Iranian Patrol boats threaten US Warships
 

Although not Aviation related (although i'm sure the US Navy put up their Helo's)
News is reporting that five Iranian Gunboats approached US Navy ships transiting the Straight of Hormuz with transmissions picked up saying "We are coming at you, you will explode in a few minutes".
According to unamed sources, the USN were 'very' close to opening fire.

So, what would happen if the USN did open fire on 5 Iranian patrol boats even though they approached with threatening action?

I wonder what would have happened if it was a Nimitz class or any other type of Carrier that was being approached?

Surely the SOP is to put your hands up, surrender, and sell your stories to the National Inquirer?

CNN: ........In one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," the U.S. military officials told CNN.

When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they manned their gun positions and officers were "in the process" of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.....

One of the Iranian ships had been dropping white boxes into the water in front of the U.S. ships, the officials told CNN.

The Iranians would deny any provocation, claim American aggression and use it as an excuse to escalate, possibly including more overt cross border meddling in Iraq and The Stan. Despite his 'eccentricities' I would have thought ImMadAsADinnerJacket would hold back from trying to kick off anything too serious until he had a funtioning nuclear weapon. Therefore I wonder if this was the result of a local commander getting over excited without top level authorisation.

"So, what would happen if the USN did open fire on 5 Iranian patrol boats even though they approached with threatening action?"

Hummm,

I think they'd sink!!!

Or an attempt at provoking an incident to overshadow/disrupt Bush's one week visit to the Middle East starting tomorrow....

Surely blow up and sink!

I don't know of any details of course, but on the face of it, whether this was a local 'commander' trying to make a name for himself, or something more organised, it seems some U.S. Officers are to be highly slapped on the back for cool judgement - it were me, the heroic patrol boats may well have had nasty pointy things coming their way ! :D

US military budget in 2005 alone was $421 Billion dollars plus another $75 Billion for Iran/Afghanistan operations.

Iran's military budget in 2005 was $4.9 Billion dollars.

This does not take into account inventory left over from previous years, nor does it take into account qualitative differences in the equipment OR the personnel. It also does not take into account the cooperation (public or covert) of some other nations in the area, who are not exactly best friends with Iran. (I can think of at least one such neighbor with a very capable military.)

If the US does decide to move against Iran, it is going to be an unholy mess and the Iranians are going to quickly come out very second best.

The politicians on both sides are stupid - the US has a one-track mind right now about Iran, and Iran is convinced that the US is about to attack, so they keep on yelling about how tough they are, and trying to prove it by continually tugging on Superman's cape - which is a mistake on their part.

This is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy - Iran will lose the fight, big time, everyone will lose the war.

I don't want to think what a barrel of oil will cost . . .

Best Regards,

Echo Mike

I wasn't commenting on the 'big picture' personally - though I have to sadly agree with your summary, the gist being that 'Iran would lose any fight, big time, while everyone would lose the war'.

I was simply saying that from the small amount of info' on earlier posts I can glean here - and not knowing the ranges or actual U.S.warships involved - I think it appears to show admirable constraint & discipline from the U.S. involved.

Myself, and I haven't a big red 'phone on my desk I'll admit, I don't think the U.S. are going to deal with Iran except possibly in more subtle but still effective ways, for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the Americans have the balls to do what we didn't. I can't see any crew from a US Warship in the Straight of Hormuz surrendering.
As the sources said, the Iranians turned around "right at the moment" the USN were going to open fire...

What did we do? Sit there and watch them take RN and RM personnel hostage of which took what, 15 days to get them back without their boat and weapons...

I think you refer to a sad example of 'everything that could go wrong, did go wrong'...and the simple fact that the R.N. have vastly inferior kit ( in every way inc. intel' assets / access not just boats ) compared to the U.S.N; and I doulbt the latter were low-crewed or daft / inexperienced enough ( take your pick ) to put young apparently under-trained people inc. women into that situation - it may well have seemed a 'jolly' on a sunny day - .

If you were an Iranian gunboat type, how would you rate your chances of getting away with it a second time ?

Two F/A-18's collide over the Gulf
 

Two F/A-18 Hornets collided over the Persian Gulf today (Monday) and all three crew were rescued and taken back to the H.S Truman in good nick.

DoD stresses that they were not in relation to the incident involving Iranian Fast Attack boats and USN Warships.

Maybe the Iranians smoke weed like the Afghan Army do when fighting alongside the British in Helmand...
As was shown on TV, the weed smoking Afghans stood up and stayed up firing in full view of the Taliban afterwards to the amazement of the British.

Perhaps the Iranians have the same 'head on' when going about their daily jollies in the Persian Gulf.

