U.S. military reports "significant confrontation" between 5 Iranian vessels...

Try these links for clarification:

Wikipedia

About Boghammers

It is a term that was once restricted to a cert kind of small PB speedboat, manufactured by the Swedish company Boghammer Marin AB, but has since morphed into a general purpose term by the US Navy to refer to any small naval combatant that was orginally designed to be a high-speed fishing or pleasure craft which has subsequently been converted to military use.

reply to post by Pyros


Ahhh... Thanks for that!
I wasn't aware it had become an actual designation.
I thought it still meant the 'any old cr*p' that could hold guns and float improvised concept.

Cheers.

(Though to be honest... something like a speed boat would still fit into the PAL idea for HMRN)

Sorry, typo. apologies

[edit on 9-1-2008 by Absence of Self]

Ghost Troop predicted this would be happening. For the whole story listen in here:
kentroversytapes.blogspot.com...

They are scrambling because the conspiracy gig is up.

Thanks to the Internet, and forums like this, the truth may just prevail!

reply to post by Pyros

I figured that's what you meant. Thanks for explaining. I can see them harassing merchant vessels, but to take on three war ships would be suicide in anyones book, which makes this incident seem suspicious. I think the Iranians setup the guys in the small boats and hoped that we would have shot at them. That is the type of propaganda they feel works to their advantage.

Even if we would have shot at them, I doubt it would have started a war. They would have done like you said take any casualties to the nearest camera and claimed that they were attacked. I do worry that this administration will do something within the next year to justify an air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities. Again that doesn't mean an invasion, or all out war, but I think we have done enough over there.

Again, any idea about what the white boxes could have been? Ever hear of them throwing anything overboard in the path of a ship? Or was it just part of the ruse?

Now, you see this is the kind of thing i am currently curious about.

This is clearly a game as far as i can see.

The problem with these cases being that we have to decide who, with the given evidence, stands to gain or lose the most. Unfortunately thats all we can do since we are not party to the thinking of either group of decision makers.

If we just sit back ignore the rethoric/politics/pr and take a wee look at what we have been presented with i just cannot see any evidence for what what the USN are complaining about with regards to a defined 'threat'...

Now if we look at a single frame from the presented video a good example of which is sitting on the main BBC article here...BBC Vid.. What it looks like we have is a standard solid hull 2 or 4 man speeder.
You know, a solid body job with just enough room for its crew to sit up back, the kind of thing that belongs to every yahoo with a scarf around his neck.

Now, and i do hate to have to do this, but even the cursed wikipedia has this info. If you do some basic ordinance research you will note that even the smallest dropable mine is approx 150kg's.
This you will note is somewhat less that that of a light american torp such as the mk 46 (a warhead not commonly deployed by iran since they tend to use russian hardware) Weighing in at the somewhat measley 250kg range. Impossible too for these boats to carry since they dont have any launch tubes.

Its Rather a lot for 2 men to balance on their heads whilst bouncing up and down in the straight of hormuz* dont ya think.
So... what was the scary bit here..
Were they gonna drop those frigates using boxes of bananas or just sink them using their AK's?

(*despite who says they own it this month and the corresponding international waters rubbish ~ territorial claims only being disputed by everyone on earth with a boat since the iran/iraq war)

P.s. With regards to my earlier reference. PAL for a navy gunner means point and laugh... or so im told.

Most likely this was to provoke the US ships to turning on there fire control radars for there weapons systems.

I am willing to bet that there were Russian or Chinese technicians on shore in that area with high tech gear to take reading of the emissions.

This data could then be used to set jammers for our equipment.

These gun boats most likely were in radio contact with these technicians and when the radars locked on were told to back off.

The phalanx gun systems on our ships would have turned the gunboats into splinters in seconds
About 2 seconds per boat. or about 180 rounds of 20 mm HEI per boat.

this gun system is what would be used to take out incoming missles. so being able to jam it would be a plus for them.

Wooden Ships and Rusty Crusty Iron Men
USS Enhance MSO 437 there for GW-ONE

[edit on 9-1-2008 by augoldminer]

This is the third time this has happend in recent times.

First time it happend to the Australian Navy in 2004, the Brits in 2007 and now the US in 2008.

In each event it was close to a total blood bath.. One itchy trigger finger from either side could have triggered a possible war.

Australian and British incident:

www.smh.com.au...

I saw the video released by Pentagon, and I can tell you with certainty that the fake accent of the supposed Iranian revolutionary guard speaking English in the transmission, is definitely NOT and Iranian accent, and that it absolutely is the fake accent of an American trying to sound like an Iranian! And what a lousy job he did at that!

