and Iranians told The Washington Post that the accent did not sound Iranian.
There was a lot of piling on when Paul suggested this last night. Turns out he was right, but this will go down the FR memory hole and he'll be called a kook for it, anyway.
Too bad they didn’t follow those boats with a helo, then they could have coverage of where they actually came from and where they pulled into.
You are correct sir.
“Certainly the US Navy or other US agencies monitoring radio traffic in that part of the world, must have the means to locate where those radio transmissions originated. Clearly those transmissions were intended to goad the warships into attacking the speed boats.”
Only if they tried to actively triangulate it while it was received.
Small, VTOL UAVs would be very useful ... the bad guys might not even know they’re being followed.
The two Aegis equipped ships could handle any ASM threat from the coast... So what kind of surface action would the speedboats be heading into?
CG - 2 127mm (5 inch) mounts, 16 to 20 rounds per minute each.
DDG - 1 127mm at 16 to 20 rounds per minute.
FFG - 1 rapid fire 76mm gun mount, 85 or 120 rounds per minute.
Of course, if their CIWS's have the upgrades, they have a surface mode. There's no way speedboats could get close to an active CIWS... (radar guided, 3000 or 4500 rounds per min of 20mm armor piercing...)
Of course, an even cooler thing would be to simply light up the SPY radars at full power and dwell continuously on the boats... All that RF would charge up any metallic objects to thousands of volts and fry anyone on the boats that touched anything...
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