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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
U.S. in Exercise Battle with Iran for Control of Persian Gulf
2006-03-20
The pic, by the way, is the USS CHUNG-HOON.
ABU DHABI -- The United States is planning a major naval exercise in May to test its response to any Iranian naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Iran has been conducting exercises aimed at blocking Gulf shipping. Officials said the exercise would replicate an Iranian effort to mine the straits and send boats packed with explosives into U.S. warships. "We believe this would be the leading method of an Iranian attack against Western shipping," an official said.
What would we do without experts?
Officials said Iran has been training to quickly block the straits in an effort to torpedo the world oil market. In late 2005, Iran was said to have conducted an air and naval exercise to test plans to halt Gulf shipping.

The U.S. naval exercise, entitled Arabian Gauntlet, has been scheduled for May 2006. Officials said the exercise would be held with Western states and expected to include at least one navy from the Gulf Cooperation Council.
UAE? Oman? Qatar? Bahrain?
The Iranian opposition said Teheran has established an underground emergency command center to direct a naval blockade of the straits. The National Council of Resistance of Iran said the command center has been linked to government ministries and security forces by a series of tunnels. "Iran's leaders are clearly preparing for a confrontation by going underground," Alireza Jafarzadeh, a leading Iranian opposition figure, said.

Officials said the Iranians have drafted plans to send a swarm of fast attack craft to blow up U.S. warships. They said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's navy has already conducted such an exercise.
That's not going to go well for them; a small fast attack boat against a DDG that's primed and ready is no contest.
Another Iranian option, officials said, was the use of cruise and ballistic missiles against Arab oil facilities in the region. They said that over the last year, the IRGC has drafted plans to deploy new weapons designed to strike naval and ground targets throughout the Gulf. "When these systems become fully operational, they will significantly enhance Iran's defensive capabilities and ability to deny access to the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz," Defence Intelligence Agency director Michael Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February.
Until the launch sites are blown up, along with the tech support and the leadership.
Posted by:Steve White

#46  FOTSGreg: ordinarily yes, however the eastern Med is crawling with passenger shipping, and in certain areas, such as the ports of southern Turkey and the northern mouth of the Suez canal at Port Said, there's bound to be unavoidable concentrations of US Naval, commercial and passenger shipping.

Likewise, the Bab el Mandeb waterway, which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden is a potential trouble spot. With possible hostile support from bad guyz in Yemen or Somalia.

A low-tech way to get a nuke detonation "directly below" a fleet would be to have the nuke connected by a cable to a ship many miles away that would trigger detonation. The ship could drop the nuke, then reel out the cable to far outside the fleet's alert zone, then drop anchor and wait.

I suppose you might go so far as to encase the nuke in concrete to shield it from magnetometers and radiacmeters, but that's a technical point.

However, unlike the cruise ship, this does not give even the slightest plausible deniability to the Iranians, so while it might be more effective tactically, strategically they would prefer to blame it on al-Qaeda, and get away scott free.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 19:56  

#45  Oh, for a minute there I thought we were posting about "U.S. In Exercise Battle with Iran for Control of Persian Gulf". Foolish me.

Mike -- thanks for sharing this feat of valor and bravery. A true hero.
Posted by: Captain America   2006-03-20 19:07  

#44  He sounds like a real american hero, Mike. Thanks!
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-03-20 18:48  

#43  
Rear Admiral Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon
1910 - 1979

Rear Admiral Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon was born on July 25, 1910, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The second youngest of five Chung-Hoon children, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in May 1934. While at the Naval Academy, he was a valued member of the Navy Football team.

