War with Iran, a Different Perspective

There is a lot of hand-wringing going on over Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz and the follout from the resulting conflict. I am not privvy to any information that is not available to anyone else with a few minutes of searching on the internet.

1. Iran has no Air Force. At one time the Iranian Air Force was the second most powerful in the region. The revolution and the fall of the Shah changed all that. for one thing, most of the Air Force personnel were seen as too westernized and were purged. There are few fighter aircraft remaining and they all appear to be derelicts. Military air bases appear to have been abandonded long ago.

2. Iran's air defenses appear to be limited to a few obsolete Surface-to-Air missiles with well docuemnted SAM sites. Most of these missiles were in use in Iraq during the second gulf war and were completely ineffective againct the smart bombs and cruise missiles. There appear to be two active and two standby SAM sites in the gulf.

3. The point of items 1 and 2 is that American forces will own the sky. Thus detecting and destroying the fast small craft favored by the Iranians will not be particularly difficult or hazardous.

4. The two most likely tactics Iran would use to close the strait are mining it and attacking a tanker. Both of these tactics were used during the Iraq-Iran war by both sidesand were not proven to be particularly effective.

5.The most effective way to close the strait would be to sink a ship there. That is the least likely alternative because it would close the strait for months (years?) The reason it is the most unlikely is because 80% of Iran's income comes from oil it ships through the strait.

6. You could say that while sinking a ship in the strait is the least likely outcome, it also is strategically the best outcome. If you consider that most of the unrest in the region is funded by Iran, this one single act would cut off most of that funding. Peace might actually break out.

7. Shutting the strait would cause a short-term sisruption in the worls's oil supply: one sixth of it flows through the strait today. However, Saudi Arabia and UAE are both constructing piplines so they can bypass the strait.

We are simply following the playbook called "Which Path To Persia" www.brookings.edu...

It is also possible that this is as phony as the Gulf of Tonkin incident which propelled us into the Vietnam War. I believe our government will use this to jack up the price of crude, in order to glean more money from it. Offshore oil gets the US government 30% profit from it, onshore quite a bit less, but still substantial. To rocket up the price means the government will get more money, at a time when we are insolvent.

Iran is our latest boogeyman. This strategy has become not only tiresome, but transparent to anybody who looks at the evidence.

Nice post, your point about Iran being defenseless when it comes to our Air Force is an important one. We only pick on the countries who cannot fight back. If this were not true, we would have taken on Russia, China and North Korea ages ago.

I think a big problem with an Iran vs. USA conflict is the fact that it will draw in many other governments; I know the Chinese and Russians wouldn't be too happy.

Of course there will be a war with Iran. Didn't you know? The United States wants to conquer The Middle East, and rule it with their Jewish friends, Israel.

Get the low-down here: Iran Did It!!
F & S

reply to post by dbarnhart



Sorry dude you said

5.The most effective way to close the strait would be to sink a ship there. That is the least likely alternative because it would close the strait for months (years?) The reason it is the most unlikely is because 80% of Iran's income comes from oil it ships through the strait.

It would have to be a ruddy big ship, it is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point

Also something in me is saying if the US goes to war with Iran it will be much much worse for both sides than the last two wars Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh sorry to be a pain links to the stuff about their military equipment please cheers dude

reply to post by boymonkey74


The Strait of Hormuz is actually 34 miles wide at its narrowest point. However: Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles (10 km) wide, including two two-mile (3 km)-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile (3 km) wide separation median. Sinking a ship in one of the two lanes would do it.

reply to post by dbarnhart


3km is still bigger than any ship I know, do you mean it isn't very deep?
Also in a time of war they wouldnt bother following the shipping lane rules.
Just found this about closing it, only mentions mining it and having a big long line of ships to close it no mention that a sunk ship could close it.
www.reuters.com...

reply to post by boymonkey74


It is not very deep. Average depth is 50m, Max depth is 90m. I do not know the depth at the narrowest oint.

reply to post by dbarnhart


Iran may not have any of what you suggested as far as military capabilities, but when you have Hezbollah sitting South of the Border here in the US, operating through mosques and outreach programs to young latin youth and teaching them terrorist skills, I wouldn't be so quivk to count them out...I would say that in the event of provocation against Iran, we may very well see the full spectrum of Iran's capabilities starting down South.

The only way the US will attack Iran is if they attack first, they want it to be the shot heard round the world. Instead they will provoke, harass, intimidate, sanction, and humiliate them until they either attack the US or Israel.

reply to post by dbarnhart


Lets be honest. Iran ALSO has been pushing the WAR rhetoric. This isnt one sided war posturing.

Attack embassy?
Check.

Involvement with Iraqi politics?
Check.

Support for known terrorist organizations?
Check.

Just saying.........

Originally posted by dbarnhart
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

The Strait of Hormuz is actually 34 miles wide at its narrowest point. However: Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles (10 km) wide, including two two-mile (3 km)-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile (3 km) wide separation median. Sinking a ship in one of the two lanes would do it.

So if you were to drive across the Bonneville Salt Flats and within the cones designating the prefered path, a car was overturned, you'd abandon your attempt to cross? A TSS are markings on a chart. Even if a vessel traffic service was employed to monitor the TSS, it is only an advisory service. It's not like air traffic control. A CAPT is in charge of the movements of his or her ship.

reply to post by dbarnhart


Just checked and at the narrowest point it is 200 ft and a aircraft carrier is about 250ft high, do they have enough to fill up the Strait? no I don't think so.
Even if they sank 10 other ships could just go around.

They are saying that they would close it by subs, mines and missiles.

Sorry dude but they cant close it by just sinking a ship,
Still waiting for the links cheers

reply to post by tkwasny


Your vessel is about one-third mile long. The sunken vessel down there somewhere is also a third of a mile long.

While the Captain may be in charge of his vessel's movements, it is is the insurance company who is actually in charge.

The bottom line however is that you and I may just have to agree to disagree upon the impact of sinking a single supertanker at the narrowest point of the strait of Hormuz.

reply to post by dbarnhart


Show me a super tanker a mile long.
The biggest ever built is the Jahre Viking and is 485 meters long.

necromanc.blogspot.com...

ah you changed your post, still it wouldn't do anything unless it had a lot of oil in.
Also ships don't travel sideways so yes put the sunken one sideways but the other boat is not going to travel towards it sideways is it?

Looks like I changed his mind about the whole sunken ship thing doesn't it
I think he got mixed up with the Suez canal.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus

Nice post, your point about Iran being defenseless when it comes to our Air Force is an important one. We only pick on the countries who cannot fight back. If this were not true, we would have taken on Russia, China and North Korea ages ago.

Not to derail the thread, but I always guessed the reason we never went to war with Russia and China was twofold. Russia, would be unwinnable due to the size of the country (yes we could control cities) and the MIC made too much money with Russia there. China, same for size and the Corporations wanted to exploit the near slave labor that is available there.

Back to the OP though, Iran is just making noise. As the OP pointed out, their military would be hard pressed to hold off a Boy Scouts convention let alone an armed force. They'd only dig in and prolong the war to bleed the giant dry.

Of course someone truly bent on beating them could always scatter the Iranians to the wind after winning the war.