Iran’s Gulf Harassment Incurs Ire. Update.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Gunboat
Nearly a dozen Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels harassed a formation of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in the northern Persian Gulf, the Navy announced.
Eleven Iranian vessels “repeatedly conducted dangerous and harassing approaches of USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3), USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60), USS Firebolt (PC-10), USS Sirocco (PC-6), USCGC Wrangell (WPB-1332) and USCGC Maui (WPB-1304) while the U.S. vessels were conducting joint integration operations with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters in the North Arabian Gulf,” the Navy statement reads.
This blatant harassment of US vessels in international waters did not go unnoticed.
Trump says he’s instructed Navy to ‘destroy’ any Iranian gunboats harassing US ships
By Brooke Singman
President Trump said Wednesday that he’s instructed the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats harassing American ships, in the wake of a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf.
“I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump tweeted.
The encounter happened last week. Six U.S. Navy warships were conducting drills with US Army Apache attack helicopters in international waters off Iran last Wednesday when they were repeatedly harassed by 11 Iranian IRGCN vessels, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet reported.
The Iranian ships repeatedly crossed in front and behind the U.S. vessels at extremely close range and high speeds, including multiple crossings of one ship, the Puller, with a 50-yard closest point of approach and within 10 yards of another ship, the Maui’s, bow, a 5th Fleet statement said.
Turn a few of these boats into flaming datums, and the IRGCN will knock it off pretty quickly. I’m sure the Marines in the Cobras would be more than happy to lend a hand. Read the rest of the article here: Fox News
Pentagon Leaders Say Trump’s Warning to Iran Is ‘Important, Perfect’
KRISTINA WONG
Top Pentagon leaders Wednesday called President Trump’s tweet instructing the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy “any and all Iranian gunboats” if they harassed its ships “an important warning” and “perfect.”
“The president issued an important warning to the Iranians. What he was emphasizing is all of our ships retain the right of self-defense, and people needed to be very careful in their interactions to understand the inherent right of self-defense,” said Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist.
The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, added that every U.S. ship that deploys into harm’s way has the inherent right of self-defense.
“If we see hostile intent, we have the right to respond up to and including lethal force and, if it happens in the Gulf, if it happens anyway, we will respond with overwhelming lethal force, if necessary, to defend ourselves, and it’s really that simple,” Hyten said.
Trump tweeted Wednesday morning: “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.”
I’m betting the Sailors are grinning over this. Read the rest of the article here: Breitbart
Category: Coast Guard, Iran, Marines, Navy
Film at eleven?
Gunboats? Those are old fishing and pleasure craft. Water borne technicals if you will.
Tarpon fishing in the Gulf.
Bass Pro shop?
In the 1980s (during Operation Earnest Will) the Iranians used Swedish Boghammer speedboats with ZU-23s mounted on them to attack oil tankers. We recovered several of them after encounters (in the middle of the night) with OH-58 gunships. Needless to say, the OH-58s won, and it put a stop to the Iranians shooting up Kuwaiti tankers. It didn’t take them long to realize that they couldn’t find over in darkness when a number of their Boghammers simply stopped reporting and “disappeared.”
Thank you, Jimmy Carter.
We are still reaping the benefits of your presidency.
Yes indeed, this is part of the Jimmeh Kahtuh legacy.
He shoulda stuck to peanut farming.
Hey Joe, at least Jimmy is thankful for Obama, now at least he is no longer the worst president we ever had?
True dat.
Impressive display of combat discipline, not to mention common sense–standing there in control of a potentially lethal weapon, within easy sniper range–without even so much as a helmet. Guess he’s counting on that civilian specs fiberglass hull to protect him.
Must be more of their “elite” forces, hmm?
Yeah not even a watch cap.
Be nice to see his melon turn into pink mist
and his torso just stand there for a while.
We can dream.
But some Marine or SEAL will get to actually do it now.
Of course, you can always shoot a hole in the hull of one of those sport speed boats and watch them sink, can’t you? Or just get the hoses out and spray them… something like that?
*BOOM*
*plunk*
*Glug, glug, glug*
The sounds of Iran’s next harassing attempt. Someone should remind Iran of Patton’s best quote; “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”
Taking a dingy up against any of our ships, it sure as shit ain’t gonna be our people dying for their country.
Do they have the idiom “if you play with fire you’re going to get burned” in Farsi?
It sounds old worldly, they oughta.
Or how about: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes”?
It is good that NCA has issued a “Weapons Free” policy for any vessels approaching our ships. No need to encourage a repeat of the attack on the USS Cole.
I look at it this way. Those goat herding, diaper wearing, child molesting, murderous trash from hell are looking forward to their “paradise” then we should do everything we can to speed their journey up.
