Strait of Hormuz, a big problem for the military......

There are a huge pile of RAH RAH war lovers here that seem to think the job of defeating Iran will be a cakewalk in the straits....(of hormuz)
This is not a really tenable position, and the reasons are many fold....
1)The mean depth of this waterway is approx-25-40 meters....
This means max depth would be 3x 40 =120 feet......
1a)-The height of the capital ships travelling the six mile wide international travel lanes while sitting on the bottom, would in many cases exceed that of the water.....
2)There have been, and will be further "exercises" held by the Irani military within the confines of the straits......
These exercises are a perfect cover for mine laying, and placing stay behind weapons like self targetting torpedoes or other passive (thus difficult to sweep or detect) weaponry.
2a) The Iranian military have little in the way of the heavey sea power that will be arrayed against them should they close these straits, however reopening them would take massive amounts of air, and sea power.
The Iranians have been concentrating their efforts into asymetrrical warfare since the very start of this situation.
The technology level of Iran is well up to the standard it takes to build a variety of surprise weapons specially designed to be used for the one purpose of denying the use of the straits to the world at large.
3)Sunburn anti ship missiles as well as their own versions of same, and several different meaans of delivery are at their disposal, havinfg four hundred miles of coastline bordering the straits, as well as much more covering the inside waters all the way to the Shat el Arab.
It would be foolish at best to take a fleet of ships and try to force passage into the gulf.
4)The iranis have no need to sink the carrier fleet to block the shallow straits completely to traffic....
Simply awaiting the opportunity to sink several huge tankers would suffice to completely ruin the passage to other capital ships....
Unless they were to swing into national waters to by pass the wrecks...bringing them in range of shore batteries and smaller missiles..
Airpower similar to the world war two air power that kept the straits of dover clear for D day would be required to destroy the capacity for Iran to launch much of its armament that is surface mounted.
But these people have had virtually years, and unlimited resources to emplace underground launchers and harden them to attack from the air.....
There are only so many J dams available to destroy the threats....
5)The Us would need to move many more squadrons of land based aircraft into position to completely dominate the battlefield....
This is a prerequisite for any type of action.
This is the signal that we should be watching for, all else is posturing.
There will be consequences of fighting Iran over the straits, and if they dont overwhelm Iran at the outset, they may be graver than planned.
I call your attention to the last navy war games (10 yrs ago)in which the Iranis won with a massive missile salvo first shot.....I dont say the navy learned nothing from this event, but im not sure they are capable of dealing with mass salvoes of sunburn missiles, as well as speedboats and air strikes with standoff missiles like expcette or other Irani developed weapons.
Though the hardware they have shown is sometimes seemingly layghable, i am not sure we have seen their best stuff, and wont till the shtf.
I believe that the US would stomp Iran, but not without some greater forces than three carriers and their attendant vessels.
Cruise missiles notwithjstanding.
I am sure the war lovers will be along to kick my a$$ now but im just sayin....we shouldnt be getting too cocky.
These guys fought Iraq for eight years without slacking off......

4)The iranis have no need to sink the carrier fleet to block the shallow straits completely to traffic.... Simply awaiting the opportunity to sink several huge tankers would suffice to completely ruin the passage to other capital ships....

flag and star for number 4 even though you used iranis instead of iranians.

Iranians will just sit back and fire their missiles at tankers. if the US goes there with their planes and ships then they are only endangering themselves. who know how many missiles will be fired. Iran will probably be the first nation to used MASSIVE missile raids in an hour. you never know.

And they can build torpedoes and rockets unlike any country the US has ever faced since world war 2.

I'm not sure where you are getting your information about capitol ships.

The newest, largest, heaviest ship in the world is the New US carrier class and they only draw 38 feet. (fully loaded).

reply to post by Submarines


The bigger they are the harder they fall, and the more ships they will block by sinking. Havent you ever seen a big guy at walmart try to navigate the aisles?

reply to post by stirling


Cant kick that, thats pretty much how I see it also. Iran is certainly not going to be a push over like Iraq was. Iraq was ready for taking over, especially after it was absolutely battered during the first gulf war, lets not forget, it was two wars that took our iraq and years of sanctions and covert bombings

Iran is a complete different scenario. They have the means to hit back and probably hard in certain areas.

And you are absolutley correct with regards to closing the straits of hormuz, they only need to sink a some tankers or other ships, and there are many passing through the strait. Many ships suck will probably be just below sea level making piloting the strait nearly impossible or at least very very dangerous, and if the sunken ships are hit this will lead to more blockages in the strait of hormuz which will lead to more problems and more blockages etc...

Blocking the strait if they sink a few tankers will be self proppelling, sunken ships will sink others and so on. No need for mines and missiles after that. Unblocking the strait will be nearly impossible.

Drawing 38 feet of water is not the same as the hieght from keel to flight deck....much less the island ieght....
I would imagine that even 38 ft draft will have little clearance to float over top odf another 38 foot obstacle (not to mention rigging and masts....)
This would be a combined hieght of 76 feet leaving only forty ft of clearance for superstructures....
This is clearly not enough for the big boys....they cant turn on a dime ya know....
The high speeds of our fleet would also be made useless in such confined quarters....
Perhaps destroyers and such may pass, but the tankers and carrier, battleship or cruiser no dice thinks i.....
PS our nuke subs would also be sitting ducks in such shallow waters,,and mines are very effective at these depths...perfect waters for mine warfare.....
What if for instance they have developed a plastic mine with a shaped charge instead of metal casing...Maybe non ferrous metals used in construction as well (copper charge shapers like ieds)
This would be undetectable probably.....
There are hundreds of simple tricks to close the straits...
massive amounts of AIRPOWER would be the only way to control the straits even to demine and sweep whatever has been laid, and that does not solve the problem of getting a the sunken hulks of tankers out of the way....
I think it is harder nut to crack....
We dont have enough "Shock and awe" on the scene or even close to getting there yet....
It may escalate, but it will be no simple pushover in my est......