Rear Admiral Chung-Hoon is a recipient of the Navy Cross and Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary heroism as commanding officer of USS Sigsbee (DD 502) from May 1944 to October 1945. In the spring of 1945, Sigsbee assisted in the destruction of 20 enemy planes while screening a carrier strike force off the Japanese island of Kyushu. On April 14, 1945, while on radar picket station off Okinawa, a kamikaze crashed into Sigsbee, reducing her starboard engine to five knots and knocking out the ship's port engine and steering control. Despite the damage, Admiral Chung-Hoon, then a Commander, valiantly kept his anti-aircraft batteries delivering "prolonged and effective fire" against the continuing enemy air attack while simultaneously directing the damage control efforts that allowed Sigsbee to make port under her own power.
Posted by: Mike   2006-03-20 17:54  

#42  Nimble #32-
Isn't it ironic that prisoners can have intelligence value without having any evidence of being intelligent?
Posted by: Glenmore   2006-03-20 17:00  

#41  oh ace i wasnt being dellusional, i often wondered if they still use similer gear today, sounds like neat stuff.
Posted by: ShepUK   2006-03-20 16:40  

#40  ShepUK, you may be thinking of the "Black Crows." It is an organization of America's original stealth pioneers. They were the ones who would toss out sackfulls of aluminum foil confetti to jam enemy radar.

How interesting! While searching on this topic, I think I hit what you're referring to:

Black Crow [USA]: This equipment detects the ignition systems of piston engines.

Fitted to AC-130 gunships.

http://www.hazegray.org/faq/acr1.htm

The cyclical nature and spark gap output of a common internal combustion engine should stick out like a sore thumb in the RF spectrum.

Posted by: Zenster   2006-03-20 16:33  

#39  you know everyone this is a most interesting subject, everyone has there own ideas and ideal ways of dealing with em - im begining to lean tward not even letting them get close in the first place by having smaller boats - i dunno what class but similer size but like a big coastgaurd sized ship is - what about 1000 tones or whatever? anyway have them as pickets out on the flanks and use them essentially as sea borne forward air controlers to call in air power. another thought - back in nam didnt gunships have them sensors that detect engines on them, engines from ground vehicles that was then but could that be adapted for seaborne use? got a funny feeling it was called black crow but do not take that as a sure thing.what about a big fck off net towed by a C5 or 747 and just scoop em all up and go home with the haul. Pirate fishing.
Posted by: ShepUK   2006-03-20 16:14  

#38  One technique would be to hijack a commercial cruise ship of a third country, while pretending to be al-Qaeda, and put the bomb on board. Then, while sending all sorts of distress messages, and calling for assistance, take the ship at full speed towards the fleet, with the idea of getting it close enough for the bomb to severely damage or destroy the carrier. Guesstimate within 5 miles for a 15kt bomb.

Remember that the USN conducted tests right after WW2 with warships at anchor and within the blast zone.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

The danger of an underwater nuclear detonation is real, but it has to be essentially right underneath the target fleet. I'm not at all convinced that the Iranians have the sophistication to build a 20-kt+ device, deploy it to a specific point to catch a USNfleet, and then detonate it right underneath the fleet as it passes by.

The USN isn't stupid about this sort of thing you know.

As to hijacking a cruise ship and then sailing it into a USN fleet concentration only the dumbest admiral on the planet would fall for something like that and USN admirals didn;t get to be admirals by being stupid or allowing the fleets under their command to be mousetrapped like this.

Posted by: FOTSGreg   2006-03-20 16:10  

#37  Chung-Hoon...

Thinking...

Wasn't he a destroyer captain in WW2 whose ship fought off a bunch of kamikaze attacks?
Posted by: Phil   2006-03-20 16:02  

#36  USN, ret.: A short time ago, a very old USN, ret. had a lovely suggestion to me as to how to deal with a flotilla attack of that sort:

5" guns firing WP with proximity fuses.

Some people have no sense of humor about these things. I still feel a tad queasy just thinking about it.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 15:52  

#35  Actually the best defense against small boats would be A-10s and Apache helicopters, with F/A-18 top cover. The A-10 is more than fast enough to catch anything missed in the first pass. Hellfire and 25MM cannon fire will sink anything short of a frigate. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that we stationed a few dozen of each in Oman. We've had basing privileges there for a couple of decades at a military airfield just south of the capital.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-03-20 15:40  

#34  . . . apparently tankers can take amazing amounts of damage . . .

