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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

#411

Post by green_wheel »

mayama wrote: post #392
jandrewrogers wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint. A cheap drone is only useful against soft targets. It is the reason Ukraine is scaling up heavy cruise missile production even though they already have vast numbers of cheap long-range drones. Being "cheap" isn't…

> An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint. Problem isn't a single drone, it's the cost of intercepters. Iran could launch a swarm of 100s of drones with few antiship missiles mixed in to hone in at same time. CSG has to spend $million+ interceptors and…

The cheap drones Iran makes get a GPS coordinate plugged into them and they fly there. Carriers rarely stay in the same place for long so they'd be effectively useless against them.

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

#412

Post by oa335 »

jojobas wrote: post #378
class3shock wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is a country like Iran can, in 2026, force the US Navy to keep an large stand off distance. How much further could a country like China keep the Navy back? What about in 10 years? Eventually you are beyond the range of being able to project force or risking losing billions invested in one asset to a $50k missile. That is where reality is heading.

Seems like USN can still do whatever it was made for from this large standoff distance, also seems like it wasn't made for chasing individual nondescript trucks in a hundreds-miles-long mountainous shoreline.

> USN can still do whatever it was made for

One of the primary functions of navies historically has been to secure vital shipping lanes. It’s a big deal that USN can’t seem to fulfill that function anymore.

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

#413

Post by defrost »

green_wheel wrote: post #411
mayama wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint. Problem isn't a single drone, it's the cost of intercepters. Iran could launch a swarm of 100s of drones with few antiship missiles mixed in to hone in at same time. CSG has to spend $million+ interceptors and…

The cheap drones Iran makes get a GPS coordinate plugged into them and they fly there. Carriers rarely stay in the same place for long so they'd be effectively useless against them.

The immediate counters and questions raised are:

* cost of adding encrypted mobile comms to receive target location update,

* turn about time on russian sat intell on carrier positions,

* observed carrier path patterns wrt drone flight times ( or fractions of flight time if mid air updates can occur )

* numbers and timings of drones that can be launched with alt coords to play predictive battleships with.

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

#414

Post by oa335 »

msabalau wrote: post #345
tim333 wrote: post #225

>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power co…

The Quincy Institute exists to push their "restraint/realpolitic" agenda, not to accurately describe reality.

> The Quincy Institute exists to push their "restraint/realpolitic" agenda

Every think tank exist to further their agenda… do you have a more substantive critique?

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

#415

Post by woeirua »

rustyhancock wrote: post #238
tim333 wrote: post #225

>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power co…

I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too). A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open. Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed…

This is delusional. Iran has thousands of ASM on the coastline. They need 1 to make it through to take out a tanker. Even the best anti missile systems we have aren’t 99.99% reliable. It was always a losing proposition. Iran has always been able to close the strait.

What I don’t get is why we need to take Kharg island. Can’t we just blockade ships selling Iranian oil?

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

#416

Post by dundarious »

tim333 wrote: post #225

>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power co…

> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership

Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.

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

#417

Post by oa335 »

coderenegade wrote: post #344
PunchyHamster wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. The country with 0.3% of global spending in military is putting a noticeable dent in assets of country that has 35% of global spending in military and are begging allies for help coz they can't even stop the dro…

The issues the US faces are political and humanitarian (and economic) rather than military. I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. And of course, once you open the strait, you have to keep it open. The whole thing is a lose-lo…

> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war

The US invaded Iraq and toppled its government; Iraqi militias are still firing drones and missiles at US bases. Tankers and oil infra are much softer targets… all it takes is hitting one or two tankers and folks will stop shipping.

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

#418

Post by voganmother42 »

boc wrote: post #318
sph wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number 1 reason why I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications. Even when discussing a war that's obviously gone out of hand with no easy resolution in right, there's still this air, this attitude from American commenters that somehow the might and brilliance of the US military will prevail in the en…

[flagged]

Right, like when they didn't refill the oil reserves, brilliant 4d chess.

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

#419

Post by woeirua »

This gives drones way too much credit. The USN knew that Iran could block the strait of Hormuz back in the 80s. Anti-ship missiles were already effective and plentiful enough to do it then and they’ve only gotten more lethal since. The long term solution here is to build pipelines that eliminate the need to sail up the strait. Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.

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

#420

Post by jojobas »

switchbak wrote: post #307
brokencode wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this conflict in Iran doesn’t really indicate that the aircraft carrier is any weaker now than it ever was. Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. More than any air defense could ever stop.

Carriers have been in question long before this conflict. There's been a big question as to how effective and/or survivable a carrier battle group will be in the South Pacific, especially given China's long range anti-ship missiles. There's been a whole ramp up of very exquisite technology to try to get the upper hand here, but I don't expect we'll see the carrier be the force it has been over the last few generation…

Long-range anti-ship missiles of old are also obsolete, they and their launch problems are also too expensive for their vulnerability. A salvo Shahed-style drones launched from expendable unmanned vessels would overload a carrier group air defences way cheaper than old school ASMs from frigates.
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