Iran makes a huge show of blowing up 'US aircraft carrier' in explosive TV spectacle

[bananas]

Source: Daily Mail



Iranian officials had more than a dozen speedboats attack a replica of a US aircraft carrier today and featured the large-scale naval drill on a state TV broadcast.

The nationally-televised show of force by the country's elite Revolutionary Guard occurred near the strategically vital entrance of the Persian Gulf.

The 'Great Prophet 9' drill was held near the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil passes.

<snip>

But by simulating for the first time an attack on the ultimate symbol of American naval power, hard-liners hoped to send a message that Iran has no intention of backing down to the US - whichever way talks over its contested nuclear program go.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2968108/Irans-Guard-begins-military-exercises-near-key-strait.html

[Archae]

1. Well, that cleaned out the plywood budget...

[jberryhill]

5. Gentlemen, we cannot allow a plywood gap

[FLPanhandle]

26. LOL.

Thanks for the morning laugh!

[winstars]

34. Here ya go:

[Baclava]

14. they didn't have enough for the models of the other ships that are in a carrier battle group either

they don't float out there alone

[bananas]

2. Military officials could be heard shouting "praise the lord" each time the replica was hit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/world/middleeast/in-mock-attack-iranian-navy-blasts-away-at-replica-us-aircraft-carrier.html?_r=0

Iran’s Navy Blasts Away at a Mock U.S. Carrier

By THOMAS ERDBRINKFEB. 25, 2015

<snip>

“A unique power has been created, and we do not like to put it into practice,” Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the highest commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, told the local news media. “But if, God forbid, such a day comes, Iran’s navy will have the complete control over the Sea of Oman, the Hormuz Strait and the Persian Gulf.”

The simulation, called Great Prophet 9, was the centerpiece of an exercise by the naval branch of the Revolutionary Guards, and it was carried out in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which more than 20 percent of the world’s oil passes.

State television showed images of missiles striking a “ship” resembling a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, similar to the ones permanently patrolling the blue waters of the Persian Gulf. Enveloped in smoke, the ersatz warship was swarmed by dozens of Iranian speedboats, as a presenter described the types of missiles, torpedoes and rockets blowing holes in its sides.

Military officials could be heard shouting “praise the lord” each time the replica was hit.

<snip>

[bananas]

3. Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Guardians_of_the_Islamic_Revolution

Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution

The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی ‎ / Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enqelāb-e Eslāmi, or Sepāh for short), often called Revolutionary Guards, is a branch of Iran's military, founded after the Iranian revolution on 5 May 1979.[2] Whereas the regular military (artesh) defends Iran's borders and maintains internal order, according to the Iranian constitution, the Revolutionary Guard (pasdaran) is intended to protect the country's Islamic system.[3] The Revolutionary Guards state that their role in protecting the Islamic system is preventing foreign interference as well as coups by the military or "deviant movements".[4][5]

The Revolutionary Guards have roughly 125,000 military personnel including ground, aerospace and naval forces. Its naval forces are now the primary forces tasked with operational control of the Persian Gulf.[6] It also controls the paramilitary Basij militia which has about 90,000 active personnel.[7] In recent years it has developed into a "multibillion-dollar business empire,"[8] and is reportedly the "third-wealthiest organization in Iran" after the National Iranian Oil Company and the Imam Reza Endowment.[9]

Since its origin as an ideologically driven militia, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its expanded social, political, military, and economic role under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration—especially during the 2009 presidential election and post-election suppression of protest—has led many analysts to argue that its political power has surpassed even that of the Shia clerical system.[8][10][11][12]

The media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is Sepah News.[13] The Chief Commander of the Guardians is Mohammad Ali Jafari, who was preceded by Yahya Rahim Safavi.

<snip>

Most foreign governments and the English-speaking mass media tend to use the term Iranian Revolutionary Guards ("IRG&quot or simply the Revolutionary Guards.[14] In the US media, the force is frequently referred to as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ("IRGC&quot ,[15][16][17] although this force is rarely described as a "corps" by non-US media.

<snip>

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Missed opportunity for the Seabees to sneak in the night before and install a real CIWS

[ReRe]

4. If only all wars...

...could be fought like this: blowing up plywood replicas.