True in WWII as well, so long as they're not carrying something volatile like refined gasoline. Tankers are subdivided into bunches and bunches of water-tight (oil-tight) compartments, and have the pumps to do counterflooding.
Posted by: Mike   2006-03-20 15:15  

#33  someone explain to me why im trying to sing the village people song 'In th Navy' but in an Iranian style!! arrrghhhh
Posted by: ShepUK   2006-03-20 15:00  

#32  we ought to have drowned the lot of them.

Oh, no. They have intelligence value.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-03-20 14:57  

#31  wow yeah one of those suckers really would boom i bet, interesting side point on tankers, not sure which issue but an old air forces monthly i have lying around somewhere i need to find has a piece about attacks on tankers during the Iran Iraq war, apparently tankers can take amazing amounts of damage as the oil would simply soak up the impact from exocets that were used (by raqi's i think) . A very very tough job indeed to sink a very large tanker or super tanker.Perhaps of no relevence to this but there you go lol. I'm thinking the best way to stop thier navy is to smash to bits all of thier ports and navy stuff, after a couple of days thier navy will be inoperable.
Posted by: ShepUK   2006-03-20 14:57  

#30  Could a LNG tanker be rigged to make as big a boom as a small nuke?
Posted by: 3dc   2006-03-20 14:38  

#29  'Moose, I like your train of thought and am glad that you are on our side. Rubber boats will have less RCS that a metallic one so a night time approach or other mischief making would likely go un detected. I think that the easiest way to shut down the Straits is to hijack and then scuttle a tanker. Not a lot of crew to defend it and by the time help arrived, it is quite likely that it would have arrived at a suitable choke point. Or even an Iranian-flagged merchantman would restrict the waterways. I don't think we have a lot of time left to dither and play 'what-if' games, because the MMs are gonna do something stupid.
Posted by: USN, ret.   2006-03-20 14:31  

#28  Possible target areas: The Meditteranean, either near Turkey or Port Said, heavy ship tourism areas (maybe with Israel in the downwind hazard area); the Red Sea, anywhere from the Suez South, between Egypt and Saudi, or Eritrea and Saudi, with less traffic; the Gulf of Aden, near Somalia in an area known for piracy, this would be more a cargo ship rather than a cruise ship or ferry.

Their target ship they would want to be as new and fast as possible, European registry would be a big plus, as they figure Americans would be less likely to fire on Europeans. It would have to be commandeered quickly, with all crew and passengers killed before it could give a radio distress. That would require insiders in the crew.

It would have to be on a long voyage that would take it near the fleet in the first place, in restrictive waters to allow it in close even before the deception began.

As much as it sounds like a 'B' movie, the act is solely to close the distance with the carrier. For this they may claim hostages have been taken, and ask for hostage rescue--anything delay and to get closer.

Finally, when the jig is up, they figure the ship can be severely damaged and still close the gap, so they will take a lot of fires before they are disabled, fighting for the last few meters of distance.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 13:47  

#27  Three men on each craft, sure, but don't forget a couple of cute children in each one, all holding baby rabbits.

And baby deer, with their mothers.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-20 13:30  

#26  "The Iranian opposition...The National Council of Resistance of Iran..."

NCRI an Opposition group...I always love that one.
Posted by: DepotGuy   2006-03-20 13:19  

#25  Or a wedding party flotilla.
Posted by: Darrell   2006-03-20 12:51  

#24  Guesstimate within 5 miles for a 15kt bomb.

If it was an airburst like Able (21) KT the target would need to be much closer than 5 miles for serious damage... But a Baker like shot also 21 KT but 90 feet underwater - 5 miles would be about right. Radioactive contamination would be much the worst aspect.
Posted by: 6   2006-03-20 12:50  

#23  Three men on each craft, sure, but don't forget a couple of cute children in each one, all holding baby rabbits.
Posted by: Jake-the-Peg   2006-03-20 12:16  

#22  re: Strait of Hormuz

I predict that the Irainians will putz with the Hormuz surface tension by using islamic surfactants.

