Each RCB carries six machine guns, to include a .50 caliber Gatling gun, plus grenade launchers. lotta guns for a five man crew
Posted on 01/17/2016 1:57:49 PM PST by Taxman
CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, January 18, 2016
Iranian coup: A tale of two U.S. Navy vessels
Last week, the U.S. Navy dispatched two of its fearsomely armed Riverine Command Boats (RCBs) to patrol between Kuwait and Bahrain. Somehow, the RCBs were seized by the Iranian Navy; the crewmembers arrested, and -- even though the U.S. and Iran are not technically at war -- treated as Prisoners of War (POWs). How could this happen?
The Swedish-designed, U.S.- manufactured RCBs cost $2.8 million per copy. Each RCB carries six machine guns, to include a .50 caliber Gatling gun, plus grenade launchers. Covered with armor plating able to deflect AK-47 fire, the RCB’s 49.4 mile-per-hour top speed means RCBs can outrun every known surface warship.
To guard against surprise attack, RCBs carry the Sea FLIR III infrared sensor system, thermal imaging, a laser rangefinder, and long-range radar. Navigation is by a top-of-the line GPS and chart plotter system, along with traditional chart and compass back-up. The RCB’s world-wide communications gear nets with ships, aircraft, and ground forces.
Operating in pairs, the RCBs provide each other with mutual fire support. If one RCB is disabled, the other RCB can tow it to safety. Thus, the question arises: How could two RCBs lose their ability to navigate at the same time and stray into Iranian waters? And how could two world-class weapons platforms be seized by the, arguably, inferior Iranian Navy?
Apparently, one of the RCBs had a propulsion problem and radioed U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain for assistance. Congressman Louis Gohmert (R) of Texas claims the Obama White House intervened, asked the Iranian Navy to provide assistance, and ordered the U.S. 5th Fleet to stand down.
By long-standing naval custom, disabled boats found in territorial waters are rendered assistance, and simply escorted back into international waters. Their crews are not subjected to POW treatment or put on world-wide video display, looking like criminals.
But, instead of being treated as distressed vessels exercising the mariners’ right of innocent passage, the Iranians arrested the crew members, treated them as POWs, and, somehow, got the officer-in-charge to make filmed statements praising the Iranians and saying the treatment the crew received was: "Fantastic."
Absent Congressman Gohmert’s explanation -- citing White House intervention -- it appears Articles II and V of the U.S. military’s Code of Conduct were violated. Article II states: "I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist." Article V reads: "When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the best of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause."
Alternatively, could it be that the White House-imposed Rules of Engagement (ROE) robbed the RCBs of their "means to resist"? Were the RCB’s awesome weapons even permitted to be loaded? Congress should demand to see the Operations Order under which the two RCBs left Kuwait for Bahrain and demand copies of all the communications between the RCBs, U.S. 5th Fleet, and the White House. Meanwhile, the RCB crews are left twisting in the wind.
Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame, and is a recipient of the University of Nebraska 2015 Alumni Achievement Award. He was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the Infantry School, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.
©2016. William Hamilton.
Oh, man..!
I just did a google search on Farsi Island, and you wouldn’t believe WHOSE photo comes up NUMBER 1 in the search results..!!
You’ll like it.
This was planned from the get go as a means of facilitating the prisoner “exchange” with Iran.
BTTT!
Scripted all the way by the Ophonybam/John Effing Kerry traitors!
Each RCB carries six machine guns, to include a .50 caliber Gatling gun, plus grenade launchers. lotta guns for a five man crew
Over to you, Travis.
How do they man them?
Ophonybama has a different concept!
Boy, I'll say!
Why send SEALs when we can photograph every inch from every angle, etc.
Believe me, the Obama admin is so pussy/PC/risk averse that they HID the night of Benghazi rather than send a rescue force with full CINC CBA that might have gone bad. Instead, they wrote off 30 Americans that night and hid. It could easily have been a massacre there. Obama would not even send a rescue force to an Alamo begging for help.
And he’s sending SEALs to sneak and peak on Farsi Island? Please. Next, tell me that Obama is Captain America in secret, that’s more believable. No SEALs or spooks, just standard five man crews in transit. Two boats for self-rescue via tow, which they practice all the time. Engines checked like NASCAR before the open sea transit.
They were ambushed en route, IMHO. Obama knows it, Kerry knows it, the Iranians know it. The big secret is where the encounter took place. We have heard, serially, that they drifted 50 miles off course, or ran aground, or out of fuel, or had engine trouble that forced each boat to just stop, and not take one another in tow.
Not one of them is believable. What is very believable is that they were bushwhacked on the route that the Iranians know they were taking, with spies in Kuwait giving them the minute of departure. Then it’s just a waiting game in the middle of their path.
They know our pussy ROE means it will become a point-blank Mexican standoff, then an American surrender.
What is he going to do when the Iranians use his billions to buy nukes from the NORKs?
See Travis’ response @ post #149.
How many of the five can fight the guns and also run the boat out in the open water?
Very undermanned. That is just the bare full-time assigned crew. For fighting a boat like that, you would take on more trigger pullers.
Not that that is their mission, that is SWCC and the SEALs. RS is river guards like USCG.
Travis nailed it at post #151!
There were no SEALS on Farsi Island — we know all we need to know about that place.
Do you think they were in Iranian territorial waters?
If not you're talking about a gigantic conspiracy to keep an intercept in international waters quiet.
Taxman Bravo Zulu, Matt!
That post (and the others on this and related threads showing your most excellent graphic) should convince even the most skeptical person that the Ophonybama administration’s “explanations” for this embarrassing debacle were LIES right FRom the get-go!
Would that we were able to bring EVERY Ophonybama LIEberal thug up on Treason charges!
If anyone still believes any of the series of lies about other possibles, I have a bridge to sell you cheap.
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