And it begins: Saudi tankers headed to the US "sabotaged & attacked".

I wanna say the obvious for the sake of it as you dont seem to take it seriously.
They better leave the fkn Iran alone! Boosting the oil price isnt worth it. They had a good deal. Not a best one but there was no need to start a new deal-project. One wrong step and we are all FUBAR. It may not seem like a trap but it is. A special trap set for a specific kind of arrogant animal. A waiting skunk's ass. The sanctions are too evil to get away with. Why is any third country still taking these unilateral US sanctions seriously? I thought we are into nationalism and changing paradigm now. I feel that this old order will soon be over, most likely replaced by something and someone worse because of the same old bad policy.
Military tactics of binding and distraction can be seen everywhere. Countries may not all work together but they coordinate their steps to fit into the grand scheme that is not so hard to see. Houthis attacked Saudi warship off Yemen coast before and everyone knows it. Trump's willing to play Mr. gullible again having this great idea of taking care of it. Playing this America leads the way game while old school dudes like Bolton are playing him just like in Syria.
Bullying Iran means a huge waste of resources, time, lives, with oil shortage, Russia stepping in like the last time, pissed Pakistan, endless bad news for years like we are not entertained enough. I dont see Putin in the news doing stuff, changing the world every single fkn day. WTF, it's not too bad now. Let's have a year to stabilize the rest of it.
Imagine just losing couple of fancy ships for nothing and missing them later against an expanding China invading Taiwan or something. With global economy stagnation, lack of food due to grand solar minimum, EU invaded by muslims, in chaos, collapsed and turned even more into 1984.

...c'mon, say it works both ways.
Why is no one interrested in this topic anymore? Have I killed it? I guess it's the weather. The anthill, the zoo planet gets a temperature boost.
Note to myself: I'll get more intellectual feedback on fkn youtube

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ
My interest in Oil Tankers goes back much further, to the Largest being MV Sirius Star.
A ransom of US $3,000,000 was paid by owners to get the ship back from Somali Pirates!
We don't pay that for human hostages....so why an oil tanker?
The ironic humour continues as The Sirius Star Oil Tanker was launched on 28th March 2008 in Geoji in South Korea, i have selected the nearest city to this which is Masan being 35*N21' 128*E24', where as Geoji is 34*N51' 128*E35, as i can't get this location, but it would not make any difference.
Hermetic midnight day marker used at location, as Sirius sets along Western horizon, they named the tanker under the star they aligned it to, LOL!
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ
There are more than enough ships and air to counter China over Taiwan. With Australia we even keep production capacity for a fully mobilized operation close to the battlefield. It could work in our favor, as we can take the opportunity to annihilate their artificial islands and the projection capacity they have built there illegally. Then hop right in and sell them back to the small guys who also laid claims to the islands.

It should not get more serious than that. Granted we lose a dozen or so jets and maybe like two ships. We definitely won't lose a carrier, or a sub. Hopefully it will have the Navy guys demanding the return of battleships. We just need to evolve them into the 21st century, perhaps with modular lift capability as well. Slap a handful together and we have built ourselves a floating version of London from the movie Mortal Engines. C-5's could even fly in on them!

The visuals would be stunning

a reply to: worldstarcountry

A fight in the Pacific will be like nothing seen in recent years. China has the capability to push our operations back, increasing the range and tanker requirements for our fighters. With the J-15/J-20 combination, if we give them enough time, can push our support aircraft back as well.

If they go after Taiwan, they'll be able to knock out the above ground airfields almost immediately. They can just about have air dominance before we can even get our aircraft moving. We'll be able to hit them pretty hard eventually, but it's not going to be the walk in the park most people think.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Taiwan has air defense systems. A full fledged pre-emptive strike by China would be detected by Signals intelligence within a few minutes just due to the nature and activity of the munitions involved and the sheer scale such an operation would entail. I think the only way they would even fathom it though is if our CSG's were nowhere nearby. Thats why it is important to maintain various freedom of navigation ops in conjunction with our allies in the area.

I bet though that Taiwan could get at least 60% of its planes in the air and ensure not everyone makes it back to mainland China. Then the Pacific alliance will stand firm and put itself between the two and insist not to do it again, and independence can commence. All in all, they can earn their freedom with about 80 hours of direct conflict, a few thousand dead, and the loss of their air force. But, we can rebuild their airforce, and sell it to them at a reasonable rate with new guarantees

It is possible some Americans and Australians will also make an ultimate sacrifice. But arent those the commitments we make when our leaders make these deals and treaties?

