Official: US ship fires on boat off Dubai, 1 dead

Originally posted by Em2013
What have we learned here kids?

Never ever approach the military from behind. It's like sneaking up to a ninja, it's the golden rule of not getting killed. You know it's a bad idea so why do it? At least this was like a warning shot to Iran, maybe they will feel intimidated? Another warning shot should be sent towards Israel and then both of them should be told to quiet down and settle their differences like civilized humans instead of children or else the guardian of death will take their toys away.

In an American port the ships behave a little better, The submarines may sneak up and bump you.

See, what i dont get is why the us ship didn't
leave if it felt threatened?

I believe it was this type of vessel that was fired upon.



Afghan and Iraq have already seen more civilian deaths than the majority of all histories wars combine...


American forces operate under the pretense that their enemies are Disguised as civilians.



Not going to even go into their Friendly Fire or suicide rates.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by OptimusSubprime

 

Resupply ships don't sail with battle groups. They come out and meet them at prearranged locations, and they sail by themselves. They don't even get escorts through most areas. They have security marines on board, and they have .50 cal machine guns for self defense. They don't even qualify as a warship on the register.

edit on 7/16/2012 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

You have obviously never served in the Navy. United States Naval Ships most certainly travel with battle groups. If they didn't, they would be sitting ducks. They are NOT warships, only support ships. They aren't even commissioned! If they were, their designation would be USS, not USNS.

If your stupid enough to approach a military vessel in a volatile part of the world...all I can say is natural selection in action.

Originally posted by followtheevidence
According to THIS article, "the boat appeared to be a civilian vessel".

How on EARTH was a civilian vessel "mistaken as a threat"

edit on 16-7-2012 by followtheevidence because: (no reason given)

I hate quoting wikipedia, but it does a good job of getting the point across here:

en.wikipedia.org...

"On the morning of Thursday, October 12, 2000, USS Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, docked in Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 09:30. Refueling started at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred, creating a 40-by-40-foot gash in the ship's port side, according to the memorial plate to those who lost their lives."

Yes, even a small civilian boat can be consider a threat. Best to give any USN vessel a wide birth, and by all means acknowledge and heed her warnings.

Claim the Cole was a staged event all you want, I can guarantee the boys on the ship in this case don't believe that and as such don't want to see any of their men killed because they let one slip by.

reply to post by UDTfrogman


Resupply ships are known to sail by themselves all the time. They'll go into port and pick up supplies, and head back out alone, or even sail out to a battle group from another location by themselves. If there was another ship there, why wasn't it mentioned? Or why didn't it fire on the skiff? Why did the resupply ship have to do it?

I should have said, they don't ALWAYS sail with battlegroups. They frequently are sailing by themselves.

Originally posted by Gestas
I believe it was this type of vessel that was fired upon.



Afghan and Iraq have already seen more civilian deaths than the majority of all histories wars combine...


American forces operate under the pretense that their enemies are Disguised as civilians.



Not going to even go into their Friendly Fire or suicide rates.

edit on 16-7-2012 by Gestas because: (no reason given)

Had three outboard motors, so no, not like that, like this:



Washington Post Article

"The boat appeared to be a civilian vessel about 30 feet (9 meters) long and powered by three outboard motors. It had no obvious military markings."

From the same Washington Post article:

The Rappahannock is an oiler used to fuel other Navy ships while they are at sea.

If this had been a legitimate attack, and was successful, oil would have been spilled all over the place and people would be saying the US Navy kills the environment. I just read an article yesterday about a fella who forgot about his dog and people wanted to give him 10 years in prison for its death to heat exhaustion. Imagine if the beaches of Dubai were shut down for 6 months because the US Navy couldn't handle a couple of terrorists in a fast approaching speed boat.

Say all you want about the US Navy patrolling Hormuz and how we shouldn't be there. Fact is, more than just the interests of Israel, the little Satan, require us to be there. Other countries in the region, like the UAE, would absolutely be in a diplomatic # storm if we didn't have a presence there. Fact is, they've, and many other countries in the region, erhhrrmmm Saudi Arabia, purchased American protection of Hormuz through various trade agreements. So, you want to renege on those deals, fine. I say let the contracts expire and then leave. Not being a country of our word would be worse than being a country hated by evil regimes.

How many aliens were on this ship, do they know? How could they have checked for what identitie they were? I wonder if they were the good aliens or the bad aliens. You never know these days. What size was this ship? Did the aliens look like they might attack? Did the aliens just float there or were they moving towards us? Did they talk to the aliens? If so, what did they say? What happened to the alien body after they were fired apon? What happened to the alien ship after it was fired apon? Did they confinscate it? Were there any obducties aboard the ship? Where is the ship now and where are all the aliens that were on the ship? Did any aliens get away? If so, how many? Did they find out what kind of aliens they were? If so, exsplain.

