Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. It couldn’t possibly be me saying it wouldn’t be the first time Iran mined the straits.
Because mines - to use your phrasing - magically are able to distinguish the nationality and type of ship and only blow up tankers of specific nations. I’m sure the crew of the Samuel B. Roberts will be glad to hear it. By the by, you sort of glossed over Iran having been able to get away with attacks on 3rd party tankers without mentioning that said attacks were acts of war. You don’t get a clearer cut casus belli than that.
How many would thy have to sink to make the water un-navigable for deep draft ships?
I genuinely don’t know but it looks like quite a bottle neck. Could sinking a few ships at the narrowest point prevent others from passage?
The other point I wanted to make about shore based missile is that it enormously ramps up the complexity, cost and risk of going after them. Instead of knocking out a few patrol boats, which could even be done by gunfire, it means a significant air campaign to knock down Iranian air defenses, lots of time spent over Iranian soil by US or NATO air crews, etc.
What I’m also saying is that if Iran decides to follow through on its bluster, it’s not going to be the simple cakewalk some here have suggested. At the very least it’s going to take a lot more time and resources.
[QUOTE=Dissonance]
Because mines - to use your phrasing - magically are able to distinguish the nationality and type of ship and only blow up tankers of specific nations. I’m sure the crew of the Samuel B. Roberts will be glad to hear it. By the by, you sort of glossed over Iran having been able to get away with attacks on 3rd party tankers without mentioning that said attacks were acts of war. You don’t get a clearer cut casus belli than that.
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He actually did address this.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
If you delved into those cites a little closer you’d note that Iran never closed the Straits of Hormuz outright, they did start attacking Iraqi oil tankers and later the tankers of other Arab nations in the region that were assisting Iraq.
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My point being, the Straits were not mined by magic. The ships Iran would use to lay mines could have been attacked in the 1980s–and they would be attacked in the year 2011 or 2012. Something people are forgetting is we were fighting a proxy war with Iran in the 1980s by backing Iraq. Because of the Soviet Union we were not willing to engage in direct warfare with Iran. Yes, Iran committed several acts of war against the United States during that period.
But two things to keep in mind:
We were actively supporting Iraq who was engaged in direct war with Iran, so you can’t really argue the Iranians doing things against us was foul ball.
We were in the middle of the Cold War, and we desired to fight against Iran through Iraq/Saddam than to engage Iran directly.
The first Ayatollah knew pretty much all of this. But he also knew there were limits to how far America could be pushed. It is specifically stated in one of your own cites that the reasons the Iranians never closed the Straits of Hormuz is because the United States specifically stated they would go to war over such an action. I think that in the year 2011/2012, with no Cold War concerns to stop us, it’s definitely likely we’d strike directly at Iran for something we threatened to go to war over during the Cold War–when such a thing had far higher stakes.
Iran never tried to close the Straits to all shipping during the Iran-Iraq war, and there is a reason they never did that. For one, they still had international trading partners who were buying stuff from them, so they were still trying to do their own trade. For two, they knew that to do so would get us involved openly in war against them. Attacking ships is actually less of an outright cause of war than closing an international strait. Primarily because, the Iranians could (and did) claim that the only reason American ships were damaged by mines or missiles is because they were escorting Kuwaiti ships.
The Silkworm missile is not specifically targeted, you launch it in a general direction and it picks something up on radar and flies into it. Because of that if you shoot it in the direction of a convoy you have no idea if it’s going to hit a tanker or an escort ship, or a decoy barge.
I guess it depends on how you define cakewalk. It’s pretty much my assumption if Iran closes the straits the first thing we’re going to do is establish air superiority over Iran itself, I don’t actually think that will take as long as you think. It could take less than 72 hours. Iran may also choose not to contest it and instead keep most of its planes grounded, hoping that whenever the conflict is over Iran will still maintain most of its planes. Iran has great interest in its air projection ability versus Turkey, and if it seriously contested our air superiority they would be a second rate air force in the region for many, many years. Especially since even Russia and China are less engaged with Iran now than they were 20, 15, or 10 years ago. Iran is becoming more and more isolated as years go on, not less.
I don’t know the logistics of ships sinking and closing the Straits, but the Iranians were trying pretty hard to sink ships during the Iran-Iraq war and the wreckage from sunk tankers never closed the Straits. In fact, the largest ship ever built, a Soviet supertanker, was sank in the Straits and I don’t remember it closing the shipping lanes. I genuinely don’t know the geography, depending on depth it may not be realistic that wrecked ships could close the shipping lanes.