It's obvious that certain elements in the U.S. are sinking lower than ever in their desperate attempts to smear Iran, as they helplessly realize that they're running out of plots against Iran - Plots that have not only not achieved the intentioned results, but that in fact have strengthened Iran and created more distrust towards the U.S. around the world!

reply to post by augoldminer


Augoldminer - Some of you Americans (Too many) constantly amaze me with your inability to grasp what is really going on, and to believe your government and intelligence institutions, and the media that distributes their lies, which have kept you in the dark numerous times, and yet after all these times you fail to wake up. Amazing!!

Chinese and Russian technicians... That really proves that you don't know what you're talking about.

The incident with the British navy was real. But this is a clear and lousy U.S. attempt to discredit Iran at a time when both the IAEA and the CIA have cleared Iran from any suspicions of pursuing nuclear weapons. It is also an incident that convenently coincides with the Middle East trip of Bush, in which he is once again desperately trying to convince the neighbors of Iran to turn against her. Do you remember the past attempts of your government to do so? Like when they were trying to create hostility between the Shias and the Sunnis, and tried to create a Sunni coalition against Iran? What happened with that? It's gone with the wind! The U.S. is unsuccessful because it's messing with nature! The U.S. has no business in that region, and as long as it keeps occupying countries, and having its navy in the Persian Gulf, and military bases in the countries surrounding Iran, it will dig itself deeper and deeper in to a mess it will not be able to recover from.

Originally posted by Arya-Mehr
I saw the video released by Pentagon, and I can tell you with certainty that the fake accent of the supposed Iranian revolutionary guard speaking English in the transmission, is definitely NOT and Iranian accent, and that it absolutely is the fake accent of an American trying to sound like an Iranian! And what a lousy job he did at that!

It's obvious that certain elements in the U.S. are sinking lower than ever in their desperate attempts to smear Iran, as they helplessly realize that they're running out of plots against Iran - Plots that have not only not achieved the intentioned results, but that in fact have strengthened Iran and created more distrust towards the U.S. around the world!

Please. I have two guys working not 50 yards away from me in my building who are expatriate Iranian nationals, who were hired to write software that transcribes and translates Farsi to English. And we are nothing more than a small 700 person company with about $150M of annual revenue. If I wanted to create "credible" audio of Iranian-accented English, I could do it in about 30 minutes. Yet the Pentagon has to resort to bad ham-actors with fake accents? Right.......

Iran has a well-documented and proven record of being a menace to commercial shipping in that part of the world for over 20 years. THAT is why the US (and many, many other nations) have a significant naval presence in the PG.

I agree Pyros, after going over both sides of this incident, I have to ask, what gives the Iranians the right to go around in International waters harassing other ships?

As I posted in the other thread, I will be the first to say I would be against any attack on Iran, and think the US foreign policy is wrong, but the fact is our ships have been over there escorting merchant ships for decades now. There is no reason for these Iranians to be doing this.

Common sense tip #1: When at the zoo, don’t antagonize the lion by throwing pine cones and beer bottles at it, especially when the containment wall is too short.

Common sense tip #2: Same rule applies with large war ships in International waters.

Right or wrong, you don’t go antagonizing a war vessel. These guys are serious and they will use deadly force to protect themselves. This isn’t a movie and it’s not a video game. It isn’t about a bully picking on a little guy. This is real world, and these Iranians are not all there. It's that simple.

This happend weeks ago ... And the Intell is just now coming out ... Come on .... This happend back last year.

Originally posted by Pyros

If I wanted to create "credible" audio of Iranian-accented English, I could do it in about 30 minutes. Yet the Pentagon has to resort to bad ham-actors with fake accents? Right.......

I don't think the Pentagon would go through the "trouble" of hiring Iranians to do authentic Persian accents. They don't care about that Persians would not believe them, since most Iranians know what the U.S. is up to anyway - meaning that they do not trust the U.S. The Pentagon did not make this up for the Iranian audience, and the rest of the world would not be able to tell the difference between an authentic Persian accent and a fake one.

Iran has a well-documented and proven record of being a menace to commercial shipping in that part of the world for over 20 years. THAT is why the US (and many, many other nations) have a significant naval presence in the PG.

According to whom? The U.S.? Israel? the U.K.? What business does the U.S. have in the Persian Gulf to begin with? Can you imagine the reaction of the U.S. if the Iranian navy would patrol the international waters by the American coasts? It is clear here who the aggressor / imperialist is, and what his agenda is. And to reach that agenda, he will use any means. The agenda? Oil, power, wealth...

