U.S. military officials said the incident occurred Saturday night in the Gulf of Tonkin...
Sorry! Sorry!
But it was such a gimme...
Sometimes one wishes that international politics could be as clear cut as a mugging in a back alley: "Goblin "A" pulled a gun on Good Citizen "B", who drew her own piece and smoked the bad guy." Instead we get all this posturing and saber rattling that makes it look more like the Jets versus the Sharks.
When did they move the Gulf of Tonkin to the Middle East ?
ReplyDeleteI think what is meant here is “Strait of Hormuz,” no ?
-Pogo
Too bad. I'd have loved to have seen the unedited footage the USN (has- would have had) of 5 little Boston Whalers splintered by 57mm fire after they opened the 'little white boxes floating in the sea' with surgical .50 cal rounds courtesy of the onboard Marine contingent.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the usual suspects would scream that they were only Halliburton boats taking Iranian schoolchildren for a fishing daytrip.
Regards,
Rabbit.
When they come within 20 yards and say, "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," I hope that I wouldn't hesitate much ti=]o push the big "Easy" button and put a hole in the water where they used to be.
ReplyDeletewow, bobbyj. you're way off. first, the obvious--iranians aren't arab. if they were, they wouldn't have saudi arabia pissing their shorts every five days.
ReplyDeletesecond, the iranian fleet would easily wipe out the american naval capabilities. consider the pure dollars and cents/sense: our cruisers, battleships, and submarines, which take years and billions of dollars to build and outfit, versus their "swiftboats" outfitted with explosives you can create with fertilizer from ACE hardware, that cost thousands, MAYBE tens of thousands a pop. with 300 of those little sh*ts cruising around the gulf, what are the odds that we'd stop every single one in a swarm attack?
i would advise you to check out van riper's millenium games '02. it's bleak. but by all means, keep on drinking the kool aid. if we could take iran out that easy, it would've already happened in 1979.
dirtcrashr,
ReplyDeletei wish we would've put a hole in the water where those little boats used to be. unfortunately, there is no big "easy" button, which is why there was so much stress about the position of the boats.
time for some airstrikes, methinks.
second, the iranian fleet would easily wipe out the american naval capabilities.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you huffing? That gold paint on your face makes you look as stupid as you sound.
Look up Operation Praying Mantis ... Iran had its entire Navy eliminated in less than 24 hours by the US Navy in April of 1988.
They tried playing silly games with speedboats afterwards, but gave it up after Navy choppers and aircraft started using them as targets.
You don't bring firecrackers to a gun fight and that exactly what the Iranians had. The US Navy ships would have sank each one of those row boats with one shot.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea where these guys get off acting like a bunch of idiots.
When did they move the Gulf of Tonkin to the Middle East ?
ReplyDelete*woosh*
Go comb your hair.
When back when was on the ol' DD972, we didn't seem to have much trouble blowing remote controlled speedboats out of the water... no helos were used. That WOULD have been the EASY button.
ReplyDeleteHell, those lil' ol' paddle boats probably wouldn't stand up to a Marine and his service rifle. Offhand at 300 meters on a pitching deck no less.
ReplyDeleteBut let us remember the word of the day children...and this is probably why the group commander held off on hitting the 'easy button.'
Iran's word of the day is: Silkworm
I'd try and draw Achmed the Sailor Man a little further from the strait before I ventilated his butt and used it for chum.
Shooter--
ReplyDeleteIs simple.
"Gunboats? What gunboats?? No see gunboats. Maybe they defected to Iraq."
Not our frickin' job to keep track of your sailor boys anyway, Dinner Jacket."
(But we do.)
That is some quality snark right there!
ReplyDeleteThe Iranian Navy's attacking?
ReplyDeleteWhere's good old PT 73 when you need her? Torpedo tubes mostly filled with beer and all.
I see lots of talk about Marines onboard. . . too bad they aren't.
ReplyDeleteYup. As another person pointed out, the US Naval wargames showed quite clearly tht given the right condiftions that the Iranians could inflict VERY painful damage to the USN.
ReplyDeleteHow bad was it? The game had to be reset because a large fraction of USN naval assets were out of commission.
Now, HOPEFULLY, the USN learned from that exercise that it needed a better plan to deal with lot's of fast cruise missles and lots and lots of motor boats. (A cruiser costs a couple of billion, but only one motor boat or cruise missles has to get through) But the USN is a bureaucracy and they are notoriously slow to learn from "exercise mistakes".
ALSO, the point for the Iranians doesn't have to be to sink the entire USN in presence, the point is drive the shipping insurance on tankers into the ionosphere and stop the trade. That takes LOTS less work and risk and suddendly. the price of oil makes 100$ a barrel look cheap.
Heck you don't even have to sink the tankers....just a couple of mines would do that.
There are portions of the Iranian navy, so I hear, that are decidedly NOT under Dinner Jacket's control. Looking at them through our lense is a bad idea.
ReplyDeletePractically speaking, though: smoke 'em, and claim ignorance.
Two can play the oil game.
ReplyDeleteWhat really got the Iranians attention during Praying Mantis was a Seal team and a destroyer wrecking two Iranian oil platforms.
I would suggest simply setting Karg Island aflame this time around. The Saudis and others can easily take up the slack.
The Iranians had plenty of Silkworms in 1988 ... it didn't make any difference in the outcome. For eight hours that day, anything under way under Iranian colors went straight to the bottom.
Ah, the Klingons of the Persian Gulf.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe they're the Gorn...