Originally posted by cloaked4u
How many aliens were on this ship, do they know? How could they have checked for what identitie they were? I wonder if they were the good aliens or the bad aliens. You never know these days. What size was this ship? Did the aliens look like they might attack? Did the aliens just float there or were they moving towards us? Did they talk to the aliens? If so, what did they say? What happened to the alien body after they were fired apon? What happened to the alien ship after it was fired apon? Did they confinscate it? Were there any obducties aboard the ship? Where is the ship now and where are all the aliens that were on the ship? Did any aliens get away? If so, how many? Did they find out what kind of aliens they were? If so, exsplain.

I always wondered what it would be like to drop acid and read contemporary news articles :-D . Doesn't seem all that cool after reading this post, pretty sure I can replace that on my bucket list with sky diving naked whilst eating a bucket of jello with chop sticks.

If this is a supply ship & not a commissioned vessel do the same no approach rules apply?
Is it clearly identifiable as a navy vessel from a distance? It has no big guns big radar arrays etc & there are a lot of boats in those waters.
Don't they have a big PA system or hardcore spotlight to warn approaching boats?
At what distance would this ship take notice of approaching pleasure craft, at what distance is it targeted cause if you are tracking it from 1km away and then putting game face on at 500m, I would think you have ample time for an unmistakable warning. If that is ignored then fair game but to just broadcast on radio (which might be turned down/off) and give flashing signals that 90% of the world wouldn't understand is not warning enough imo especially when the assaulting vessel is a long way from home & not at war.

Were the guys Manning the 50 boy scouts or what, they see a boat approaching at high speed, view it as an attack it supposedly breaks the 200m line and they open up with a 50cal. Probably lucky it wasn't an attack cause they only killed 1 guy and a fiberglass toy still stayed intact and went home. Nice shooting tex.

Maybe they tried to fire a warning shot and somebody intentionally or not was a little off with their aim.
Maybe this was to create a scenario where they will second guess when a real attack comes don't want to kill anymore fishermen so they hesitate a little to long.

Aljazeera are reporting the following:

The Rappahannock - with a crew of 81 civilians and three military officers - was headed into the UAE port of Jebel Ali when the small motor boat came within 8km of it, the navy said.

Navy officials told Al Jazeera the crew first tried to hail the vessel via radio and on loudspeaker, as well as by flashing lights and firing warning shots. They then shot at the boat with a 50 calibre weapon.

8km is a long way away.

Just gotta chime in as a professional boat captain. If I'm running at speed, and I see something on my radar running at 25 kts as well, and we are converging, I am going to get nervous. I'm gonna try to turn to avoid them.

If it's a military ship, THEY will be calling me on the radio basically saying WTF do you think you're doing? Military ships are very threatening looking, any idiot can see it's something you DO NOT WANT TO GET NEAR.

A thirty foot boat with triple outboards is not a native fishing smack or whatever you guys want to think. See the photo above. It is a cigarette boat, and can haul ass. It could carry one big torpedo. It is invisible on radar. It could easily get close enough to a warship. I'm sure they were running at over forty knots towards a naval vessel, and were just too stupid to realize what would happen. Too stupid to be allowed to play with fast boats. Or any boat for that matter.

In WW II Motor Torpedo Boats or MTBs sank MANY huge warships. THey were cheap, made of plywood, VERY fast, having huge 16 cylinder airplane engines, and could carry two torpedoes. They are a really cheap way to sink hundreds of billions of dollars worth of destroyer, frigate, even aircraft carrier. And wooden boats, just like fiberglass ones, are INVISIBLE TO RADAR. The huge battleship bottled up in a place like the Persian Gulf is actually a sitting duck. MTB's actually rendered the battleship obsolete. A LONG TIME AGO. Modern naval vessels don't even have big guns anymore. Their weapons are all rockets, and aircraft, designed to sit hundreds of miles offshore and rain death from way below the horizon, while way out of range of any type of return fire.

Being trapped in a what is basically a big lake, they are highly vulnerable to land based rockets, or MTBs. Major explosives can get REAL close to them before they are even fired, rendering them unstoppable. You'd better believe they are going to get REAL nervous if any fast boat comes at them.

An oiler is near defenseless if it's out of the battle group. And cutting off the enemy supply lines is standard tactics. The entire battle group is rendered helpless without fuel. Those Nazi Uboats were preying on the tankers bringing the fuel for the tanks and planes. They rarely even attempted to attack warships unless they were attacked first.