Many, many other nations have a military presence in the Persian Gulf? Oh really? That's new to me. Which nations are there except for the U.S. and Britain? And I beg to differ with you about who has a history of menacing who in the Persian Gulf! Wasn't it a U.S. vessel that shot down an Iranian passenger plane there in the 1980's, killing 290 passengers? I repeat: The U.S. is an occupying force. Nobody has invited the U.S. and Britain to that region. The vast majority of the populations of all the countries, except usrael, unanimously demand that the imperialist occupiers leave our region! They have killed enough people, ruined enough countries and cities, and wrecked enough lives! It's time to get out!

Originally posted by Arya-Mehr
Can you imagine the reaction of the U.S. if the Iranian navy would patrol the international waters by the American coasts?

Yeah, they will react the same way they do now when Russia & China do it.

reply to post by 4thDoctorWhoFan


Oh, I'm sure...



[edit on 10-1-2008 by Arya-Mehr]

There is a new video of Iran's 'side' of the story. Their production shows an Iranian Sailor ID'ing themselves and asking the US Navy to ID. The US Navy is heard to reply.

cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com...


The question is that in the earlier released US Navy clip the sailor is heard broadcasting - to the Iranians - that their oncoming boats are of unknown origin...

Is this standard procedure by the US Navy to tell oncoming ships who have already ID that they will be fired upon - in part because they are unknown?



[edit on 10-1-2008 by scrapple]

as a muslim myself i strongly hate iran. they're all shia "muslims" who are taught in their religion (which isnt islam) thats its ok to backstab allothers in order for their gains. their extremeism, along with the wahabi extremeism which really has ruined Islam's image.
ugh, this just digusts me.

a part f me says this is being made up by the pentagon
(howd speedboat footage just magically appear at the same time as the news story)

slate has good commentary;
www.slate.com...

The Pentagon's footage shows five speed boats making provocative maneuvers a couple of hundred yards from an American warship. Speaking in English over the standard radio frequency, a U.S. Navy officer identifies his ship. Suddenly, an Iranian voice, in heavily accented English, is heard saying, "I am coming to you. You will explode in [unintelligible] minutes." The voice sounds superimposed; it is much louder than the other voices; there's also no background noise of engines or waves, as there would be if the speaker were on one of the speed boats.

Meanwhile, the Iranians' footage shows an American vessel in the distance. An Iranian, speaking through a radio, says, "Coalition warship 73. This is Iranian patrol boat." We hear the American say, "I read you loud and clear." A bit later, the American says, "We are in international waters." In short, nothing momentous is going on at all. It is, as the Iranian foreign ministry shrugged afterward, "ordinary."

and then

As for the threatening Iranian voice in the Pentagon's videotape, it sounds so different, so removed, because it was removed. Some officials now say that the warning was probably a radio communication from someone on shore—presumably a Revolutionary Guard commander, but who knows. That doesn't make the warning any less ominous, at least to the U.S. captains on the scene at the time; it only explains why it might sound disconnected. It's worth noting here that, as Pentagon officials acknowledge, the audio and video tracks were made separately and were pieced together later. Again, there's nothing necessarily nefarious about this; it only explains why the audio seems a bit out of synch from the video.

so something fishy. they've started changing their story already.

[edit on 11-1-2008 by mw113]

Originally posted by mw113
as a muslim myself i strongly hate iran. they're all shia "muslims" who are taught in their religion (which isnt islam) thats its ok to backstab allothers in order for their gains. their extremeism, along with the wahabi extremeism which really has ruined Islam's image.
ugh, this just digusts me.

You shouldnt hate Iran, and you shouldnt generalize, it's not very Islamic.

[edit on 11-1-2008 by _Phoenix_]

Originally posted by Absence of Self


Now, and i do hate to have to do this, but even the cursed wikipedia has this info. If you do some basic ordinance research you will note that even the smallest dropable mine is approx 150kg's.

I.

Honestly if you are on a ship in hostile in a hostile environment, speed boats are swarming you, are you seriously not going to take it as a treat if someone drops packages right in front of your path? On top of that the voice saying you will explode. Well what is a threat to you? I'd rather be safe then sorry and alive, then passive and dead. My own opinion though.

Originally posted by Arya-Mehr
I saw the video released by Pentagon, and I can tell you with certainty that the fake accent of the supposed Iranian revolutionary guard speaking English in the transmission, is definitely NOT and Iranian accent, and that it absolutely is the fake accent of an American trying to sound like an Iranian! And what a lousy job he did at that!

It's obvious that certain elements in the U.S. are sinking lower than ever in their desperate attempts to smear Iran, as they helplessly realize that they're running out of plots against Iran - Plots that have not only not achieved the intentioned results, but that in fact have strengthened Iran and created more distrust towards the U.S. around the world!

Thanks for your expertise. I am glad you are an expert in accents. That is some good factual evidence to base your opinion on.