[Brother Buzz]

6. Shades of Lieutenant General Van Riper and Millennium Challenge 2002

But I suspect these boys are not ready for prime time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

[Change has come]

7. Should I be frightened?

[JHB]

10. Only if you're a plywood facade

[Richard D]

8. To paraphrase Bruce Lee

Replicas don't hit back.

[penndragon69]

11. Poor plywood

it didn't even have a chance to defend itself. I hope they
enjoy their stunt because the real world would have turned
out quit different....FOR THEM !

But what do we expect from ANY religious extremists ?

[stone space]

28. We expect them to die.

But what do we expect from ANY religious extremists ?

But, you are correct, here:

the real world would have turned
out quit different....FOR THEM !

In the real world, this is what happened.

[Telcontar]

44. Take out a carrier, be lucky if you're not nuked

And what does the shock photos you have posted to do with anything?

[stone space]

47. Taken out by a carrier.

Take out a carrier,

The passengers of Iranian Air Flight 655, which was taken out by the USS Vincennes.

be lucky if you're not nuked

So you support nuclear genocide?

[Telcontar]

50. What a sad, uninformed post

No point in discussing any further with one completely ignorant of military matters.

[stone space]

51. Is it a difficult question?

Personally, I'm opposed to nuclear genocide.

You brought up the topic.

I was just wondering what your opinion on the topic was, that's all.

I gave you mine.

[Telcontar]

53. My opinion is nuclear weapons dont equate with genocide

I think Germany did genocide pretty good with early 20C technology. Didn't need nukes at all. Hell, Rwanda did it with machetes.

[stone space]

54. And we did it in Japan. (nt)

[Telcontar]

55. We did? When? Do the history books know about this?

I, for one, have never hears about any genocide of Japan. In fact, I was there last year. Pretty sure the folks I met (granted a limited sample) were Japanese.

[JackRiddler]

60. The "shock photos" show which direction the actual violence has gone in.

Morally, the Iranian fake blow-up is no different from any other military exercise.

[Telcontar]

65. If so, then a few pics are missing

Where are all the pictures of victems of Iranian sponsored terrorism?

No one said Iran couldn't xonduct military exercises, no matter how futile or silly they may be.

[JackRiddler]

68. When did Iran strike against the U.S.?

Do make sure to tell the whole story, starting from the 1950s.

[Telcontar]

71. 1978

If you know the history from 1950s, quit feigning ignorance and faux outrage.

[BeyondGeography]

12. Looks like their own version of 50 Shades of Gray

[Hissyspit]

13. Sure, make fun of this, but no civilians on board, unlike the Iranians we blew to smithereens

in 1988. I still remember the cheers of the U.S. crew, before they realized that they had fucked up, when they shot down the Iranian civilian airliner with 66 children on board. Of course, they shouldn't have been cheering regardless.

Then the U.S. government refused to apologize (although they did make compensation through the international courts).

As pathetic as this spectacle is, they apparently didn't kill anyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes.

All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died.[1] This event ranks eighth among the deadliest disasters in aviation history, 11th if including the 9/11 attacks, which include ground casualties; the incident retains the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Persian Gulf. The cruiser Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.[2][3]

According to the Iranian government, Vincennes negligently shot down the civilian aircraft: the airliner was making IFF squawks in Mode III (not Mode II used by Iranian military planes), a signal that identified it as a civilian craft (although all military aircraft IFF transponders are capable of generating Mode III replies as well).[4][5]

According to the United States government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14A Tomcat fighter, a plane made in the United States and operated at that time by only two forces worldwide, the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. While the Iranian F-14s had been supplied by manufacturer Grumman in an air-to-air configuration only in the 1970s,[6][7] the crew of Vincennes had been briefed when entering the region that the Iranian F-14s had an iron bomb capability as well as Maverick missile and unguided rockets for air-to-surface.[8] The 53 page Pentagon report issued almost two months after the incident, while not directly stating the point, found that almost all of the immediate details given of the shooting-down were erroneous, yet absolved the officers and crew.[9]

According to Noam Chomsky and others,[9][10] compared to the reaction generated by the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, the incident triggered little reaction from Western mainstream media at the time.[11] The event generated a great deal of criticism of the United States amongst those who were able to learn of it. Some analysts blamed the captain of Vincennes, who had entered Iran's waters, for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.[12][13]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/16/the-forgotten-story-of-iran-air-flight-655/

WorldViews
The forgotten story of Iran Air Flight 655

By Max Fisher October 16, 2013


If you walked into any high school classroom in the United States and asked the students to describe their country's relationship with Iran, you'd probably hear words like "enemy" and "threat," maybe "distrust" and "nuclear." But ask them what the number 655 has to do with it, and you'd be met with silence.

