With, hopefully, the mods allowance....as a layperson, I have a question regarding the Ghadir (which I mentioned and profiled up thread)...something, tbh, that has concerned me
At last count, which was around 2020, it is said that Iran had at least 20 Ghadir in service, though no actual figures have been available officially from Iran. Given that they can be built pretty much anywhere and appear, on the face of it at least, to be relatively quick and inexpensive to build and seen as a very offensive, and thus dangerous, item in the Iranian Navy.
With just a 125 ton submerged displacement and being 95ft long x 9ft wide and with a crew of 7, they are not easy to find on sonar, often they will hide under or around the natural rocky outcrops and wait for their "prey" before firing their complement of 2 x 21 inch torpedoes.
As stated before the attack on HMM Namu has been slated by the ship's Korean owners as a mine......or was it...maybe...a Ghadir.....
My question is this....
Given that the USN has some very large and sophisticated ships currently in the Gulf of Oman working the Iranian port blockade......is it / would it be possible for a group of Ghadir to position themselves underneath one of the larger USN ships and be able to punch a hole into the aft end, just as with HMM Namu above, and potentially sink that USN ship?
Reason for asking......
If the current round of talks fail and hostilities restart, surely the time tween the ceasefire beginning and the potential failure of the talks would be more than enough time to have the Ghadir fleet (or a portion of it) find and shadow the USN ships in readiness to attack should things kick off again. They can remain submerged for several days at a time, so even if the wait is a long one, theoretically there are enough Ghadir to roster and to keep watch on the USN fleet full time and without being spotted on sonar. Trying to enter the minds of the various planners and plotters should hostilities kick off again, could the threat of the Ghadir have been overlooked or dismissed or simply not known about. The Iranians have no reason not to carry out such an attack. They are tenacious and even if they died in the attempt they would be seen as heroes and martyrs. Taking out a principle USN ship in this way would change everything...and not in a good way for anyone.