Posted on 12/29/2011 7:33:48 AM PST by blam
US Sends Aircraft Carrier Into The Strait Of Hormuz, As Iran Beats Its Chest
Robert Johnson
Dec. 29, 2011, 7:56 AM
USS John C. Stennis
Iran has announced it located a U.S. aircraft carrier moving into the Strait of Hormuz during Iranian wargame exercises.
The AFP reports Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, spokesman for the exercises, says the carrier was spotted by an Iranian reconnaissance plane that took photos and video.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Fifth Fleet confirmed the carrier is the USS John C. Stennis, a nearly 1,100 foot nuclear powered craft with unlimited range and 3 million gallons of onboard fuel for its aircraft.
USS Mobile Bay
In addition to its planes and the ships that sail in the group, the Stennis is armed with NATO RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and Rolling Air Missile (RAM) surface-to-air missile systems, the Phalanx Close-in Weapons System for cruise missile defense, and the AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare System.
U.S. officials said Wednesday that the Stennis and the guided missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay slipped into the strait Tuesday after a stop at Dubai's Jebel Ali port.
The USS Mobile bay is a 570 foot Ticonderoga class cruiser that carries the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, two Seahawk LAMPS multi-purpose helicopters, and is used for anti-submarine warfare, anti-air, and anti-surface warfare.
The Associated Press reports Iran is playing up the sighting of the carrier and boasting of the strength of its navy in the region.
Iranian naval chief Adm. Habibollah Sayyari says Iran has "control over the moves by foreign forces" and that the "foreign fleet will be warned by Iranian forces if it enters the area of the drill."
Iranian state TV showed the supposed video but details of the carrier couldn't be made
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
FWIW I don’t think Zero gets on the phone and tells the Navy to send a carrier into this body of water or that body of water.
I’m sure that the way it works is that the services and the Joint Chiefs prepare certain options and certain recommendations and the president may or may not sign off of them depending on their importance.
Point being that if the ship is in the SOH it’s because the Navy itself worked out a plan to do this - not because Zero thought it up on the golf course.
The most unqualified occupant of the White House in history. A metrosexual, who has to be dragged in off the golf course to witness the take down of Bin Laden. A person with no record of accomplishment - in his life. A person who votes "Present" or doesn't vote at all to avoid taking a stand on an issue.
I have no hope Obama even knows what the right decision is, much less that he will make a decision at all. That puts our military in harms way waiting on the procrastinator in chief.
A single boomer, like the USS ALASKA, travels alone and could turn the entire 75,000,000 mooselimb persians into statues of glass.
It does require the political will to issue the correct order.
That is correct, but removal of oil coming through the Gulf reduces world supply, thus impacting price in the US even though direct shipments do not come from there.
Also I agree with others about operating the carrier in narrow quarters. Technology can be defeated by assymetrical tactics, and Iran appears more than willing to use them.
Obama handlers call Panetta and order him to send a gun to the knife fight, because potus is being taunted by Iran and needs to look “strong and decisive”, even as he further emboldens our enemies and drains the energy out of our presence and image in the region by his ordered retreat from Iraq
for this guy, military strategy - and everything else- is pinned to his poll numbers
It has never been so egregious risky and antithetical to our national interests as with this naive inexperienced immature group of anti-American apologists who see the US military as toys they can wield. This started big time with Clinton and Cohen, now it is nuke-war dangerous
Witness the childish joy of barry reveling in his overuse of Air Force 1
I saw some footage on CNN yesterday that showed what I think was one of the new German AIP littoral subs. Does someone have one of these in the area or did they just grab some file footage to flesh out the story?
I wonder who would be more likely to reduce a nation to a glass parking lot?
A spinless wimp, or a thoughtful conservative? Barney Fife or Andy Taylor?
I wonder who would be more likely to reduce a nation to a glass parking lot?
A spinless wimp, or a thoughtful conservative? Barney Fife or Andy Taylor?
“Watch the oil market folks. The terrible part is the enviro nuts love all this crap especially if it sends the cost of crude skyrocketing to use a Barry coined term.”
Barry cannot afford the price of oil going up. Especially if Keystone gets killed when the next budget bill comes up. The fix is in with the speculators. But with an Iranian crisis in the Gulf, all bets are off.
What it doesn't say is that the Stennis and it's escorts were transiting the strait - headed south. They are headed out of the Persian Gulf. They are getting out of the bathtub, out where they have some "sea room" to spread out and form their protected "bubble" maybe even declare a maritime exclusion zone around the battle group etc. Bottled up in the gulf, yes the Stennis would be hard pressed just defending the group. With room to maneuver she is a genuine threat that can take the offensive.
Gee when the Shiite hits the fan in the Gulf I hope it doesn’t interrupt Obama’s vacation...I suppose he could finish his hole of golf before delivering his capitulation speech.
“But my guess is El Presidente will try to negotiate with Tehran and once again, we will come out on the short end.”
Unconditionally, I might add.
I agree with your “Interdependent” assessment... however, I think it goes far deeper than this... If we are interdependent, then we have to have force projection, in other words, we are not an independent nation with sufficient offensive capability to not go on the defensive, but we have in fact become the “Worlds Policeman”... and that is something we have no business being..
I’m just wondering if this is exactly what the Iranians want us to do. And whether it gives cover to Bammy to do it.
“It’s a dumb move if Obama is actually thinking of naval action, but if he’s just showing the flag and expects no violence it’s SOP. But if he’s contemplating action, and he might be, given the positive effect it would have on his poll numbers, then you keep the CV at arm’s length.”
It’s an idiotic move, period. You just pulled 100,000 troops from Iran’s doorstep. And now you are sending in a carrier group.
Hopefully, someone told the Muslim in Chief to leave some special forces behind.
Negotiate with them.... I get it.. Can I have my Drone back! Pretty please.
Unless that sub has a very brave captain.
Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.
So after he routed his opponents, the Pentagon brass got together and decided the middle eastern dictator would never do that and declared a do-over. And this time, they rigged it so he had to do things their way. And of course, they routed him this time.
Will Ahmadinejad play by those rules or will he think outside the box?
“Ronaldus Magnus sent several carriers through both the Straits of Hormuz”
Funny, I don’t remember seeing them. I do remember briefings at which it was said that no carriers would be transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
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