That’s not what this means. Weapons free is an Army Air Defense term designating the authority to engage aircraft not positively identified as friendly. Nothing to do with this.
Also, contrary to popular belief, the right to self defense, down to the individual level, is inherent to all Rules of Engagement per CJCS Instruction 3121.01B*
In other words, this sounds cool and tough, but no one really needs to tell a US Navy Frigate or Destroyer skipper they have the OBLIGATION (not just right) to protect the lives of their sailors and airmen.
The Cole attack was an act of terrorism. It was done to provoke a response.
IGRC gunboats or Russian fighters aggressively interdicting our ships are the overt acts of sovereign nations. They are doing it to provoke a response. Sinking a gunboat or shooting a jet down would be satisfying, but it may not accomplish what we want in the Gulf.
*(1) Self-Defense. Unit commanders always retain the inherent right and obligation to exercise unit self-defense in response to a hostile act or demonstrated hostile intent. Unless otherwise directed by a unit commander as detailed below, military members may exercise individual self-defense in response to a hostile act or demonstrated hostile intent. When individuals are assigned and acting as part of a unit, individual self-defense should be considered a subset of unit self-defense. As such, unit commanders may limit individual self-defense by members of their unit. Both unit and individual self-defense includes defense of other U.S. Military forces in the vicinity.
With all due respect there Sir Arrogance of Attitude, that particular term has been used by Warriors of all branches, in various forms, for years. Maybe I should have checked with you on which term or form of semantics I should have used. But being as my need of any input from you lies somewhere in Mr. Webster’s book between phuque and you. How about this one, “Hey sailors, the Commander in Chief has decided we can sink these pirates that are getting in the way, who wants to stand the FIRST watch.” We have played pitty pat with these mofos long enough.
And BTW, having baby sat nuclear capable Nike/Herc, Sergeant, and Lance Missile Systems, in addition to my other duties, I am quite familiar with what is required to provide a bubble of defense, from either threat axis; be it aerial or ground.
Not by professionals who know what they are talking about. To quote Every Chief of Staff/Exec Ever: “Use precise terms precisely”
You may be confusing Weapons Free with the term Free Fire Zone, which is also widely misused.
Either way, what the president issued is more along the lines of Weapons Tight: Enemy air is possible, and Soldiers may fire only at aircraft positively identified as hostile according to announced hostile criteria.
Will iran punk out when they here about what our POTUS will do to their boats crews/boats when they act like assholes.
Ask Syria’s ol’ bubba Bashar al Assad how Trump reacts when folks cross HIS line in the sand. Or in this case, his wake.
‘Smoke, on the water,
A fire in the sky.’
Trump fell for a false flag on that one – took the bait, so to speak.
Maybe so. But he sure made an impact on Shayrat Air Base.
Accounts of chemical agents being used by al Assad has dropped to pretty much nil, though.
Who ate the false flag?
Given that the IGRC essentially a force of religious zealots that report directly to the SCIRI, I don’t think they’ll punk out.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking these guys are cowards, or even incompetent. Read up on the actual Persian Gulf War, popularly known as the Iran-Iraq war. There were some fairly sophisticated tactics, and a lot of bold maneuvers on both sides.
Our guys are better, our equipment is better, and our cause is better, but underestimating an enemy is never good.
They may or may not be cowards or incompetent. What they are, is seriously outgunned.
Not really. Yes, a gunboat is outgunned by a frigate or destroyer, and our aircraft are better, etc.
Read this: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/iran-could-do-some-serious-damage-if-it-attacked-america-heres-how-59792
Iran presents a multi-layered hybrid threat. The boats, drone swarms, long range missiles and rockets, mines, etc., create multiple threats. The gunboats are doing what is called Operational Preparation of the Battlespace, which has the added benefit of creating a dilemma for our skippers. If we react, we could start a war, if they don’t they cede the initiative. Iran may benefit from a war that they can expand to threaten our interests across the ME.
On top of that, they don’t need to win a war- they just need to temporarily disrupt shipping in the Straits. We are operating literally in their back yard, and we have a lot of very vulnerable assets within striking distance of their long range weapons systems. The Iranians could put up a massive volume of missiles, rockets, drones, aircraft, small boats, mines, and so on in the hopes of overwhelming the defensive systems and decision making of just one major combatant.
If we lost a single ship we would be looking at hundreds of killed, wounded, or captured, and a whole new set of dilemmas. How many sailors are you willing to lose to make the Straits of Hormuz safe for Saudi or Kuwaiti oil?
I know, we are the world’s largest producer these days- but we represent only about 15-20% of the world supply. So, yes, US companies will get rich of rising prices, but the world and therefore US economy will suffer.
