Maybe it’s time to play out that thing I read about in Tom Clancy novels.
As an attack sub, to really freak out a ship that you’re trailing, fire off one or two active sonar pings, then quietly disappear again…
They’ll KNOW you’re there, but not where. And that’s freaky.
I suspect the IIS Sabalan is so craptastic that they wouldn’t know if there was a sub nearby unless it surfaced in front of them.
Oh… and as for being roughly handled in Operation Praying Mantis, the Sabalan was actually disabled by a 500 lb bomb laser-guided bomb from an A-6 Intruder that wrecked the engineering spaces and left it partially submerged at the stern, on fire and unable to move.
I say we invite them for a friendly visit in NYC, let them park in a prominent place in the harbor and take an extended shore leave. That ship and its tender are zero threat to us so it can’t hurt to be hospitable.
This is not going to happen for a variety of political and military reasons but think of the upsides. NYC is fun and rather impressive, those sailors will get back on their ships, tired as hell, stuffed to the gills and hella hungover(yes Persians drink). Hard to go home and shout “death to America” after NYC has kicked you in the ass and left you begging for more.
Remember the sailors on those ships are probably the best and brightest, better to leave them in awe than fear as they will probably in charge of Iran’s Navy one day soon.
Capt
Speaking of NYC, you know the 9/11 hijackers spent quite a bit of their time drinking and getting lap dances in Las Vegas, when they weren’t going to flight training school.
I’m rereading Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle at the moment, and two quotes spring to mind:
“The highest possible form of treason . . . is to say that Americans aren’t loved wherever they go, whatever they do.”
and
“Americans couldn’t imagine what it was like to be something else and proud of it.”
I am not sure what you mean by this exactly but I personally think that Iran is, in the long term, a more natural ally than a belligerent. We are a long way from that but showing a few sailors a good time cannot hurt, as they are taught we are “Teh Great Satan” and there is little they can find out that isn’t on Google Earth.
Plus Chinese soup dumplings are awesome and everyone should have some, yes everyone
Capt
True, but besides Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, I’m also reminded of Ray Bradbury’s The Concrete Mixer, where the invading Martians are treated like celebrities and die in drunken car crashes.
Iran the general populace maybe but the heads of state are batshit crazy. If and when they go nuclear it will be a dangerous time in history.
Gotta shadow them, it would be insulting not to.
Gotta meet 'em with as similarly-armed & sized ship as we can manage. Or possibly a large party yacht.
And yeah, milk & cookies.
I wonder if the Coast Guard is going to end up rescuing them if they stay out there any length of time.
I almost said that. 
But I reckon if they can get across the Atlantic without dying they’re probably good for trolling up & down the coast. But I could see them needing to dock someplace to get some work done. And that’s not meant to be a slam on Iran, just an observation that their ship design experience may be perfectly adequate for gulf conditions, but maybe somewhat subpar for open ocean stuff. Personally, I hope they make it here and back again in grand fashion.
Hmm. I wouldn’t get hung up on that word. It seems the ship types… evolve.
The Washington Naval Treay limited cruiser sizes to 10,000 tons. (Anything heavier was counted in the Battleship tonnage limits.)
WW2 Baltimore class Heavy Cruiser, the first class not constrained in size by treaty, comes in at 14,500 tons. 9 8inch guns, 12 5inch guns, 6 inch belt armor, 33 knots.
Des Moines class, the last “Heavy Cruiser” class: 17,250 tons.
Meanwhile, destroyers also grew in size. (WW2 destryoers were 2000 tons.) Eventually, some destroyers were reclassified as cruisers in the 70’s. (See here and here, for example.) They still weighed in at or near 10,000 tons.
Nowadays, the US destroyers are 9000 tons, and the next gen Zumwalt class destroyer is going to be 14,000 tons.
Maybe they leave off calling them “destroyers” to make it easier to get funding through Congress. 