I seriously doubt that any one site will get more than one or two shots off, but that will be enough to do some damage. However, once those sites do fire something, I think their survival time will be measured in seconds. That reality will most likely cool the ardor to shoot at American flagged tankers.
L
Short of Almighty God freezing them cold . . .
I don't think anything but death will cool the Iranian's ardor. And, it's fine with me if we cool their ardor by accomodating them.
But I don't like the puppet masters setting it up such that the Iranians and No Koreans start WWIII.
And that prospect gives the Mad Mooslimb entirely too much glee for anyone's sane comfort.
Armageddon lurks certainly enough and close enough without a leading Middle East power seeking it with eager attraction.
Mines.
I seriously doubt that any one site will get more than one or two shots off, but that will be enough to do some damage. However, once those sites do fire something, I think their survival time will be measured in seconds. That reality will most likely cool the ardor to shoot at American flagged tankers.
It would only take one shot, or even a serious threat to close the straights. The insurance companies will not insure these tankers if there is a serious threat. Too much money involved.
You have Chinese manufactured weapons maintained in a harsh environment by Iranian troops. When push comes to shove, the Silkworms will fail in massive numbers.
I rather suspect that the locations of these "hidden" sites have been pretty well worked out by various means.
Given the accuracy, inexpensiveness, and wide availability of JDAM bomb guidance packages, I further suspect that part of the bombing strategy would be to blast anything that even looks like it might be a silkworm site: one bomb per site, and we'd still have a bunch left over.
Hopefully the phalanx close-support systems will work well. Maybe the latest incarnation of Patriots missiles?