Try the same thing in an Iranian classroom, asking about the United States, and you'd probably hear some of the same words. Mention the number 655, though, it's a safe bet that at least a few of the students would immediately know what you were talking about.

The number, 655, is a flight number: Iran Air 655. If you've never heard of it, you're far from alone. But you should know the story if you want to better understand why the United States and Iran so badly distrust one another and why it will be so difficult to strike a nuclear deal, as they're attempting to do at a summit in Switzerland this week.

The story of Iran Air 655 begins, like so much of the U.S.-Iran struggle, with the 1979 Islamic revolution. When Iraq invaded Iran the following year, the United States supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein against the two countries' mutual Iranian enemy. The war dragged on for eight awful years, claiming perhaps a million lives.

Toward the end of the war, on July 3, 1988, a U.S. Navy ship called the Vincennes was exchanging fire with small Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. Navy kept ships there, and still does, to protect oil trade routes. As the American and Iranian ships skirmished, Iran Air Flight 655 took off from nearby Bandar Abbas International Airport, bound for Dubai. The airport was used by both civilian and military aircraft. The Vincennes mistook the lumbering Airbus A300 civilian airliner for a much smaller and faster F-14 fighter jet, perhaps in the heat of battle or perhaps because the flight allegedly did not identify itself. It fired two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board.

The horrible incident brought Tehran closer to ending the war, but its effects have lingered much longer than that. "The shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655 was an accident, but that is not how it was seen in Tehran," former CIA analyst and current Brookings scholar Kenneth Pollack wrote in his 2004 history of U.S.-Iran enmity, "The Persian Puzzle." "The Iranian government assumed that the attack had been purposeful. ... Tehran convinced itself that Washington was trying to signal that the United States had decided to openly enter the war on Iraq's side."

That belief, along with Iraq's increased use of chemical weapons against Iran, led Tehran to accept a United Nations cease-fire two months later. But it also helped cement a view in Iran, still common among hard-liners in the government, that the United States is absolutely committed to the destruction of the Islamic Republic and will stop at almost nothing to accomplish this. It is, as Time's Michael Crowley points out in an important piece, one of several reasons that Iran has a hard time believing it can trust the United States to ever stop short of its complete destruction.

[7962]

16. None of which has anything to do with THIS story.

[Octafish]

18. The reason for the Iranians' hatred for USA is nowhere to be found in this story, either.

So, here:

BFEE Overthrew Iranian Democracy for BP

Seeing the hatred for people still angry about having their democracy destroyed for Big Oil's profits is puzzling, seeing how this is Democratic Underground.

[7962]

49. So democracy is what they have now?

Many Iranians long for the days of the Shah. Compared to the current regime, the SAVAK was the Salvation Army. Iran is really no different from Iraq; neither of them can handle being able to truly govern themselves. Is Iraq better off with Saddam gone? Is the Middle East or the world? The Shah kept the country under control, regardless of how he got there. Yes, the statement is a bit arrogant, but oh well. Here's a story from PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/08/dispatch-a-surprising-rehabilitation-the-shah-in-the-eyes-of-young-iranians.html

[Octafish]

56. Great point. ''Compared to the current regime, the SAVAK was the Salvation Army.''

And the Shah did a great job advancing democracy and sharing his Swiss bank account with everybody who asked ever after.

1973 | Tehran

A Dictator’s Folly

The decline and fall of the last Shah.