Finally, keep in mind the U.S. ability to lock in on mobile missile batteries is a lot higher than it was in the early 1990s when we were worrying about SCUDS, anti-missile countermeasures on ships are far more advanced, and by and large the Iranians are going to be using missiles from that era, not modern missiles. Silkworms in particular can be fooled by very simple decoys, because they essentially are just launched in a general direction and slam into whatever their radar finds. An old rusted barge is just as viable a target to the Silkworm radar as a supertanker.
That is exactly what the situation was in the Kuwait War. You may remember the famous Scud Hunt. Even though the US ultimately allocated hundred of planes exclusively to the task, including attack aircraft orbiting in areas where Scud Launchers were known to be, they couldn’t entirely stop them.
According to this Time story, US forces did not take out a single Scud or launcher on the ground, despite launching thousands of sorties for that purpose.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
That is exactly what the situation was in the Kuwait War. You may remember the famous Scud Hunt. Even though the US ultimately allocated hundred of planes exclusively to the task, including attack aircraft orbiting in areas where Scud Launchers were known to be, they couldn’t entirely stop them.
According to this Time story, US forces did not take out a single Scud or launcher on the ground, despite launching thousands of sorties for that purpose.
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Sure, but two things here. First, the Iraqis were hiding those Scud launchers way out in the middle of a pretty vast desert. With these missiles the Iranians won’t be able to do that as much…they will have to be much closer to the straights, and in a much smaller area. Secondly, we are talking about 1990’s technology wrt satellite imagery and military networked C&C. Both have improved somewhat in the last 20 odd years. We also have drones that can both loiter in place for days at a time AND are armed, so the response times are much faster today than during the first (or even start of the second) Gulf war.
Again, not saying that they can’t do it…just that they aren’t going to be nearly as effective as the Iraqis were in hiding their launchers from us. Which is going to be detrimental to the health of their crews. Also, even if they can get away with it for a while, a lot of their other facilities are going to get the shit pounded at of them in the mean time, if they push this.
I also want to clarify that I’m not saying the U.S. military is some unbeatable juggernaut that can do anything to anyone. But when it comes to waging conventional war, if you don’t understand just how inferior pretty much every other country on Earth is then you don’t follow international military affairs.
I wouldn’t want to be involved in a land war with Russia or China, but a naval war? Our Navy is the most advanced and the largest by such an overwhelming degree that I don’t know that most casual observers realize it. Hell, it’s considered a big deal that China is buying old used carriers and etc. But we’re not even talking about US Navy versus Russian or Chinese navies, were talking about them being able to disrupt an Iranian naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz.
This is not a battle Iran would have any hope of winning. I imagine Iran thinks it will be able to reap big gains by using asymmetrical naval strategies like small explosive-laden suicide boats and small torpedo boats etc. Well, they did that during the Iran-Iraq war, and the GWOT has made the U.S. Navy particularly concerned about that sort of warfare. This isn’t 1985 when such tactics would potentially surprise some of the Naval brass, in 2012 I can guarantee you our Navy has invested massive amounts of money and training into dealing with threats just such as that. And if the Iranians even tried to utilize their conventional navy, it would be destroyed with overwhelming force from both sea and air, Iran’s only hope would be unconventional activity against our navy–but we’ve been preparing for that sort of naval fight for over 15 years now. A modern U.S. warship could likely zero in on a Silkworm battery seconds after it fired, and have multiple missiles launched at that location in a moment’s time. Because the Silkworm batteries typically have to be within 40-50 miles of their target, and we might have ships in the region, you’d be looking at those locations being hit with retaliatory missiles in very small time spans, sometimes under 5 minutes after launch.
Iran’s conventional military is a lot better than Iraq’s was when we invaded in 2003. I don’t think an invasion of Iran would be as fast or as easy. But we’re talking about a limited scale conflict in which we’d be trying to establish air superiority and utilize our navy to disrupt a theoretical Iranian blockade. That’s basically the strongest part of the U.S. military in comparison to the rest of the world against probably the least effective part of the Iranian military. The Iranians might not do a half terrible job at defending their cities utilizing urban warfare and guerilla tactics, but they are just overwhelmingly ouclassed at a naval or air campaign.
Right, because SCUDs are ballistic and because of the terrain you have far more options as to what you can do.
A SCUD you can set up the launcher, launch, and be moving the launcher under a culvert or something immediately. Further, and what was really a problem, is from above the launchers were indistinguishable in infrared from normal trucks and etc. Their operational area was also quite vast, basically the entire desert.