OIL is the only thing they have for income and given what oil prices are right now, they are gracefully fucked to hell and back ten times over. Now that they have been provoking our Warships in the Persian Gulf they have put themselves in the corner and we now have a Commander in Chief that doesn’t take shit from anyone now it’s their turn to be martyrs for their goat-molesting Ayatollah in Chief!
Interesting theory. I thought we stopped their ability to sell their oil back in 2018. At least, that’s what the Trump administration said they were doing. Did we fail in doing that?
Regardless, the drop in prices only increases their incentive to use force.
That said, it doesn’t matter what the price is, the world still needs it. If Iran can disrupt the flow, the price goes up and the world takes notice.
It’s also driving them closer to the great powers that can ignore US sanctions, like Russia and China- both of whom, if pressed, could provide Iran with some game changing A2AD capabilities. Look up the S300 and 400 systems, or the C-802 anti-ship missile
It’s not about talking tough or ‘not taking shit’, it’s about protecting interests.
Sounds kinda like the assessment of Saddams army prior to the gulf war. Seems I recall a different outcome..
BOTH times IIRC, because I remember seeing talking heads on the mainstream snooze networks braying that they learned from the first time and were going to take a huge bite out of us when it ended up being part two of a Turkey Shoot.
Yes, we won. I was there, I remember it well.
I was also there in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008.
Who won that war? Saddam Hussein and most of the Middle East thought he did.
Proggy “nation building” bullshit wrecked an otherwise fine job.
That and disbanding and releasing what was left of their armed forces.
Fight to win and you get Victory. “Fight nice” is a Proggy idiocy.
Who said we want our enemies to be cowards?
We want them to be very brave, and brazenly charge into our overlapping fields of fire.
Whatever you say I JUST want our Sailors to be allowed to fire first and turn those goat-molesting fleabags into shark chum and their boats into flotsam and jetsam before they even have a clue as to WTF hit them!
“[woman mutilating] goat-molesting fleabags“
FIFY
Thankyuhverymuch!!!
Ok, so, are there any limits to that? Do you want our ships to sink any gunboats and shoot down any aircraft that come within range, or do you want to limit engagements to those taking specific actions that can be interpreted as hostile and/or presenting a risk to the safety of our ships or aircraft?
Of course there are limits. Current ROEs in effect have had little impact on the IRGCN targets’ behaviors.
The ship’s skipper who allowed one of their gunboats within 10 yards of his vessel should be fired immediately for endangering his ship and crew. Next time a USS Cole-like incident can result.
Pretty simple, pick your ranges.
Warning signals.
Warning shots.
Shoot to stop the threat.
Pick up survivors.
If any.
You say it’s simple, but you avoid actually laying out your policy.
The Cole is irrelevant- she was at anchor, and the attack was clearly a criminal terrorist action.
What are the ranges? At what point can US ships open fire?
The Strait of Hormuz is 30 statute across with pretty clear defined lanes, I’d say anything that is on an intercept within a mile is gtg.
YMMV.
Proud of you API! For our Nautically Challenged members, flotsam is debris left on the surface after a vessel goes to Davy Jones’ Locker, and jetsam is what a crew has tossed overboard to lighten the ship when endangered.
Yar.
And Davy Jones was a member of the Monkees. You have to catch an episode of Spongebob Squarepants to see him mention his locker, or lookitup on youtube.
You had sand kicked in your face at the beach, right Eggs?
*grin*
Eggs just likes to cook Calimari.
Wait! Why don’t we just throw more pallets of cash at them? It worked for douchebag Odumbo!
Iran’s pathetic brown water Navy could be eradicated in one afternoon. Get some!
It was once. Remember?
Operation Praying Mantis
It can be again.
*grin*
V2.0
Is there a list of awards and commendations to the Captain and crew of the Roberts? Ship shoulda sunk, but didn’t due to the efforts of her crew.
But…but…Rod, are you forgetting about their fierce, ferocious, 5th Generation fighter force???
You AW/1’s seem a reckless bunch.
Heh…
You have no idea, Poe…
*grin*
Hire a Maine Lobsterman out of Rockland to
shadow our ships. Tell him they are messing with
Loster traps. The Iranians will back off.
Lobster boat racing:
https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/voyaging/lobster-boat-racing-in-maine
Add a bunch of Crabbers and tell them that’s who has been robbing their traps!
Looks like they are playing chicken to see who changes course and chickens out first and the goat phukers aren’t chickening out as of YET. Will see what happens in round two if their is going to be another round since Trump says that we will take names and kick ass and we don’t know how to write.
Back in the 1980’s President Reagan quietly wiped the Iranian boat club off the face of the earth. No one noticed and it was rarely reported, but we had 20+ years of quiet from them after that….
It is probably time to cull the herd again…too many genetic dead ends for the herd to survive….