/ima all wet
Posted by: RD   2006-03-20 11:54  

#21  The MSM spin is irrelevant compared to Iranian nukes and/or an Iranian attack on world oil. They cannot have either opportunity.


This remains the bottom line. It is why I have given my commitment to support or defend any unilateral action taken by Bush with respect to neutralizing Iran.

PS: Great assessments, 'moose.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-03-20 11:46  

#20  Danielle: I was a big proponent of the idea of their using a nuclear mine. It is vital to their concept of operations to take out or neutralize at least one US carrier fleet. However, the obvious drawback is nuclear retaliation.

So their emphasis would have to be use, but to somehow get enough deniability so that the international community, that is, the other nuclear powers, would intervene and demand that the US not counterattack with nukes.

One technique would be to hijack a commercial cruise ship of a third country, while pretending to be al-Qaeda, and put the bomb on board. Then, while sending all sorts of distress messages, and calling for assistance, take the ship at full speed towards the fleet, with the idea of getting it close enough for the bomb to severely damage or destroy the carrier. Guesstimate within 5 miles for a 15kt bomb.

This would most likely be done in concert to several other activities, such as scuttling a ship in the Suez Canal, to keep out the US Atlantic fleet, and only when the other Pacific fleets were very far away.

They could also coordinate with the Norks to provoke a major naval incident that would attract the US Pacific fleets away from the Arabian Sea.

As far as they are concerned, the best outcome would be a cheap shot like this, that *didn't* result in war, but would deeply injure the US and cause much opposition (led by you know who) to the US being in the Middle East at all.

Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 11:31  

#19  China would be as pleased as punch to sell them all the Silkworms they wanted.
Posted by: Spugum Sherens5365   2006-03-20 11:12  

#18  I'm starting to understand that the *pirate* attack this weekend was s'posed to be a suicide maneuver to probe USN defenses, and that we ought to have drowned the lot of them.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-03-20 11:10  

#17  Other considerations would be the rubber boat floatilla at night, their new model Gulf submarine hoping to stick a torpedo in under the cover of the floatilla, some concealed Silkworms on shore.

"Hot mining", or trying to lay mines during an attack on a fleet already present, or something as cheap as laying cable suspended by floats, hoping to catch an ship unaware and snarl its propellers.

The SOBs might even try to sneak in a few shore batteries, most likely a bunch of SCUDs on expendable launchers, along with a few higher quality missiles--possibly even a nuke.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 11:06  

#16  Wasn't there a fear of Iran obtaining nuclear mines on DEBKA awhile back? They could cause some damage, but it would certainly unite the rest of the world against them. The fact that they are suicidal nuts with no regard for others means I hope the EU wakes up to the imminent threat before it's too late.
Posted by: Danielle   2006-03-20 11:05  

#15  "You sure it's okay to set both miniguns to maximum spray mode, Cap'n?"

"Yeah, that's what they said: Hose it all down."
Posted by: Spugum Sherens5365   2006-03-20 11:03  

#14  I think one AC-130 would be a fine response to a swarm of rubber boats.

Of course that's not Navy but it would work just fine and be cheap.
Posted by: 3dc   2006-03-20 11:01  

#13  I remember taking our swift boat upriver past Qom to the Cambodian border, which we were not legally allowed to approach, especially from the west
Posted by: John Fn Kerry   2006-03-20 10:59  

#12  No, ShepUK, we win. The MSM spin is irrelevant compared to Iranian nukes and/or an Iranian attack on world oil. They cannot have either opportunity.

