Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

responsiblestatecraft.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 1001 posts

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

#501

Post by onlypassingthru »

woeirua wrote: post #415
rustyhancock wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Look at who's buying the oil for the answer to your question.

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

#502

Post by yongjik »

flyinglizard wrote: post #494
Animats wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right re 80 million in Germany. After a bombing campaign, most of the people tend to hate whoever bombed them.

Was it true for Japan and Germany post WWII? Or between European nations after the same said war? On the other hand, until a couple of years ago, Iranians and Israeli never directly exchanged even a bullet between them and yet Iran was dedicated to the destruction of Israel, so YMMV.

The threat of Japanese people all waging guerrilla warfare was considered real enough that the US decided to keep the Japanese Emperor as figurehead (even though the US had enough power to sentence or even execute him for war crimes), just so that the Emperor could order his people to surrender and obey US forces.

Something the current US regime might have forgotten.

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

#503

Post by LarsDu88 »

Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

Don't forget the coastal geography. Iran's coastline in the Persian gulf is longer than California's coastline, and they can do drone attacks anywhere in the Gulf, not just the narrow strait portion that everyone seems to focus on.

Cuba allying with Iran is pure fantasy though. There's no logistical connection between the two nations. It would be as irrelevant as Greenland allying with Antarctica.

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

#504

Post by hax0ron3 »

oa335 wrote: post #412
jojobas wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic. Effective anti-ship missiles have been around for a long time. Given how understandably sensitive commercial ship crews and owners are to even slight danger, there's just no way to reduce the risk to the necessary near-zero without a prolonged air campaign and/or land invasion to support the naval effort.

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

#505

Post by aorloff »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #212
kashunstva wrote: post #10

Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dy…

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…

> It isn't like they have no experience with the concept and those drones are far more capable than anything Iran has.

Unless Iran bought some CM-302 missiles from China, the mere threat of which appears to mean that China and Iran now control the oil in the gulf.

But ELI5 me maybe I don't understand realpolitik

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

#506

Post by bryanrasmussen »

asa400 wrote: post #438
Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US. If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which an…

>If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.

I sort of think it maybe is an exaggeration, you're evidently of the opinion that the U.S happens to have enough battle ready troops with the requisite hardware positioned within a few hours of Cuba so that they can invade and flatten in the time it takes to fly from Miami to Havana?

I don't know, but a Destroyer would take about 10 hours to get from Florida to Cuba.

It seems your definition of invade and flatten is just dropping bombs, but that definitely does not handle the invade part of things, and it remains to be seen as to whether, with drones, being able to fly non-stop is the great technological advantage it once was.

Some preliminary evidence from around the world suggests in a drone led conflict it confers the ability to have expensive hardware destroyed and pilots killed non-stop.

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

#507

Post by JumpCrisscross »

angry_octet wrote: post #207
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does the Strait begin and end? Practically speaking, the Musandam Peninsula [1]. Open that to the sea and you make everyone except Iraq and Kuwait happy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musandam_Peninsula

Much further than that. At least 200nm using drone ISR to cue Shaheeds, 500nm with satellite ISR. (With a 90kg warhead.) There are also many fishing vessels in the region, originating from a number of countries (e.g. Oman, Iran, Pakistan) which can report sightings of VLCCs. Once you have sighted the ship it is an undergrad project to implement target classification and recognition using off the shelf algorithms. It…

Is a no-fishing-boat zone feasible? Like a no-fly zone? Or do you need a partner to pot innocent fishermen?

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

#508

Post by hax0ron3 »

originalvichy wrote: post #304
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 it was achieved by two nuclear armed countries openly amassing their assets in the region for months. Any conflict between peer non-nuclear nations would have probably began with the country in Iran’s position sinking those carriers. Thanks to US and Israeli nukes, they were free to start killing people without fear of getting surprised.

It is unlikely that Iran decided to not sink US carriers because of fear of nuclear retaliation. It is much more likely that before the air attack started, Iran's leadership preferred not to do anything that could make an attack more likely, such as attacking carriers. And after the invasion started, they would have loved to attack carriers but did not have the military capability to do so.

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

#509

Post by yanhangyhy »

IAmBroom wrote: post #210
cyanydeez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats. Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a s…

My theory is that China is playing wait-and-see. Likely futures: Russia survives; business as usual, if much poorer. China doesn't want to poison that relationship. Russia falls; China helpfully "adopts" the orphaned Asian lands. Iran falls; turmoil follows; the USA as usual (since WWII) has no plans for afterwards. Do nothing until opportunity presents itself. Iran survives; the US falters; wait and benefit from the…

not sure if anybody notices, after the war, russia opens a lot of markets to chinese companys.

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

#510

Post by avazhi »

I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.
Post reply on HN