With Silkworm missiles you have a maximum range of 62 miles. What this means is there is a relatively narrow region on Iran’s coast where they could position these launchers to hit targets passing through the narrowest part of the Straits of Hormuz or to hit targets in Kuwait itself.
You’re going to have large ordinance flying in that direction anytime a missile is launched, and because the flight time of the Silkworm is very short and the range of all parties involved is very short, then a big barrage of missiles fired back at that general area has a decent likelihood of causing serious problems. Additionally, once air superiority is attained you would see a constant air presence over that thin strip of land on Iran’s coast that puts them at the range they need to be at. That will become a “zone of death” in which any sort of military vehicle whether it be a Silkworm launcher or a truck is going to be at risk of being destroyed.
It’s a lot easier to utilize air superiority against places where you know the enemy must be, than it is to hunt over a vast desert. That’s essentially how we affected the Libyan civil war, we knew where the major rebel centers were so there were only so many places that Qaddafi’s forces would be attacking, we kept constant patrols over these areas and the moment we saw lots of vehicles coming in aggressively we would start blowing them up. That’s a far different scenario than the SCUD hunt during the Gulf War was, and that is more akin to the scenario facing the Iranian Silkworm launcher crews.
Well, there’s a another factor I hadn’t thought of before. The Iraqi’a were firing at large fixed targets, basically cities, and so could pop out any time, fire and scoot back into hiding. The Iranians will have to fire within pretty limited time windows, when the tankers are there. And the US will know what those times are (maybe even form convoys of the other countries go along with the idea) and have their forces amassed for their chosen (or known, at least) times.
I don’t know, though, that drones would help. Supposedly for a while the US had squadrons of attack aircraft orbiting around in the area looking for signs of Scud launches (and presumably also radar coverage for missile tracks), and they still couldn’t hit any.
The thing is, even the warplanes that were patrolling the region, information from satellites actually had to go to the United States, and the commanders in the U.S. would relay information back to commanders in the Gulf who would then relay a command to attack to a pilot in the patrol area. It was a very inefficient process.
When we invaded Iraq in 2003 we already had completely changed how we would respond to any potential SCUD launches so the whole process would be significantly streamlined. Further, we had some more advanced radar systems that were only in the experimental stages during the Gulf War.
And finally, the biggest advantage we’d have against Silkworms is time. Because of the travel distances involved SCUDs are inherently easier to flee with, with Iraqi crews able to be on the move some 6 minutes after launch of a missile (the Soviet manual says 30 minutes is how long it takes after launch to move again…the Iraqis weren’t following the manual.)
In the case of a potential Silkworm launch, you might literally have a U.S. warship with super-advanced radar systems detect the location of the launch, at most 40-60 miles away, perhaps only 25 miles away. Most likely before the Silkworm missile is even at its target, a U.S. missile will be launched at over 550 mph, with a travel time to target of less than 5 minutes. That’s a very abrupt response period in response to how we responded to detected SCUD launches.
Anyway, something the Silkworm and the SCUD have in common is they are more sound and fury than anything else. We all remember the hoopla over SCUDs, but Schwarzkopf was ultimately right about them - they were not militarily relevant. They ended up being politically important, SCUD hunting was in and of itself an act of politics to placate the Israelis. Silkworms were used in the 80s and they weren’t as highly effective as you would hope, many of them hit decoys or crashed into the water.
Modern American warships also have tons of point defense missile systems that aren’t speculative technology but genuine article, in addition to the ability to through up various countermeasures and things of that nature that can fool the simple radar system of a Silkworm (which again, will home into a decoy barge just as readily as it will a supertanker, it just detects radar signatures, it has no system in place to intelligently target.)
The biggest thing is, Silkworm launchers have to travel between point to point if they are to be truly mobile. And just as we did in Libya we’ll be wiping out any movements of military vehicles, especially when they are moving around a narrow operating corridor. A lot of them won’t be launchers but will just be fuel trucks or supply trucks, but it will make it very difficult to operate. It’s not going to be like a turkey shoot for people manning those Silkworm launchers.
Isn’t Iran even attempting to do such a thing cutting off their nose to spite their face? They need the Strait Of Hormuz as much as anybody else does…if they blockade it, not only can they not export their oil, they then cannot import the refined gasoline they need due to a lack of refining infrastructure…right?
This isn’t even to mention as others have that it would be a very bad idea militarily for Iran to attempt. Shit, we have the US Navy’s 5th fleet stationed in Bahrain, and undoubtedly have ships already patrolling in or near the Strait. A single US aircraft carrier can wreak so much havoc on coastal Iran that its almost unimaginable.