“we had 20+ years of quiet from them after that….”
…except for the Gulf War, the rise of al Qaeda, Northern/Southern Watch, widespread terrorist attacks, and OIF/OIR, etc. In other words a contestant state of war or gray zone activities.
It’s going to take a few ass-whoopings before Iran calms down, much like when Quadaffi STFU after some F-111’s paid a visit to his turf!
Theirs is a boast/bully culture.
Those boat games are for internal pride consumption, not for us. Turn them into an embarrassment, and they will knock it off.
Wake-swamping them, and broadcasting it, would be masterful.
Make every encounter humiliating, and they will avoid us. Make extra effort that the humiliations are visible to the Iranian people. Make distinction between the Mad Mullahs and regular folk. Hammer the wedge.
We win. They lose.
The first essential step to Victory is deciding that nothing less is acceptable.
Anyone who says the USA cannot win conflicts, or should not win, is playing for the other team.
“Wake-swamping them”
Then rescue them, a good medical exam and
a good meal. Loan them a dingy and sail off.
The dingy loaded with hidden electronic shit
of course. Audio/video of their first encounter would be fun to see.
It’s the humane thing to do.
IF the guys in those boats hear of this, they’re probably gonna crap so much they’ll need to us both hands to wipe.
However, IMHO, the first the guys will hear of it will be when they are headed to Davy Jones’ Locker – passing straight through to Hell.
Sur-PRISE!
“What just happened, who is laughing like a demon, and why is it getting so hot?”
A few weeks ago the National Geographic Channel ran a show on the new Littoral Class ships being tested called “Inside 21st Century Warship.”
https://www.natgeotv.com/za/inside-21st-century-warship
(The show could have been a rebroadcast but it was the first time I had seen it.)
The show dealt with a mine sweeping test aboard the USS Independence (which did not go well) and a test of the 30 mm guns on the bow of the USS Freedom. (System failure there as well, but I digress as this is not about the Littoral Class of ships (failures, costs, etc,.)
The test with the Freedom was for it to defend itself against 5 remote controlled “fast attack” boats like those used by Iran by shooting the boats out of the water.
The Commander was a perhaps a little unclear about the reason for the test (the guns) and perhaps thought the test was about the capability of the ship and crew.
Instead of firing the weapons, the Commander maneuvered the ship to where it is basically “crossing the T” and takes the Freedom up to over 40 knots.
When he does that, the Freedom produces such a large wake (at least 40 feet high) that the attack boats are capsized. He and his crew are literally high five-ing each other because of the way they had performed responding quickly to orders, etc.
The testing engineers were aghast.
“Uh Commander, the reason for the test was to test the guns, not the ship,” they said.
He responded “I thought the test was to see how this boat and the crew could protect itself against multiple threats.”
“Uh no. It was about the guns and now we have to run the same test again. The engineers ashore aren’t happy about that so please test the guns and the guns alone.”
The Commander nods and says “Understood.” He turns and walks away with a wry smile on his face.
It’s been a long time since I laughed that hard.
Lt Gen Van Riper showed the effectiveness of unconventional tactics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Ironically, Van Riper used exactly the tactics I am talking about to sink a carrier, a bunch of cruisers, and all sorts of other stuff, causing the JFCOM commander to ‘reset’ the battle.
Sometimes, as in this case, the results are more important than the tactics. I have to admit, swamping an Iranian “gunboat” with your wake would be an awesome “fuck you” message!
Record and broadcast to Iran.
Didn’t bother getting the cannons dirty. Not worth the cost of shells. Contemptuously sunk them with the wakes of our ships.
Yep. His swarm tactics worked, rather like WWII kamikazes writ large.
This embarrassed A LOT of the perfumed princes in the Five Sided Wind Tunnel.
Tactics and weapon systems have since been been adjusted to meet this threat.
Insh’alla, motherfuckers.
Well let’s see some fire works I’m ready
About damn time we bitch slap them like we use to
How or why we’ve become so soft is over me
One word. Leftists… Or Democrats if you prefer..
Unfortunately true
Progressivism is Cultural AIDS.
Or a cultural and societal cancer.
Where we pay child support and alimony to the tumor.
which would be better spent on
a cure.
While I’d love to see a CIWS make splinters out of one of those puddleducks, I’m imagining one of them crossing in close to the bow of a destroyer to find an Apache with a cute little 30 MM in the chin turret and 8 Hellfires on the pylons with two of my great great grand students at the controls with blood in their eyes.
Just the thought of that gives me a Mark one Mod zero Freedom Boner!
The sea base ships do look pretty cool.
That’s a-gonna give a number of Sailors an itchy trigger finger as well as a Boner for seeing who can be the first one to grease an Iranian boat!
All your bass boats are belong to us…