Something is brewing up in the Gulf

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Silkworm? Doubtful- too big. 224mm Torpedoes or maybe C-701 Light ASMs would be the armaments.

Well the precise specifics I cannot judge, I refer just to this passage from the first link i provided:

Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

[Diopos]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Well the precise specifics I cannot judge, I refer just to this passage from the first link i provided:
...
Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers.
...

Alright, can someone please explain to me the US Navy's fixation on "game playing" the insertion of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf? The US won't play an "Iranian gambit" without local land bases of operation, anyway. Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman (excuse my language ).


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Originally Posted by Diopos

Alright, can someone please explain to me the US Navy's fixation on "game playing" the insertion of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf? The US won't play an "Iranian gambit" without local land bases of operation, anyway. Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman (excuse my language ).


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I think, but am not sure you mean game theory. It is different, and more telling as a means of winning a battle. Some have used it in a market theory to determine winners in a finance. Bush used it and was heartily criticised for using the gambit.

But it is science so it is OK to use National Socialist methods to predict human behavior.

Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman

But you have to gameplay it that way, after all if the CVNs were not close inshore amongst the "civilian" flotilla the small boats wouldn't hear the secret call from the minarets telling them to attack....unless of course someone has been breaking sanctions and them coastal mosques have all got really kicking soundsystems now

It is a very simple end. If the US is looking at defeat and the elimination of the status quo, the deaths of many US citizens, etc. The nukes will be used to off set that eventuality.

Certain EU countries can count on the same action to protect their citizens.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Diopos

Alright, can someone please explain to me the US Navy's fixation on "game playing" the insertion of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf? The US won't play an "Iranian gambit" without local land bases of operation, anyway. Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman (excuse my language ).


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The only reason the US sends its carriers in to the Gulf is to show that it can. The only ships the US has in the gulf on a permanent basis are a couple of mine sweepers.

In a real conflict the carriers would be a thousand miles off shore in the Indian Ocean. The only ships in the Gulf would be escorts for the tankers, mine sweepers and maybe a cruiser.

[Diopos]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

The only reason the US sends its carriers in to the Gulf is to show that it can. The only ships the US has in the gulf on a permanent basis are a couple of mine sweepers.

In a real conflict the carriers would be a thousand miles off shore in the Indian Ocean. The only ships in the Gulf would be escorts for the tankers, mine sweepers and maybe a cruiser.

TLAM that's the reason I posted my comment. I can't find a reason for putting a CVN in the Persian Gulf during a conflict. My question was why the hell they're "war-gaming" it. Sending a "message" to Teheran? Anyway, in a geostrategic level, a CVN group is much more useful as a "threat" rather than being threatened itself. Of course that's my amateur point of view .....


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[Ishmael]

I also spent a bit of time in Iran decades ago. Iran's religious leadership are just as corrupt as any western nation when it comes to their own power and privilege. That said, I think that Iran's leaders have a position of their own to maintain as the Guardian among the Shi'ite population of the Shi'ite faith in the Muslim world. Look who Iran's ally in Lebanon, the Shi'Ite minority Hezbollah represents and groups within the Shi'ite populations of the Gulf States and Iraq. THAT is seen by the Gulf state rulers as the real threat among thir own population.

The US was already secretly funding the Mujahedin Khalq in the west as well as certain Sunni groups in Afghanistan against the Iranians. The Iranians have also been funding and training anti-US groups there acording to the wikileaks revelations.

The REAL problem for the US and Israel of a strike at Iran's nuclear facilities is the very real possibility of a Shi'ite uprising against US troops in Iraq as well as Hezbollah and Hamas attacks on Israel's nuclear facilities in places like Dimona.