Carrier Battle Group

It has just been announced on the BBC1 evening news, that the United States is to send a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf in an effort to put additional pressure on Iran.

Do any of our friends from across the pond have any info about this and if so, what does the Bush administration hope to achieve?

You answered your own question. Its to lend credibility to the threat of consequences should Iran fail to stop its nuclear program. Also, if there is going to be significant military action. It takes time to assemble the forces necessary. Look back at Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Specifically take note of the forces deployed and when they were deployed.

Without this and similar deployments. Iran would know with a fair amount of certainty that there was no danger of a military strike. Now they will have to wonder and consider the alternatives.


DA

Originally posted by fritz
It has just been announced on the BBC1 evening news, that the United States is to send a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf in an effort to put additional pressure on Iran.

Do any of our friends from across the pond have any info about this and if so, what does the Bush administration hope to achieve?

Having just gotten off 12 hour shifts I have been out of the news loop for several weeks..only grabbing bits and pieces. Am I to understand that this is still pending..not actually deployed as of yet? Did they name the lead carrier in this group? Curious about this.

I have not as of yet found this story on the web.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Orangeton, I just don't know! Simple as that.

Our friends from across the pond seem rather reticent or they simply can't be bothered.

The previous poster - Darth America says that they [US] need time to build up forces if [probably] they [us] are going to attack Iran.

Yesterday [pm] the UN announced sanctions against Iran which, like those imposed against Iraq, will only affect the weak and the poor. The idiots who run the country will, once again, remain unaffected.

You would have thought that given the tradegy that was happening in Iraq before the second gulf war kicked off, sanctions [that do not work]would not be repeated any time soon.

What next?

Another demand from Messers Bush and Blair to stop processing uranium which, as a soverign nation state, Iran has every right to do?

UN weapons inspections and inspectors they won't listen too?

A failled request for a second resolution and the continuing build up of US/UK forces?

The eventual invasion of Iran?

Happy New Year Middle East - and may Allah or God have mercy on us all!

[edit on 24-12-2006 by fritz]

I ask because I can look right across the bay here at Norfolk and see the carriers which are parked there. Also the rest of the group.

That is not to say they are coming from this port or harbor. There are other groups stationed at other places around the world.

I would be shocked to find out they are going to send the Big E. That will be intresting.

My initial reaction to this headline is that they are trying to draw out the Iranians. Read what you will into that statement.

I have U2s up on the headline. Will check them out. Thanks for the update Fritz.

Orangetom

Ask Away, old son.

You know more than I. I am just a little surprised by this apparent gunboat mentality.

Incidentally Orangetom, I have not seen any pics on the news and neither have there been any updates so my question is, any news from your end?

Originally posted by orangetom1999

I ask because I can look right across the bay here at Norfolk and see the carriers which are parked there. Also the rest of the group.

That is not to say they are coming from this port or harbor. There are other groups stationed at other places around the world.

I would be shocked to find out they are going to send the Big E. That will be intresting.

USS Dwight D Eisenhower entered the Gulf in December last year in direct support of troops participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and maritime security operations.


DA

Both on station in the indian ocean by now....
I believe the onstation carrier they joined is also still operating there too....
baby makes three!The Stennis should be there by early feb.07
Best operations windeow feb-april 07
after which Blair will be gone from office.....no more tornadoes for back up!

Originally posted by bergle
Both on station in the indian ocean by now....
I believe the onstation carrier they joined is also still operating there too....
baby makes three!The Stennis should be there by early feb.07
Best operations windeow feb-april 07
after which Blair will be gone from office.....no more tornadoes for back up!

no.

The Eisenhower is the only CVN in the Gulf. Stennis is just entering the western Pacific, and won't be to the Gulf region for a couple more weeks.

The Nimitz leaves in about 4 weeks, it has been scheduled to relieve the Eisenhower since October 2006, so hardly a new development.

The Truman leaves this summer, and was to relieve the Nimitz to go back to the Pacific, but with 2 CVNs being stationed in the Gulf, it will probably relieve the Stennis instead.

The Stennis was a scheduled deployment too, if you are familiar with scheduled deployment rotations, all of the above fits that schedule.

What doesn't fit the schedule is the Reagan group deployed last week.