I forsee additional US ships arriving for the "exercise" in late April and a preemptive attack almost immediately thereafter.
Posted by: Darrell   2006-03-20 10:13  

#11  P3 orions loaded with mk 20 rockeyes would keep em at bay, this whole fishing boat and dingy attack seems so dumb its remarkable! i think mines are a big danger but even then not that bad. My idea is to simly take over the closest peice of Iranian land to the straights of hormuz, lets see if they can launch sht whilst having a division sized force - or maybe a corps sized force if you could get it onto there. would really throw a spanner in the works for em. So many ways for us to hit them and do them damage yet there power projection capibilities are terribly incabable of striking coalition forces homebases and cities - unless they use terroist methods of course but even then the cumlative affects of an Iranian offensive on coalition home soil would be next to nothing i'd imagine. I can imagine it now - we bomb the fck outa them - destroy there military and goverment and yet asshat media know-nothings will say we lost cos one suicide bomber got through to our homelands. se thats the big problem - even if we thrash the fck outa them the media will spin it all into a quagmire and illegal war bullsht and then we lose.
Posted by: ShepUK   2006-03-20 09:55  

#10  I guess the question is whether Iran's leadership is rational from a strategic perspective. We know they are not from a religious perspective.

Iran can certainly stir things up in Iraq, mess with shipping in the Straits and attack US bases and Arab oil infrastructure so as to harm the world economy. But wouldn't doing so lead to open season on Iran? Even the Euros will be in favor of destroying the mullocracy if they mess up the euro economy, which has less margin to play with than the US?

I ask because I've seen a lot of speculation that they will not wait for us to make the first move.

If they wait to do this stuff in response to a US bombing campaign vs. the nuke sites we may have already hit their naval capabilities and will already be in 'open season' mode with respect to the Mullahs.
Posted by: JAB   2006-03-20 09:33  

#9  The Japanese like to sustain terrible losses in WWII, guess how that ended. Mad Mullahs need to read a few history books
Posted by: djohn66   2006-03-20 09:32  

#8  Good idea, ed. It's not like he's been doing anything useful for the last couple of decades.
Posted by: Spugum Sherens5365   2006-03-20 09:04  

#7  John Kerry may want to revive his career as a Persian Gulf Swift boat skipper.
Posted by: ed   2006-03-20 08:22  

#6  And if the Iran-Iraq War proved anything it was that the MM are willing and able to sustain terrible losses.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-03-20 08:11  

#5  I suspect their concept is to have built many small concrete caves near the strait, where endless numbers of small rubber craft, each with a bomb, can be launched quickly at once. Three men, one to steer, one to man the bomb, and one to fire an AK wildly at anybody on deck, hoping to supress fires from crewmen on deck.

The concept is to accept 98% losses for 2% hits in massed Kamakazi attacks. They only attack over short distances. Their mission is both to sink or disable any US ship they can, *and*, hopefully to scuttle *any* ship in the Strait.

http://tinyurl.com/pnh2l

Now, looking at the Strait of Hormuz, there are points from land less than 20 miles from the shipping lanes. Rigid rubber boats can on average travel at 30-50 knots, or 35-60 mph.

However, if hostilities haven't yet been declared, there are Iranian waters almost flush with the shipping channels. There is no reason they could not create an effective blockade of the Strait to commercial shipping with just rubber boats. Menacing without attacking.

Few commercial shipping companies, or their underwriters, would risk running such a blockade.

This being said, there are some possibilities here, if you are willing to have terrible losses.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-20 08:02  

#4  Caught a snippet on the news that said pirates attacked a U.S.warship over the weekend.Short version,bad day for the pirates.
Posted by: raptor   2006-03-20 07:28  

#3  Most likely the swarm of attack craft would be a few suicide boat bombs amidst a whole mess of 'legitimate' trade or fishing craft, all looking about the same. That way even if the attack fails, the attackers win the PR battle because in stopping the attack the US will have killed a lot of 'innocent' people. Heads, I win; tails, you lose, from the anti-American perspective, because they control the public perception.
Posted by: Glenmore   2006-03-20 07:11  

#2  I don't know...the suicide swarm sounds like a pretty good idea to me. How do you destroy a carrier with 100 SM2 missiles to protect it? Fire 101 cruise missiles.
Posted by: gromky   2006-03-20 00:15  

#1  "swarm of fast attack craft" against US warships -we all know how successful that was, from Reagan to Saddam to Somali pirates.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-03-20 00:09  

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