Just curious. While I could think of several reasons not to do so, would sinking it in place disrupt Iranian shipping operations and otherwise do harm to Iran? The Germans sank several ships in the Cherbourg port, to make it, albeit temporarily, unusable by the allies.
The straits have pretty narrow channels for large ships to safely navigate.
So, it will go some way to obstruct shipping in the Hormuz. Which Iranians have threatened to do in case of war.
So, doing their jobs for them.
The British aren’t going to do it, because the British aren’t at war with Iran. Iran and Britiain are just screwing around. No harm, no foul. The US might do it, and then dance around about admitting it. If it happens, Trump will probably blame the Iranians, no matter who’s really to blame. All bets off if Boris Johnson moves into 10 Downing St.
I haven’t heard, but I suspect that at least some of the crew has remained on board. To maintain minimum services if nothing else. Sinking the ship would be quite unpopular in their home countries.
Besides, why? The seizure is a political act that will be solved politically. Just like the tanker the Brits seized. As soon as it becomes expedient for Iran to retrieve it, they will. Britain has already said as much.
I am assuming the OP is talking about sinking the ship in the Iranian harbor, not in the straits. The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz are very deep. Sinking a ship there won’t accomplish anything.
Well if it’s loaded, that would create a pretty bad natural disaster.
[Moderating]
This thread isn’t about who (if anyone) would do it, or why: Those are topics for Great Debates. This GQ thread is about what would happen if anyone did.
well, I highly doubt the Iranians have moored the ship in a shipping lane in their harbor. It is probably at an anchorage near the shipping lanes. Sinking it there would be inconvenient but would not effect the flow of traffic in the harbor.
Of course I have no knowledge of the details of the harbor layout, so I could be wrong, but it seems reasonable.
Cite with my bolding added. I wouldn’t expect them to acknowledge any potential weaknesses in the defense. Still a “secure Iranian port” with a high profile ship being held there probably rates a pretty good multi-layered air defense. Iran’s large navy mostly focuses on small patrol boats with limited air defense capabilities. If Iran wanted to strengthen the air defense and extend their detection range they do have some capable larger surface combatants to patrol off shore. The mix of patrol boats and patrol security forces could easily make it a high risk SAS/SBS special operations target. Infiltration could be difficult and sinking a ship that large is hard.
Sorry for a bit of a hijack/tangent.
I know the tanker is “British flagged”, but what does that really mean? The ship’s owned by a Swedish company and there are no British citizens in the crew.
Prior to 1995 the three most senior people on a UK flag merchant ship (Master, Chief Mate, Chief Engineer) had to be UK, Commonwealth or Irish citizens (latter dating to when that law was passed). Since then there is no nationality restriction, just a requirement that the person’s credentials in home country are accepted as equivalent under UK rules.
British merchant ships have always had lots of non-British subjects in their crews but nowadays it’s effectively a flag of convenience manning wise. And despite the sympathetic ear merchant mariners in high wage countries get with their public when they say they operate ships more safely there just isn’t much evidence of that. Unsafe ships are generally crewed by non-first world nationals but lots of very safe ships are also crewed by non-first world nationals. A company like Stena would operate a safe ship regardless of flag or crew cost, otherwise their customers among big oil company charterers would not use them for fear of liability. But they will operate safely at the lowest cost, and that’s not many if any first world mariners if they can help it.
Some other European countries have a mixed system with a registry allowing more flexible manning but excluded from trade within the country, like the Norwegian International Shipping Register, NIS flag ships, as opposed to outright Norwegian flag, NOR, ships. NIS requires only the master be a Norwegian national. In UK it’s all rolled into one, with no crew nationality requirement at all. At the other extreme, US flag merchant ships must be entirely manned by legal US residents 3/4’s of whom have to be US citizens (there have been some special waivers). OTOH there aren’t any US flag tankers just randomly trading here and there like Stena Impero. The only US flag merchant ships seen outside trade between US ports (which is legally limited to US flag, US built ships) are ones on contract supporting the military, or carrying US aid cargoes, or a few dozen (container ships and car carriers mainly) which receive US govt operating subsidies to fly US flag and employ US crews on foreign built ships. The operators in the latter category now, ironically, are mainly foreign shipping companies which do that business through US subsidiaries.