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

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381–390 of 1001 posts

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

#381

The title should change 'won't' to 'shouldn't'. This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction. The US Military could, at an unknown cost, just blast away. This article points out, rightfully, how scared we are to put our weapons in harms way because of how expensive they are. I made this argument many times to friends years ago. From a military strategic poi…

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

#382
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 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?

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

#383
Trying to protect the strait is a fools errand. Instead, you give them an ultimatum, like trump has done (twice now?). You don't just try to blow up the things that are attacking the strait, you blow up things that let the Iranians build and launch the stuff attacking the strait. Power plants, railroads, airports, highways, industrial sites, etc.

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

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US navies ships are good for real wars This is a real war.

Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way. The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can…

You need to define some kind of objective to be able to say whether or not you've performed well or not. Nobody doubts that USA can destroy a significant chunk of the planet, but to what end?

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh yeah, we can't do this to Russia because they have nukes Why would the US want to bomb an ally?

It's not an alliance - the Russians are supplying Iran with intelligence and material. It's just that Trump is Putin's biggest fan for some reason.

Ability to recognize sarcasm is missing

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

#387

In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldier…

I'm not sure it will last long once we see a few videos of drone kill of US soldiers on /r/dronecombat

Ukraine must defend itself against an authoritarian Russia where nobody can publicly complain about what's happening.

This is not the case in the US, unless they go full dictatorship.

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

#388

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.

Cheap drones are pretty useless against large naval vessels. Making a dent in those ships requires a heavy, specialized penetrating warheads. And even then you'll need to score several hits. Just the warhead alone on a standard anti-ship weapon weighs more than an entire Shahed-136 drone.

You could fly an FPV drone into the hangar and smash a plane full of ordinance if you get lucky.

Unfortunately warships have a lot of flammables and explosives aboard.

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

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US navies ships are good for real wars This is a real war.

Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way. The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can…

If I were on the JTF staff I would point out that those are measures of performance, but not measures of effectiveness. The proof of utility is achieving the mission. That is not to take away from the sailors, or military members in navy or any branch. I wouldn't want to be out there right now. They are doing hard things. But the things they are doing aren't achieving the commander's objectives. I will concede that our objectives in this campaign have been less than clear or well thought out, but there is a truth to the idea that we have built our military for a different war than this. million dollar tlams fed by decade old targeting information and all decisions centralized in a slow, unreactive and ultimately counterproductive joint targeting cycle won't win this.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the people criticizing the comment above, think of all the other illegal things trump is already doing. It's not a matter of "can't", it's a matter of if he will and who will stop him (nobody, so far)

I'm surprised he hasn't considered dropping The Bomb. No one will stop him, and it could actually garner a win.

He has openly talked about doing so
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