China is only a rare Earth monopolist because they subsidize the industry and technology to extract from every type of mine that exists. It is why American rare earth miners cannot do business, they are approaching the industry incorrectly. There is a # ton of material and different types of mines also have them in varying quantities as trace elements. China does not have these giant mountains or underground deposits of REM's , they simply have invested in the know how of extracting at every point of any mine. A gold mine will produce REM's, so will a tin mine, and copper, bauxite and iron, maybe even phosphate. The trick is getting every last recoverable piece of dust from those ores, and THAT is what the Chinese have become so efficient at. We can do it here too, we can! But we have to accept that a certain type of restructuring of certain industries and the way they are funded may not seem traditionally as capitalist. But we must do it if we are going to survive as a nation into the rest of this century!

When an American or Canadian company mines for gold it usually gets the easy stuff that is sometimes there as well like silver and copper occasionally. Lots of other trace elements are left behind with the tailings because processing them was never part of the business model. If the nation legislates a change in the business model and adds subsidies like China does with all manufacturing because it is all state owned, we would become a very competitive rival in that export market.

Sincerely, Iran isn't flying around its little drones or playing with its toy boats right now is it? They will be a bit hush for a little longer I hope.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Of course they do, and they're outnumbered by a huge margin. They can put up a good fight and probably hold out until we can get into the area, but they're not going to be able to stop even most of what China could throw at them.

We'd detect it, but during the Korea paper exercises it took up to 48 hours to get large numbers of aircraft as far as Hickam, let alone into striking range of Korea. The bombers can get there pretty quickly, but they'd only have local fighters for SEAD and escort missions for awhile.

Once China hits Guam, we're pushed back to basically Japan. Operating from Guam you're talking about a roughly 8 hour round trip for the fighters, in addition to any combat at the end of the inbound leg. That's not something that can be sustained for long.

As for the Pacific Alliance, most of them would be willing to sacrifice Taiwan if it's going to occupy China for a few years. And China may think they can be in place, or have enough control by the time any alliance can get up and running that it's all over.

a reply to: Zaphod58
I don't believe they can successfully eliminate Guam's runways if they are making a heavy pre-emptive strike on Taiwan. It would have to be one or the other. They cannot pull off both. They can build fast, but not fast enough to replace what does not make it back. We know this fictional scenario ends very soon with both sides panicking to find a diplomatic solution just due to the civil discourse and unrest that will follow. Politicians have become so sensitive to finicky markets.

The only way they can successfully manage to take out Taiwan and Guam is by making their East Coast vulnerable from redeployment for that initial strike. Thats that savory industrial area isn't it?

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Sure they can. Fire some MRBMs with conventional warheads, and punch holes in the runway. If they don't want to risk that, H-6s flying commercial routes, pretending to be airliners can get close enough to fire off long range weapons. All they have to do is punch big holes in the runway and prevent us from using it for a few days.

a reply to: gladtobehere

If this is at all true, it was probably done by you know who? Who has been in more wars than any other country and has a milt-tree budget greater than the rest of the world put together.

a reply to: Azureblue
Is the answer God? Or should I phrase it as "who/what is God?"
Did I win?

Iranians must be using Ninjas!
no one see them non captured.
no one see a boat. are they using subs?
they are saying Mines!

is this why the US navy will not go in?
Iran would blow holes in all the ship?
but that would not be so bad?
they NEVER sink them!!!

hmmmm?
that is very odd as they say they are using mines?

next the US needs some FAKE prisoners.
and some dead victims. With Fake videos.
as the stuff they have try'd so far it not fooling any one.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

They prob got advised by John Kerry to attack the tanker to start a war that would cost Trump 2020 reelection. Trump just need to keep ratching up the sanction and they will eventually cave or turn into Venezuela.

I doubt it is a neocon plot because the neocons wanted the Iranian deal because everyone was making so much money and commission from it.

The Iranian oil tanker illegally stopped by the UK in Gibraltar was not stopped by order from the US, it was EU's policy ...
made by Macron, Merkel, Mattarella and other EU head of state , who are now conveniently blaming the US for their crimes as usual !