What the State Department says is bogus concerning the ships being there in case the embassy needs evacuated. You don’t need an aircraft carrier, guided missle cruiser and a MEU-SOC (Marine Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Capable) to do that. All you need is the MEU. The other stuff is there for Iranian deterrence. The Marines in the expeditionary unit would also be qualified in ship to ship boarding and inspections. That could come in very useful if we have to board these Iranian ships. Having an aircraft carrier close by will convince the Iranian captains of the ship that it is in their best interest to cooperate.
Curiously this carrier task force has two, count’em TWO LHD’s. that’s two battalions of US Marines. That’s a bit of an overload even for the Fifth Fleet or Task Force 150. With that much extra horsepower somebody, somewhere, is planning on flexing. The task force is nine (9) surface ships plus the unseen fast atack sub. I saw a fresh video yesterday of a VertRep going to the Teddy. That’s a cycle where they transfer remaining weapons from the carrier going off-station to the one coming on. We just hate to haul perfectly good weapons back home. There’s enough mojo in this group to send the Persians and all their toy ships back to at least the 12th century. God Speed to our guys and CARRY ON——Semper Fi-——————————————————————————————Semper Fi
I understand all our people are not out of Yemen. Might those Marines be useful for landing and extraction?