All in all, there have been only 2 ships surged besides the Reagan group since December 2006, 1 Atlantic FFG and 1 Pacific FFG, hardly a force for war. Everything else deployed is part of normal rotations.

The Royal Navy on the other hand, has deployed 1 DDG, 1 FFG, and 2 minesweepers, the 4 ships represent unscheduled deployments, or unexpected deployments could be a better way to say it. The rest of the deployments by the Royal Navy represent scheduled deployments.

It is to my belief that the carrier stike-group is planning to depart, coinciding with the installation of several Patriot Missle batteries.

Further on this:
i. Sanctions also affect deposits across the world. We have frozen military and economic assets either located within the United States, or more-recently, through either a legal connection or soft-power pressure, those in allied states.

ii. Sanctions work, though more specifically, only specific groups. One is intended to freeze the assets of the government or military, though this is more likely to spark some form of effective protest against the opposing nations. The other is to hamper the way of life for the people, enciting either riots, or the evolution of reactionary movements.

iii. Proclaiming Iran has the right to process Uranium into weapons-grade material -- Which all-though unproven, it has taken every step in order to negate our abilities to find the answer -- Is analogous to saying a man can have a gun.
Though in this case, the man we are giving the gun to; for the sake of analogy to a nuclear weapon, let's pretend we're giving him a high-powered assault-rifle, is an outspoken critic of a particular neighbor in the region. Whom he constantly proclaims to one day 'wipe off the map', and outright declares the greatest mass-prosecution in history to have not occured -- Also, a strike against this same neighbor.
This would be giving a ammonium nitrate to an Army of Heaven militia.
Yes, they could use it as a fertilizer, or as a de-icer.
[As I had to, three weeks ago.]
Though the more - likely conclusion is that they shall fashion an explosive out of it.

Let's also recall that Iran has been funneling weapons to the militia, deathsquads, and insurgents within the country.
They are by no means a passive, pacifist force.

Violence is crude, but it solves the violence of others who cannot be persuaded away from their own catastrophic desires.

I think Bush is escalating it because he is a lame duck President. If we get envolved now the next President will have to follow thru. Also I think he understands that the next President wouldn't have gone in to Iran. Whether right or wrong, the public setiment would have prevented that.

Fritz,

I would be more concerned about deployment of targeting assets 'to the east' and specifically the completion dates of several airbases in Western AfG.

Carriers can surge a lot of sorties over short radii in a few days but then are flatlined while their crews rest from the prolonged reload/URP cycles (they are the same guys, often running 18-20 hour rotations).

Given that a lot of Irans nuclear facilities are deep-north in a bathtub of enclosed water with hostile EM sources on all sides, the conventional advantage of 'one up, one back' deceptive maneuver and cross coverage in the dual sea control and overland power projection mission is no longer applicable.

Instead you see a condition where, as with 1991, the at-sea force is a decoy.

T'were it any other way and there would be a LOT more ASUW and MCM and SW surface unit assets deployed and we would be undertaking an active elicitation effort to get 'just the one magic shot' at our forces that would justify obliterating Iran's coastal defenses.

Any attack will probably be dual pronged, air and airlanded, it will come from the shortest axis with the most protective clutter. And while carrier air will certainly cover for it, it will be primarily concerned with gaining intel on large complexes which almost certainly means the Rangers not the smaller Teams.

Furthermore, it will be precursored by HUGE amounts of EOB and IMINT/SAR robotic penetration and manned border crash missioning (east and west) to pull the IRIAF apart at the seams.

The Iranians can hurt us in the gulf if they have enough missiles or a nuke armed boat force. They can /really/ hurt us in the ROW, both for public opinion and soft target attacks. But the fact of the matter is that if we humiliate them by taking the yellow cake away from baby, nobody will want to risk /their/ part in this being exposed or repeated and Iran will be left alone in the cold of their long lost imperialist dreams.

That's the key part of this. To continually make Iran yap about their greatness until the overwhelming pressure cracks them and they either prove their helplessness or we do. Shame Iran and her nationalism will die as the world watches the little-man's ego deflate.

THAT is when the nation will be ripe for revolution. Not before. Not after consolidation behind a 'common suffering' under external sanctions.

The only question is whether or not it's too late to put a cork in their nuke program or if they already have (or have purchased) a small nuclear arsenal that they are willing to use. Either way, time is short before an indigenously developed techbase is a given.


KPl.