Well, considering that Iran wanted to park their fleet off the Eastern US Coast a few months ago, I consider this an improvement in their rhetoric machine. Reminds me of a defiant child looking for attention through threats and not thinking through the repercussions of that act/threat…or it’s just attention-whoring.
I guess this was the gist of my point. Some posts seem to suggest we would only have to knock out a few mine laying patrol boats to keep the straits open, and I’m saying it would have to be MUCH more than that.
I found a few fun facts about the straits. At their narrowest point, the shipping lanes are several miles wide, which makes shutting them by sinking ships very unlikely, maybe impossible. I found another source saying that about 15 tankers a day on average pass through the straits.
One somewhat troubling fact – According to that same link. the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline is soon to open, which will bypass the straits altogether. If the numbers on that page are correct, ALL the crude oil from the Gulf could be pipelined out, that is of all the states in the area participated.
The reason I say this is troubling is because Iran might decide to use its “cut off oil shipments for … a while” card before it loses it altogether when the pipeline becomes operational.
Right, I’ve already said the scenario is just flat out impossible. It may be fun to speculate on U.S. Navy versus 25 year old missile launchers and the ability of a third rate power to close a shipping lane in the face of overwhelming military superiority, but the truth is that’s just fun talk. This scenario will never play out.
Iran doesn’t need the Strait “as much as anybody else” they need it more than anybody else. Closing the Strait would hurt Iran’s economy more than that of any other country in the world. Incidentally only a very small portion of America’s oil even comes through the Strait, so it would only impact us in that it would raise oil prices. But since closing the Strait would mean Iran wouldn’t be able to move its own oil they would not be able to take advantage of the higher oil prices. It would be bad here in the U.S. only because it would increase prices, but we have mechanisms such as the strategic reserve which could mitigate it a little bit, and to be frank, every time we have a spike in oil prices it pushes American industry more and more to more efficiency, especially our automotive industry. Every time gas prices go up is another consumer in the United States who is going to be putting a lot of emphasis on buying a car that gets 40+ mpg next time they make a purchase. It also will push forward the rate at which you have fleet vehicles adopt CNG for fleet vehicles this is a realistic thing because you don’t need to replace the national refueling infrastructure, you just need a CNG filling station at the fleet headquarters. For city buses and taxis there’s no concern about not getting back to that location to refuel every day.
There threat is to cut off the straits if their own country is sanctioned, which last I heard involved stopping their oil trade anyway. So, if those sanctions happen, losing its own oil shipping routes won’t matter very much.
It would be more than sinking a few Iranian ships to keep the Straits “totally safe” but you don’t need to remove all threat to make the Straits navigable. People have been shipping stuff through dangerous passages since forever. We didn’t have to totally pacify Iranian Silkworm launchers in 1987 to keep oil flowing out of the Straits, we just had to start escorting ships. There were some losses, but business mostly still continued. (In fact in 1987 we didn’t even try to strike at Iranian launchers as we weren’t actively at war with them.)
Well, they’ve said in response to an “embargo” they would close the Straits of Hormuz. But even the United States is not threatening an embargo, we’re basically saying we’re going to pass a law that will penalize companies for doing business with Iran’s Central Bank. (In fact I don’t believe we’ve bought Iranian oil for some time, and have had an active trade embargo against them for years now.) By design, the Obama Administration’s expectation is that this means companies or entities that continue to buy Iranian oil will demand a discount from Iran–because buying that oil will cost their company money.
It is basically designed to force Iran to sell its oil at a discount versus market price.
An embargo would actually be a different matter, depending on which nations signed on, it would mean the price of oil would go up, but Iran would still be selling oil to whichever nations hadn’t signed on to the embargo. An embargo is not enforced physically, that is a blockade and is an outright declaration of war in most cases.
We have an embargo against Cuba, but since the rest of Earth still trades with Cuba, Cuba can still buy and sell things. If the EU and the U.S. agreed on an oil embargo against Iran, Iran would still be selling to China and Russia, and at a higher price than before because global oil prices would have gone up. Such an embargo thus would potentially mean more money for Iran. In theory, it’s possible it would result in such a loss in sales volume that the higher price per barrel wouldn’t make up for it.
But the U.S. sanctions aren’t designed as an outright embargo (in fact I believe America already has an embargo against Iran, I don’t think we’ve bought Iranian oil in some time, and we’ve been in various states of embargo against Iran for awhile now.)
But the recently proposed sanctions would essentially hurt Iran no matter who else signed on to them, because: