Posted on 06/30/2008 5:29:21 PM PDT by Flavius
The commander of the US navy's Fifth Fleet warned on Monday that the United States will not allow Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf sea lane through which much of the world's oil is supplied.
His remarks followed comments by the chief of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, who issued a new warning last week against any attack against his country over its controversial nuclear drive.
"It is natural that when a country is attacked it uses all of its capabilities against the enemy, and definitely our control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz would be one of our actions," Jafari said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Their most serious threat (and since World War II, this has done the most damage to the US Navy everywhere) is mines.
And a truly massive small boat swarm is more problematic than you’d think.
“The Silkworm is essentially an SS-N-2 and is not as much of a concern as the other missiles possibly in Irans inventories.”
I was under the impression that the C-802 that hit the Israeli Corvette was a Silkworm too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802
“Missles yes but what about a few batteries of 155mm’s? From shore, they can cover both shipping lanes in the Strait.”
What about the 16 inch guns on our battleships?
A few broadsides will make believers out of them.
They're all museum pieces now.
Fortunately, the Iranian military has chosen to base their AShMs on patrol boats and the remainder in fixed bases on the islands of Abu Musa, Qeshm Island, and Sirri. These islands have been well photographed (heck, a private citizen can spot the military installations on Google Earth - imagine what a spy sat can see).
There were a lot of badly botched media reports claiming the Hanit strike was a “Silkworm” (the media will latch on to a certain name and give it to everything, for example calling all short range ballistic missiles “Scuds”, or EVERY tracked vehicle, including APCs, a “tank”).
There’s some debate over the precise nature of the missle, but it definiately was NOT a Silkworm (which is enormous) and was likely a far more advanced and modern missile.
The Battleships are of course long out of service and will never be reactivated.
Your piss-ant nation will be the world's leading producer of cave paintings if you jack with us....
Bwahaaaahhaaaahhaaaa
I don’t think the rest of the Gulf states will let Iran pull that off either. Just cuz Iran has a problem with shipping oil to the world doesn’t mean they do. Where do you think Dubai gets all their dough for those resorts and towers? They, like us, aren’t about to let Iran get away with that.
So, the ‘Revolutionary Guard’ is elite, but the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is generic. What a joke.
So let’s break them out of mothballs!
Please dont interrupt me with facts when I am on a snit!!!
LOL!!!
Thanks!
You guys are taking all the fun out of my naval fantasy here!
Damn the torpedos and all that.....
I suppose that’d be fun for the bombers, but it doesnt have the same esprit de corps for the whole ship as when they let off a couple of salvos of the big ‘uns.....
We probably still could. The Iowa Class ships are still young in terms of steaming" time and IIRC it cost less than the cost of a modern destroyer to refit them with modern systems the last go around. Obviously the tourists would need to go. I don't know how much other damage has been done to turn them into museum ships, but I suspect nothing too extensive.
The constraint, strangely enough may be whether the projectiles and powder have been demilled. I hope they kept the projectiles and spare barrels ... deterioration the powder may [only may] have been the cause of the turret explosion the last time they were in service ... but powder should be something that can be resupplied without to much black art. [My late uncle who was an old naval gunnery officer refused to believe that deteriorating powder was the cause .]
The other even bigger issue is that there is no sign that the Navy wants to devote a big chunk of its operational budgets to send one or more of these ships to sea. On gut level, I would love to see them come back, but intellectually, it would take an act of congress and a serious bloody nose to Navy brass / current doctrine before this would be recognized as an option, let alone a reality.
Trivia: An Iowa class battleship could project as much ordnance [albeit only 24 miles] in 45 minutes as a modern carrier's air wing can deliver in 24 continuous hours of operation.
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