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Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

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Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#61

Post by pjc50 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
fooker wrote: post #6

At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale. High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude. It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.

> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.

> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America

I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#62

Post by giantg2 »

0x3f wrote: post #45
flohofwoe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would those "brightest minds" want to work for the current US government? Even if they did out of patriotism to the country, the Trump administration would have pushed them out by now and replaced with yes-men.

The pay levels seem more of an inherent problem than the political winds.

The people I know leaving that sector have been steadily leaving for years due to the day to day bullshit/internal politics and poor leadership that they have to put up with, not the pay nor current administration.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#63

Post by no_shadowban_5 »

smitty1e wrote: post #58
lpapez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied. Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are…

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Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#64

Post by arkensaw »

bluegatty wrote: post #22
i67vw3 wrote: post #2

Not every war can be fought from air, there needs to be soldiers on the ground. In fight against ISIS, the Iraqi amry, Shia Militias, Kurds and others were ground forces while Allies were in Air. In Afghanistan & Gulf War, US forces were on ground. But in these "conflict", no party is ready to send ground forces, ground forces to stop the air drones, ship drones etc. So the "blockade" will probably continue.

There is no party even capable of doing it. The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country, at the same time as there would be 'all out war' with Iran, which would be backed by China and to a lesser extent Russia, and whereupon an invasion would provide them with millions of determined fighters. We're talking 'Gulf War' scale of operat…

> The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country

If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles, or an area bigger than more than half the countries on earth, including North and South Korea,

Iran is the 18th largest country in the world

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

avianlyric wrote: post #52
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. A carrier that launches drones and fields an anti-drone strike group would be amazing. We don’t have that. (And even what we do have is great in the carrier department, it’s given us air parity to superiority from way offshore.)

If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more, given they obviously have a lot more space. The change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles. The cost of a “good enough” drone and missile is now so low that opponents of the US can simply build the thing faster than the US can buil…

> If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more

This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world.

> change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles

It's a return to battleship economics. Except instead of direct fire from and onto shores, you have indirect fire via drones. Unlike shells, however, we have anti-drone capabilities on the horizon.

It's silly to assume the current instability will persist for more than a few years. If the U.S. were paying any attention to Ukraine, it shouldn't have persisted until even now.

> the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised

Really not seeing the argument. Again, being able to build and launch and being able to field drones–alongside other weapons–is night and day. (Note that all of these arguments were made when missiles first dawned, too. Drones are, in many respects, a missile for area denial.)

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#66

Post by JumpCrisscross »

arkensaw wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the "blockade" will probably continue The part that makes the Strait weird is no belligerent wants it entirely closed. (Maybe Israel.) Iran wants to export. And America wants exports. So you get this weird stalemate where America doesn’t want to actually blockade Iran, while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.

> while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait. Uhm, why would America shut the strait?

> why would America shut the strait?

To deny Iran oil revenue.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#68

Post by jleyank »

The problem shown by Ukraine was that large, expensive solutions were not effective when cheap weapons were used. The solution, which will take time, is to recreate some of the cheap defensive solutions that used to be available - guns, radar-bearing weaponry, etc. these are quite boring to the high tech industry, who prefer things like lasers, rail guns, etc. but ww ii showed they worked, and I suspect the approach speed of drones is similar to kamikazes.

There are also fewer ships than in the 80’s, and everything costs too much. F-35’s vs. F16 birds, the gripen argument in Canada or Europe. How to get companies and staff to embrace low tech solutions in a rapid mapper.

Perhaps they can remember history and make planes that support ground operations rather than high tech birds. Having more, slower birds with cannons would help with drone warfare. Armour also helps.

And yeah, selling ads vs more interesting tech solutions was a cliche 10+ years ago.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#69

Post by pydry »

lpapez wrote: post #31
poulpy123 wrote: post #19

I'm always perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually

The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied. Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are…

The supporters of imperialism all about nonviolent protest and democratic principles if it seems feasible it could bring about US foreign policy goals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111067

Or, if an anonymous and uncorroborated source claims tens of thousands of said protestors were allegedly massacred.

If it doesn't, and the strategy now involves blowing up desalinization plants ( https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-threat-desalination-pl... ) and invoking a humanitarian crisis on the level of a nuclear catastrophe, well... then they're a bit less concerned about human rights.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#70

Post by no_shadowban_5 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #25
high_na_euv wrote: post #11

Brightest minds of US were too focused on displaying ads and making teenagers addicted to tik tokies-like stuff instead of working security, defense, etc You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda :) Inb4: im from eu

The brightest minds were systematically bullied out of position, called DEI hires or accused of random crimes. They might not have been the best, but lets not pretend we're sending our brightest minds herw.

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