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.
I agree.......They were U.S. military forces in another country's territorial waters without permission and the Iranians had every right to board and seize but not to propagandize. And while our boats had the weaponry and firepower to fend off the Iranians, what would be the global ramifications of such an act be? You don't sail into another country's waters then get into a naval fire fight with them.
What would be the U.S.'s response to such boats manned by Chinese in US waters off the coast of San Diego?
I don’t see how they could have accidentally got into Iranian territory.
I have a refurbished Garmin in my car and it is never off, not even a hundred yards off. It even tells me if I turn and it tells me immediately.
I suspect the Navy has more than a $25 unit.
Not so simple in the Middle East. How exactly did the US sailors know for sure that the guys in the speedboats weren't ISIS freelancers or Somali style pirates? Or some guys with a boat full of explosives like the terrorists that attacked the USS Cole.
I would say in many parts of the world you deny even close proximity to any vessel unless you know that it is either friendly, or you have agreed to allow it to approach.
In this instance, since the story about a disabled boat or boats seems to be fiction, any US sailors on those boats who suspected they were in Iranian waters could just drive away - pretty much any direction but North East in the case of Farsi Island. In a boat that can travel close to 50 mph they would have been in international waters in minutes, even if they could see the island.
Even if the Iranians were annoyed, just what would they have been able to do to a boat headed for international waters with a 50 caliber machine gun pointed at them? Their Boston Whalers would probably not be able to close the distance to the US boats anyway.
The more I learn the less of the story seems plausible.
Well the CIC could order them to stand down and allow themselves to be captured. Not only plausible but probable.
Even in the navy stupid stuff happens.......Several years ago a female naval officer lost her command after running her ship aground.
That would be the only shared thing that could possibly do it and a bad enough contamination no number of filters could fix. That or an issues with batteries I've seen before on other type small craft where the engine had to be shut down. But I agree with Travis. I've heard back in my day of 30-50 foot boats tied off to ships breaking away from their booms in the night and drifting off with it's crew onboard sleeping {which was normal and allowed in these cases those were liberty boats used to haul 175 men}. Worse case scenario they drifted a few miles off out to sea and when they woke up the crew radioed back to the ship their status for help.
To have done what is said those boats did a break down and drift into Iranian waters was way too far for that to happen and not a route the boats would take. And he is also right you don't drop or recover Special Teams in daylight and especially sit and wait. I didn't know how many it took to fully man the boats but he said 10 per boat and that sounds right for gunners, deck crew, etc. The crews onboard were simply to relocate it in what they considered a safe move.
Iran saw a blip on their scopes and an obvious opportunity and snatched them in International Waters likely less than ten miles out at sea. Remember how the Somalia pirates operated? They used high speed small craft that looked civilian.
Now my question would be since the Navy knew the boats were ordered to new port why wasn't a larger ship or three standing close by or air support alerted? Why? Because Obama administration has our ships sitting in port with minimal numbers deployed.
True. Your mooring lines can be used for this. That's how we towed. The only thing greatly compromised in towing is speed. Even if you have the power for speed you are pulling the other boats bow. The higher the speed the more prone the towed boats bow would dig in seems to me. Propulsion is from the stern so the bow raises up & not pulls down.
Obama finally made his foreign-policy ukase public in his statement about the release of the ethnic-Iranian U.S. citizens the Iranian mullahs have been holding hostage.
This incident appears to be of a part with that Obama policy of craven diplomacy and making nice with third-world thugocrats as our moral equals.
This ain't gonna play, Barry, with people raised on Stephen Decatur and John Paul Jones and -- grit your teeth, boy, you're gonna hate it -- American exceptionalism.
Coastal Riverine Force Cape Fear Final Skills Assessment - Interview
Given there are only six RCB's in service, odds seem good.
were they instructed to drift into enemy territory just so bozo could then have us “apologize” suffer humiliation, slip some more Iranian prisoners to them under the guise of “friendship” and pay them a billion bucks just for fun?....
I’m on Slow dial up and can’t view it. But yeah rigging a tow is basic seamanship an E-2 can do. It should never take more than a few minutes tops even when not under the gun. I don’t know the Rating or M.O.S. of crew members but one {driver} is likely a Bosuns Mate or cross trained BM NCO and they can rig skyhooks LOL rigging is the speciality.
Usually that stuff is either at the top or the bottom of the tank. One can play gravity games with valves to titrate off the good stuff to make enough clean fuel for at least one engine out of four to run. That's good enough for me on the high seas.
As to filters, it depends upon whether they are primary or secondary, the former usually being a trap and screen. I had one on a military motor made in the fifties that was a series of stacked disks with every other ganged to either a shaft down the middle or one on the outside. To clean it one merely turned the handle.
The big problem with modern engines is that they run with the latest and "greatest" enviro-hooey modifications that make them much more susceptible to contamination. The idiot designers are still using high pressure direct orifices instead of something a little more tolerant, such as swirl nozzles. It's what the manufacturers are accustomed to making.
Now my question would be since the Navy knew the boats were ordered to new port why wasn't a larger ship or three standing close by or air support alerted? Why? Because Obama administration has our ships sitting in port with minimal numbers deployed.
Commander Xero would hold them off if they were a few hundred yards away if the Iranians were already on the scene.
Coastal Riverine Force "Cape Fear Final Skills Assessment" - Interview
She speaks of ambush test, high, low machine gun...
Proof they were trained for just such a situation as the encountered.
These people, as you said Trav, are going to be hidden in far, remote, and nasty posts after NDA signing.
I’m beyond pathetic and on to treason.
There must have been classified equipment on board As you know Valerie is Iranian born Salafist Muslim One can get from Kuwait to Bahrain by dead reckoning
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
following the western shore of the Persian Gulf following
the shore line. No need to go East or out to sea.
requested by Iran and offered by Valerie.
and a Red Diaper Baby.
Here is what REALLY happened!
The comment by Matt Bracken on the linked article at the bottom:
“I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat’s icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats “strayed into Iranian waters” is complete bull$#it.
For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation’s claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that’s why two boats go on these trips and not one! It’s called “self-rescue” and it’s SOP.
This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a “hands up!” situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America’s face.
Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.
The “strayed into Iranian waters” story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/10_us_sailors_held_by_iran_confirmed_freed.html
Thanks.
Matt has been all over this sorry event for two days.
Check the original threas out at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3384432/posts
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