[bravo whiskey]

if we have ships in the persian gulf, not outside but within air strike range, and if the iranians are willing to take severe losses just in the attack. it’s easy to sink a us naval vessel.
1. put a submarine in the area. doesn’t have to be close but a diesel boat in gulf waters is hard to detect so 1D has to be covered.
2. put some planes in the AO, just outside shipboard SAM range and carrying ASMs. 2D has to be covered.
3. attack from a 3rd, 4th, and 5th axis with multiple surface missile boats and suicide boghammers. 3D has to be covered.
4. wake up one morning and do it. no advanced warning, no threats.
5. go for the outriders and not the main target. sinking any us navy ship is a major coup.
6. screw any geopolitical consequences or loss of iranian civilians.
one ship or even a couple of ships without air cover cannot cover all 3 sectors adequately if attacked on multiple axis simultaneously. even a 90% success rate will have leakers.
this is basically how the PLAN (chinese navy) pland to attack our carrier battle groups. even eliminating a couple of escorts seriously weakens the overal defense plan.

[Tallguy]

That would be how you'd do it (attack a carrier group). My point is just that CVA's would continue to float and that the Iranians wouldn't be likely to be able to mount a quick followup attack to actually sink a damaged carrier. Once they lost the element of surprise the CVA gets towed out of the threat area.

It's possible my analysis might be wrong. We recently expended the USS Armerica in a major SinkEx. The old carrier was subjected to several attackes before it went down. But the results are classified, so we're all pretty much guessing.

The USN does push CVA's and LHA/LHD's into the Gulf. If we were looking for an attack we might pull the flattops out. But my guess is that the Iranian's would be allowed the first shot.