In short, the Naval guys did what they were supposed to. This is not some new rules of engagement, it's always been that way. They're actually supposed to fire warning shots across the bow first, but if the boat's coming on fast, well, you get warning shots and then real shots about one second later. They aren't going to wait to see if there is a torpedo on board until it's too late to do anything. The boat that blew a hole in the USS Cole was a dinky, slow, harmless looking thing. They let it get too close. This was a cigarette boat. Not real harmless looking, actually.

Originally posted by followtheevidence
According to THIS article, "the boat appeared to be a civilian vessel".

How on EARTH was a civilian vessel "mistaken as a threat"

edit on 16-7-2012 by followtheevidence because: (no reason given)

Because our enemies are not gentlemen enough to flag and mark their watercraft IAW international regulations and the laws of the sea.

They are not warriors or soldiers they are criminals who use civilian watercraft as waterborne missiles to destroy our vessels.

All ships at sea have a safe zone around them - a bubble as it were. Some larger, say an aircraft carrier can be out to 200 miles or more with their own air assets. This vessel was an oil tanker and only armed with 50cal machine guns. So their decision zone is about 2k meters out. Inside the radius the Captain is within his rights to take preemptive action to an unresponsive craft. Better they die than we delay and lose a ship and whole crew.

Likely they hailed the craft on the channels as required and when it reached the point where the Captain was authorized to make the decision to fire at them he did. Just like if an aircraft were to fly towards the white house and not answer the radio - it would be blown from the sky.

IMO it was a probing attack to see how or more importantly if we'd fire.


We did...neat on the Captain. This was also a reserve vessel with a Navy Officer and civilian crew.

Even neater.

This is exactly what I'd to the # head crew of the Sea Sheppard if they placed my vessel in danger while at sea. Maritime law allows any Captain to take such actions.

Originally posted by followtheevidence
According to THIS article, "the boat appeared to be a civilian vessel".

How on EARTH was a civilian vessel "mistaken as a threat"

edit on 16-7-2012 by followtheevidence because: (no reason given)

for YEARS civilian marked vessels/vehicles have been used. ever heard of a car bomb? why not a civilian boat loaded with explosives? they have a pretty clear protocol when it comes to anything possibly being a threat, to blow it up...

it sucks, but if i were a civilian in international waters, i would steer VERY clear of another countrys war vessel.

just saying.

When it comes to the United States I really can not see us fireing at Iran. I think we would do everything to avoid it. United States really can not afford to go into another long war. We are really spread out too thin already with Afghnistan and other countries. I do not even see Isreal making the first moves because they are not sure if we would back them up or not. If they could trust us the United States to be ones step behind them perhaps it would be different. I think the United States has to really work on the military and restore numbers. Afghnistan and Iraq has cost us a major amount of lives. I say give us another 5 long heated and uncomfortable years for it to build up to the extreem, then maybe it will happen. With subject like these we really have no idea what is going on because we are not exactly consulted on these issues, so everyones guess is as good as mine.

P.S. Sorry about the bad spelling.

reply to post by WorkingClassMan


If you were to see a USNS vessel from a distance, you'd never guess it wasn't a US Naval vessel.

Here are some various USNS vessels:










As you can see, they have numbers on the bow similar to "regular" navy ships, the names across the stern, etc. They appear to be normal US Navy ships.

Originally posted by murch
www.ajc.com...

The official gave no further details, but it appears the boat could have been mistaken as a threat in Gulf waters not far from Iran's maritime boundaries.

So I guess this indicates the US willingness to initiate armed conflict with Iran. Not much detail given due to the nature of incident (god forbid that Dubai gets offended) but reading between the lines it looks like the US forces fired without confirming identity of vessel or confirming that it was a threat.

This could only come about with authorisation of a senior commander who must be under command to neutralise any perceived threat within the area of operations.

What happens when it actually is an Iranian vessel that gets shot at without due process of identification/threat assessment.

Clear move to try and escalate conflict.

I guess you have a short memory. Do you not remember the USS COLE ? Oh yeah, that little boat did just what this one was doing. Look, our MILITARY has a RIGHT to defend themselves and if they PERCEIVE that a THREAT is present, they have the RIGHT to PROACTIVELY take it out. Its time for your NON-MILITARY types to stop chastising what you don't freakin' understand. And I would bet you folks would be the 1st to stand there when being attacked crying for someone to come to your defense. You'll be waiting until hell freezes over for help if that's who you are and how you freakin' believe.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Thanks,
I was about to ....well you covered it
ETA:
Hello, Macfly,

U.S.Navy has been doing it for how long now?
sorry Getreadyalready, couldn't stand fast.......