With the communications intercepted "We are coming at you, you will explode in several minutes" it wouldn't surprise me one bit.... sounds like they could have been on something just to say that sentence!

er, we've been here before i think, gulf of tongking 1963, when vietnamese boats supposedly fired on uss maddox(destroyer). later proved to be a hoax which paved the way for usa to massively increase forces in the nam;). still what the hell, (coughs to clear throat) BLOW THE UNGODLY HEATHENS TO KINGDOM COME, etc etc:E

'Weed smoking gung-ho ?!'
 

Well I can honestly say, happily, I know very little about narcotics - but I thought 'weed' refers to Hashish or Mariuana - both forms of 'pot' as far as I make out ( what's the difference between them ? seriously ...) , but also both well known for making the subject 'mellow' & peaceful, as I've heard, so hardly the most fearsome fighting Terminators !

I'd have thought alcohol is one of the worst drugs for causing aggresive behaviour ( or I suppose in this example one of the 'best' if it's against foes ) - but the stuff the Afghans are keen to farm & sell - basically Opium in it's several end-product low-life forms - is apparently indeed powerful, though whether it makes one incredibly brave or just plain stupid is up for the more stable minded present to comment if they can.

All in all sounds a bit like a poor 'Boy's Own' story - " the drug cazed fuzzy-wuzzies ran at them ..."

Getting close to Cpl Jones speak there.....:D

They didn't like it up 'em either........them fuzzy-wuzzies.....:p

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/iran.pdf


Someone might want to tell this particular batch of Iranians that there are far less complex ways to commit suicide.


Reminds me of a similar situation off Somalia last summer - local talent in three speedboats attack a US navy guided missile cruiser and a destroyer, come on with all guns (couple of AK-47s and a grenade launcher) blazing. Action over in 15 seconds - three speedboats sunk, half the bad guys dead, no damage to the big gray ships at all.

When asked "what the f**k were you thinking?", the surviving leader of the bad guys said "We had you outnumbered - there were three of us and only two of you."

Sheesh.

Best Regards,

Echo Mike

Yes,

The phrase 'suicide squad', as in Monty Python's ' Life of Brian ' occurred to me too...still I suppose if one get's away with it, what's the Iranian for " Oh my feet are killing me ! " - " Anyway, what did you do at the office today dear ? "

Gee-Ram - " Don't Panic !" it worked for us Brits' in both Corproral Jones' time and the Hithchikers' Guide to the Galaxy - so must be right.

I still say,it would seem the U.S. are to be commended for their judgement on this latest fast boat call.

Interesting. The Iranians demonstrated the ability to do such a thing and capture your personnel, but for us, it's a self-driven pretext to escalate.

Did I capture (no pun intended) your point?

Not to be too harsh on the Royal Navy, they were lifted from a couple of lightly armed rigid-hulled inflatable boats, having left the saftety of their BGT (Big Gray Thing). At least the US Navy remembered that size does matter where it counts, and stayed in their BGTs while being threatened by MyDinnerJacket's latest would be Martyrs, although you can be sure if any of those vessel commanders had felt the threat warranted it, they would have taken the appropriate local action and sorted the politics out later - just as it should be.

Two,

I'm not casting aspersions on the RN/RM or the earlier incident. I just want to make sure I understand mr fish's point.

I did hear an American on the radio this morning suggest that possibly they were getting as close as possible to guage a response, as the Americans did themselves during the Cold War........I'll go looking for it....

It seems that the times' ship recognition department needs some work.

Ahmadinejad is trying to derail Bush's visit to Israel and the push for peace by creating the impression of a crisis just beforehand.

Razor....
 

....to the incident involving Iranian Fast Attack boats and USN Warships

The statements and local newspaper reporting of this incident quotes the US Army officers as only describing them as '...five Iranian speedboats' and that incident occurred up north of us in the infamous Straight of Hormuz, which has been the epicenter of many incidents of this nature.

Of note the threatening manoeuvres described by the US reports involved 'dropping boxes in the water in front of the US ships Would probably more than likely be attributed to the fact that this seaway is also a notoriously busy smuggling laneway between Iran and UAE and they were madly throwing overboard their stash of Marlborough ciggy's, satellite TV antennas and stash of Playboys for fear of being intercepted by the 'big grey official looking Navy boats'. By the way the Iranians drop of Caviar and carpets in return for these 'illicit items' under the current Iranian regime :sad:

The whole thing is, as to be expected, been completely blown our of proportion (not the water at least which was the case previously!! :eek:)

:cool:

I think Fox3's version of events is probably the more accurate. Someone's already referred to the Gulf of Tonking (non)"incident", which was the main pretext for the US mainstream ground troops going in to Vietnam, and it would be all too easy for someone to trigger a major incident either in error or on purpose in the very crowded waters of the Straits of Hormouz in a fit of deja vu.

