Posted on 02/12/2012 6:52:24 AM PST by Track9
Would we be providing escort? I would think so. Both air and possibly sea. Guaranteed the whole area is blanketed with surveillance. I doubt much could move without being immediately spotted. Never mind the heat signature or radar being turned on.
All true, but don't forget who is our President. To mollify his left wing base in this election year, Obama will avoid any military action and rely on the UN and others to keep the straits open. Even if a US carrier were attacked by Iranian missiles I would expect our capitulator in chief would do little more than some token military action but he would initially rely on some sanctions and harsh letters to the mad mullahs.
Waste of time.
It's all about the insurance. If a merchant ship or two is sunk, insurance rates for sailing in the area would skyrocket. Prudent ship owners would hold back their expensive ships and await further developments.
As Track9 noted, the US Navy could provide escort, but I doubt if that would make Llyods of London feel 100% confident about still insuring those merchant ships.
And yes, we could take out the launchers, but only after the missile has been fired and the merchant ship has been sunk.
Yep. We have more skull sweat and money invested in our logistics tail than any potential enemy does in offensive weapons.
Iraq HAD the 4th largest army in the world, with top-of-the-line Russian weapons systems. We sorta just brushed that aside and hanged Saddam from a rope.
/johnny
That may turn out to be not quite correct. But by all means, keep thinking it.
/johnny
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that we could hit a small mobile truck-based missile launcher before it turned on its radar and before it fired?
Oh, wait. We do.
As I said, we spend more on our logistics tail than any potential enemy does the tip of their spear.
/johnny
Remember, the target here would not be a fast warplane, but a slow-moving merchant ship.
All Iran would need is radar somewhere near the straits. Perhaps on a tramp steamer or on a fishing boat. Such a vessel would always have their radar on for navigational purposes, and so would draw no suspicion.
The vessel could determine the target's bearing to the vessel. With a bit of high school trig, the Iranians could then determine the target's bearing relative to the launcher.
All we could do is hit the launcher after the missile is gone. I don't see how we could reliably stop that missile.
And Iran could do that again and again until no merchant vessel dared to enter the straits.
Now, is it in Iran's interests to do this? Probably not, except as revenge against someone hitting their nuclear sites.
And Iran can't be sure of the US response. Would Obama hit all of Iran's major bases, hard? Or would he just schedule another speech at the UN?
What a mess Jimmy Carter made by allowing the Shah of Iran to fall. Odd how the MSM never mentions that.
Neither did the Iraqi SCUDs. And how many of those thousands actually got fired before being destroyed? And of those fired, how many actually hit a target?
And that was Gulf War I. We did lose some folks to SCUDs.
We may have advanced, technologically, since then.
I would bet that we can detect and destroy any potential launcher, at night, in a fog, during the dark of the moon.
We'll manage. I'm not too worried about Iran.
/johnny
If Iran shoots just one Sunburn toward the Straits, commercial traffic (meaning tankers) will shut down because insurance will be almost impossible to get at any price. International commercial hulls do not move without insurance.
If Iran shoots just one Sunburn toward the Straits, commercial traffic (meaning tankers) will shut down because insurance will be almost impossible to get at any price. International commercial hulls do not move without insurance.
If Iran shoots just one Sunburn toward the Straits, commercial traffic (meaning tankers) will shut down because insurance will be almost impossible to get at any price. International commercial hulls do not move without insurance.
If Iran shoots just one Sunburn toward the Straits, commercial traffic (meaning tankers) will shut down because insurance will be almost impossible to get at any price. International commercial hulls do not move without insurance.
Sorry to all about the repeat of substance and post.
I think Freeper’s bert and hinckley buzzard have it about right. I doubt Iran has any hope or intent of firing anything other than an air raid siren. See their posts on this thread.
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