they shoulda sent up Intruders to fly in front of them and pop flairs in their face till they get the message...
Posted on 04/29/2010 5:05:03 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, April 29, 2010 – Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell today credited the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for its disciplined response last week when an Iranian military aircraft flew within 1,000 yards of it in the Gulf of Oman.
An Iranian navy maritime patrol aircraft flew near the carrier April 21 as it had finished routine replenishment-at-sea operations, a Navy official confirmed on background. The aircraft remained in the area for about 20 minutes before it flew away.
The incident occurred as Iranian forces were preparing to conduct exercises in the Gulf.
Morrell played down the incident, saying close encounters aren’t all that unusual in the narrow, heavily trafficked Strait of Hormuz. “We operate there. They operate there. Lots of people operate there,” he said. “I don’t think … our crews were alarmed by it. I don’t think anybody [at the Pentagon] is too worked up about it.”
There’s been no communication between the United States and Iran about the incident, but Morrell said if the military wanted to contact the Iranians about the incident it would find a way to do so. “But I don’t think it is of concern to the Navy … nor anybody else in this building,” he said.
Morrell said the Eisenhower crew’s restraint during the incident speaks volumes.
“Thankfully, our crews are incredibly well trained, incredibly disciplined,” he said. “And they are very aware of the rules of engagement and the procedures that … should be taken in circumstances like this, and do an incredible job at avoiding … risks of accidental or incidental conflict.”
| Related Sites: Briefing Video USS Dwight D. Eisenhower |
This is BS. Not plane should get within 1,000 yards of a carrier.
Washington is happy to use this as a “teaching moment” to show that our sailors properly do not see the Iranians as a possible enemy.
I simply cannot believe this - if it was russian, it would never get with miles of any carrier group.
At that range it could have hit the carrier.
LLS
How many US Carriers is the One willing to lose to make friends with Iran?
Go back 30-40 years. A Bear would have quickly found it being escorted by a Phantom II or a Tomcat well before it got within range of the carrier.
they shoulda sent up Intruders to fly in front of them and pop flairs in their face till they get the message...
If Reagan was still President and the ship commander didn’t blow that aircraft out of the air it would have been his last day as a ship commander. This is the reason that our constitution does not allow duel- citizenship it’s hard to tell which side obama( not a Natural Born Citizen) is on. We need a constitutionally elected President NOW to protect our country and the Armed Forces from hostile action.
Well I am not holding my breath on whether The Joint Cheifs will do anything. I know the Legislative or Judiciary is supposed to but they are totally corrupt.
You never let anything get close to a carrier.
I have been telling people here they have the Muslim Brotherhood in the govt, Defense Dept ,etc. I bet intel is going back to our enemies.
Where are the jack a**es here who were hammering LTC Lakin - the doc who refuses to recognize the Kenyan.
Letting anything get within 1000 yards of a carrier then issuing a press release about the crew’s “retstraint.” WTF?!
I wish I could but I just don’t know.
That is a very good point. It is not regarded as an aggressive act for a carrier to put up “escort” aircraft when approached by a potentially hostile aircraft. Carriers do it all the time, especially when in a restrictive area.
So I think something is fishy, and not what you expect. The USN are no slouches when it comes to defending their ships. So I think there is a very strong possibility that they *wanted* this aircraft to get very close.
And I also suspect that this aircraft was “painted” with the targeting systems of something I would not want fired in my direction. And which could take out that aircraft very, very quickly.
Among current threats to the USN are very high speed anti-ship missiles. Far too fast to be taken out by human operators, once turned on, the ship itself will attack and destroy them without further need of human direction.
As such, 1000 yards, or over a half mile, is a very long distance, with a very slow target.
Sorry to disillusion you, but incidents such as this one occur quite frequently. I should know: I was stationed aboard a carrier and the Russian "Bear" aircraft would overfly us more often than you would believe.
( What would Maverick do )?
Top Gun = Most subversively Gay movie of the 1980s.
We never did have a Bear fly within sight of the vessel I was on (JFK), and when we went across the Atlantic, we usually had two Tomcats chained onto the cat with Sidewinders, Sparrows and typically one Phoenix each. LOL...I never once saw a Tomcat wearing more than two of those, and I always wondered if it was because they were expensive, short of supply or simply to hard to maintain in a ready state. I presume in the Gulf Wars, there was no question of not having constant CAP. In the 1970’s there were a few times we stayed in port a while longer than any of us really wanted to, always in Naples.
(Hehe, I hope I don’t get much ribbing for saying that from those who had to frikking live in the Indian Ocean for 9 straight months without landfall or some ridiculous thing like that...:)
However, we DID have a bunch of A4 Skyhawks attack us one time!
We were in an exercise in the Med, and the Australians were playing the anti-ship role. It was a somewhat cloudy gray, with lots of nimbulus clouds. They were so thick and clustered together, with a sheet of gray as backdrop, I would guess maybe four or five thousand foot ceiling. We are in between launches, getting stuff prepared and such, when out of the sky from the about our ten o’clock, a gray A4 comes screaming at us, coming in at about 30 degree dive through a large area between clouds.
It was funny, I completely don’t remember hearing the thing come in. It just seemed to appear, and I recall none of us really knew we were involved an an exercise. I could be wrong, but they didn’t tell us that, so when the planes appeared, it was surprising. As I watched with my mouth open (I think I was carrying six chains too) I watched this A4 come barreling in at high speed. They have a name for A4’s that I loved: they called it “Heinemann’s Hot Rod” after the guy who designed it. (The pilots called it that when talking about it, not us guys...they were A-4’s to us.)
Well, that thing looked like a hot rod coming out of the sky, and at that moment, another A-4 zooms directly overhead from our four o’clock, strait, level and flat out, with a Tomcat behind him in a dive, but pretty far back.
It was an absolute trip...I never took the time to find out what happened there, but it sure did seem like those Aussies did a good job in the anti-shipping role. A few years later, when I followed the war in the Falklands, I could see pretty damned clearly in my head what it must have been like for those lads in the British Royal Navy. Those little planes could go like hell.
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