Reference the smugglers: anyone in a position to get themselves up to Kashab (well worth doing - the fiorjd tour and the dolphins, especially at this time of the year, is fabulous), should go to the harbour (or even better, to the headland to the west of the port) in the early evening and watch true free enterprise in action. The smugglers' long boat fleet, both in number of boats and size of individual payloads, is an impressive sight, and, as they set out every evening, resemble a mini spectactor's fleet at the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race.

Pity the poor USN ship that was unfortunate enough to be passing through the Straits at that particular time of (every) evening - its crew could be forgiven for thinking Mr Dinnerjacket had sent the whole Iranian Navy out en masse (and at full power) to get 'em!

Rather than the Gulf of Tonkin think of the USS cole and what a small boat did to it. Its still fresh in the minds of the USN.

Fair point West, which is why I was surprised to read that the boats had been allowed to get within 200yds of the US Navy. I wonder if th emain gun could depress enough to hit it? I didn't think modern warships had much in the way of secondary armament, unless they had Phalanx, would they have much more than a broadside of squids with M-16's?

Most major RN and USN warships have now got the "Minigun" capability as well as GPMG's.
I saw somewhere a video of a RN Warship setting up a minigun on the side as well as pintle mounted GPMG's. Even the Ocean survey vessels etc have them fitted.

Also the RN have the Oerlikon cannon (30mm i think?) still for close in targets.

Didn't the USN use a minigun etc on the Somalians? I seem to remember they did. Of course a small boat isn't going to last very long with that amount of metal being thrown at it.

Iran Denies Threat Against U.S.
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Iran on Jan. 8 rejected U.S. charges that its naval forces threatened to blow up American ships in the Strait of Hormuz, amid renewed tensions ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to the region.

U.S. defense officials said five speedboats from the naval forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards menaced three U.S. warships in the strategic waterway on Sunday, radioing a threat to blow them up. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the incident as "provocative" and "dangerous" amid fears such an encounter could spark a major confrontation between the two foes.

But Iranian officials expressed bewilderment over the U.S. version of events, saying the encounter was a routine question of identification that ended with nothing special to report. "What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guards naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency. "No special engagement took place between the Guards and the foreign side," he said, adding that the Guards’ naval forces had a right to monitor and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters" to the northwest.

State television quoted an unnamed Guards source in the region as saying: "No threatening message was transmitted."...............

I hope they DF'd the comms, I have a feeling the Philipino Monkey could be involved :eek:

Demo here, although the target splashes a bit close for comfort;

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=17d_1199775322

R2D2 with attitude!

brickhistory, er, not yank bashing or suchlike, just making an observation that history as an unfortunate tendancy to repeat itself, especially with two countries with " previous convictions",shall we say!!

Gulf of Tonkin - declassified USA report
 

Re Mr Fish's post. The USA has released a History of American SIGINT and the Vietnam War which mentions that the Gulf of Tonkin attack and shows that not only is it not true, as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was "unimpeachable," but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that "no attack happened that night."

Just for clarity there were supposedly two attacks on the Maddox.

The first, on 2 Aug 64, certainly happened (General Giap acknowledged this, and he doesn't exactly count as a pro-US source) , and may, stress may) have been enough to trigger retaliatory action and get the TGR anyway. That's a matter for debate, but there is little doubt that there was a confrontation between Maddox and Turner Joy and NV PT boats that night.

The supposed 2nd attack is the one that didn't happen - something that was known and accepted within parts of the USN at the time, since the F-8 and A-1 drivers sent to provide support against the 2nd attack spent their time trying to find enemy PT boats but couldn't. US Naval Aviators were expressing doubts about the 2nd attack from the early morning of 5 August 1964, and the consensus at the time was that the crew on watch on the Maddox were jumpy after the 2nd August, and a series of c*ck-ups led to the crew believing (genuinely) that they were under attack. This was then exploited by LBJ's administration to reinforce efforts to gain approval for the executive's actions in Vietnam in response.

That is the Phalanx though, 20mm CIWS primarily used for airborne targets.
I was on about that they actually have 7.62 miniguns on RN and USN Warships now. The same type fitted to the Chinook etc. Makes a right mess of a small boat in a few seconds....HMS Scott and other survey vessels have the 7.62 fitted as do FFG's and DDG's for secondary anti-surface...

And the threatening radio messages from the Iranian boats?

i suppose those are just more yankee lies to try to justify a war, eh?

Sorry, your explanation doesn't jive with boats maneuvering between the USN ships, not "trying to get away"... or are those more exaggerations?

More like this
 

MK38 Mod 2 25mm stabilized gun as fitted on 2 of the three US Navy ships involved...for close in.

http://www.defencetalk.com/military_...2_20060901.php

Well, after the Gulf of Tonkin incident .... :E