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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

#641

Post by adrian_b »

sdsd wrote: post #402
jbm wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs, you get the "Oh we produce high value products, mostly military". Then you get posts like this. How is one to reconcile these ideas? Is Lockheed Martin the Ferrari of weapons?

The US is responsible for over 10% of world manufacturing, putting them in second place of all countries (after China). >When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs That percentage goes down every year due to reduced manufacturing but also jobs are lost to high-tech automation in manufacturing. But it's still a buttload.

The 10% in value does not account about the fraction of a final American product that consists of parts or raw materials imported from elsewhere.

Many of the best known American products, e.g. computers, are only assembled in USA from imported parts.

If the imports from certain countries would be completely interrupted, it is unknown how much of that US manufacturing would be able to continue.

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

#642

Post by lawgimenez »

bwv848 wrote: post #617
bradley13 wrote: post #570

Cheap airborne weapons have irreversibly changed warfare. IIRC a Patriot missile costs something like $4 million. Using them to shoot down $50k Shahed drone is a losing proposition. That's not only because of the price, but because the drones can be produced a lot faster. Even Iran's ballistic missiles are a lot cheaper and faster to produce than any defense system that can reliably destroy them.

Nobody is using Patriot to intercept Shaheds. PAC-2/3 are intended for ballistic missiles and fighter jets. In Ukraine, low-flying drones are primarily countered by FPV, MANPADS, drone-hunting aircraft and truck, and EW before point defense SAM and AA gun.

There are videos on r/combatfootage in the early weeks, patriot missiles shooting down drones.

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

#643

Post by ErroneousBosh »

citrin_ru wrote: post #552
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…

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war. > On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably…

> The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52.

Well, looking at the news, it turns out they can't because every time they've put something up it's ended in a horrific crash.

The US is militarily weak, and is utterly reliant on its NATO allies, who don't want to get involved in the current round of war crimes.

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

#644

Post by ErroneousBosh »

kakacik wrote: post #592
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…

> The US can't just pull out, either. Watch orange man pull that one out. There are no rules of behavior anymore, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, laws, treaties, morals, future and so on be damned, ego whims dominate the decision chain. Who is going to do anything. The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest. Also he and his clan are heavily gaining fr…

> The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest.

That's a funny way to spell "kompromat".

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

#645

Post by cultofmetatron »

Id personally like to know why we are expending our taxes waging war on behalf of a sociopathic nation who just passed a law to legalize the death penalty for those specifically not a part of their special ethnoreligeous group? They are literally celebrating by carrying around NOOSES.

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

#646

Post by 8bitchemistry »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #467
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…

You think the pentagon was like "shit, Iran is bigger than we thought"?

God created war so that Americans would learn geography. Like Trump's obsession with Greenland because he does not understand the Mercator projection...

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

#647

Post by dragonwriter »

rjzzleep wrote: post #614
asa400 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People way underestimate what kind of mental fortitude you have to have to fight an overwhelming enemy. That's not something a tourism oriented country like Cuba has. At least I massively doubt that. It lacks the ideology to fight such a war, since you have to be ready to die. That's why Yemen and Vietnam won, while Venezuela folded. This is also why US "culture" is so much more powerful as a weapon than the aircraft…

I don’t know if you are hiding a reasonable point underneath a misuse of the term “ideology”, but the idea that the fine differences between the Cuban and Vietnamese flavors of Marxist-Leninist ideology are critical differences on this point seems unconvincing without some argument clearly articulating the relevant ideological differences an how they produce the described divergence in capacity.

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

#648

Post by zimpenfish »

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…

> 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.

According to [0], in 2025 Iran had 86M people. Ukraine had 29M (~33%), Germany (highest in Europe) had 83M (~96%, uh?), Iraq had 46M (~53%), and Russia had 146M (~168% / ~59% reversed).

Wildly, wildly wrong about Germany but not too far off the rest[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

[1] Although if you include Turkey in "Europe", "more than any country in Europe" droops a little because Turkey's 86092168 (99.456%) is basically identical to Iran's 86563000 when it comes to projection and estimation errors.

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

#649

Post by meheleventyone »

rjzzleep wrote: post #614
asa400 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People way underestimate what kind of mental fortitude you have to have to fight an overwhelming enemy. That's not something a tourism oriented country like Cuba has. At least I massively doubt that. It lacks the ideology to fight such a war, since you have to be ready to die. That's why Yemen and Vietnam won, while Venezuela folded. This is also why US "culture" is so much more powerful as a weapon than the aircraft…

Russia pre-invasion of Ukraine probably said something very similar.

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

#650

Post by stein1946 »

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…

> it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon

But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything.

Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran? will be lost

And these are heavily embargoed 3rd world countries.

In the first days of the Israeli-US war in Iran (a country under decades of embargo by the way) the US, Israel and vassals lost 60+ planes (plus who knows what else they are not reporting.

Trump is not coming out of this, if he makes the grave mistake of sending troops to their demise this administration is done.

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