CONTRIBUTOR: Ryszard Kapuściński
Lapham's Quarterly

Tehran on December 23: the shah, surrounded by a bank of microphones, is giving a speech in a hall crowded with journalists. On this occasion Mohammad Reza, usually marked by a careful, studied reticence, cannot hide his emotion, his excitement, even—as the reporters note—his feverishness. In fact, the moment is important and fraught with consequences for the whole world: the shah is announcing a new price for oil. The price has quadrupled in less than two months, and Iran, which used to earn five billion dollars a year from its petroleum exports, will now be bringing in twenty billion. What’s more, control of this great pile of money will belong to the shah alone. In his autocratic kingdom he can use it however he likes. He can throw it into the sea, spend it on ice cream, or lock it up in a golden safe. No wonder he looks so excited—how would any of us behave if we suddenly found twenty billion dollars in our pockets and knew, additionally, there would be twenty billion more each and every year, and eventually even greater sums? No wonder the shah acted as he did, which was to lose his head. Instead of assembling his family, loyal generals, and trusted advisers to think over together the most reasonable way of using such a fortune, the ruler—who claims to have suddenly been blessed with a shining vision—announces to one and all that within a generation he will make Iran (which is a backward, disorganized, half-illiterate, barefoot country) into the fifth-greatest power on earth. At the same time the monarch awakens high hopes among his people with the attractive slogan “Prosperity for All.” Initially, with everyone aware that the shah is in the really big money, these hopes do not seem completely vain.

From Shah of Shahs. Mohammad Reza became the shah of Iran at the age of twenty-two in 1941. He fled the country in 1953 following the rise to power of the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and the Tudeh Party; within days, in a U.S.-backed regime change, the shah was restored. Amid growing unrest in the 1970s, the shah fled the country again in January 1979, and the new Islamic Republic was declared in April. Polish-born journalist Kapuściński published The Emperor in 1978 and The Shadow of the Sun in 2001.

A few days after the press conference, the monarch grants an interview to Der Spiegel and says, “In ten years we will have the same living standard that you Germans, French, and English have now.”

“Do you think, sir,” the correspondent asks incredulously, “you will be really able to accomplish this within ten years?”

“Yes, of course.”

But, says the astonished journalist, the West needed many generations to achieve its present standard of living. Will you be able to skip all that?

Of course.

I think of this interview now, when Mohammad Reza is no longer in the country and, surrounded by half-naked shivering children, I am wading through mud and dung among the squalid clay huts of a little village outside Shiraz. In front of one of the huts a woman is forming cow patties into circular cakes that, once dried, will serve (in this country of oil and gas!) as the only fuel for her home. Well, walking through this sad medieval village and remembering that interview of a few years back, the most banal of reflections comes into my head: not even the greatest nonsense is beyond the reach of human invention.

For the time being, however, the autocrat locks himself in his palace and begins issuing the hundreds of decisions that convulse his homeland and lead to his overthrow five years later. He orders investment doubled, begins the great importing of technology, and creates the third-most-advanced army in the world. He commands that the most up-to-date equipment be ordered, installed, and put in use. Modern machines produce modern merchandise, and Iran is going to swamp the world with its superior output. He decides to build atomic-power plants, electronics factories, steel mills, and great industrial complexes. Then, since there is a delicious winter in Europe, he leaves to ski in St. Moritz. But his charming, elegant residence in St. Moritz suddenly stops being a quiet hideaway and retreat, because word of the new El Dorado has spread around the world by this time and excited the power centers, where everyone immediately has begun calculating the amounts of money to be plucked in Iran. The premiers and ministers of otherwise respectable and affluent governments from serious, respected countries have begun to line up outside the shah’s Swiss domicile. The ruler sat in an armchair, warming his hands at the fireplace and listening to a deluge of propositions, offers, and declarations. Now the whole world was at his feet. Before him were bowed heads, inclined necks, and outstretched hands. “Now look,” he’d tell the premiers and ministers, “you don’t know how to govern, and that’s why you don’t have any money.” He lectured London and Rome, advised Paris, scolded Madrid. The world heard him out meekly and swallowed even the bitterest admonitions because it couldn’t take its eyes off the gold pyramid piling up in the Iranian desert. Ambassadors in Tehran went crazy under the barrage of telegrams that their ministers turned on them, all dealing with money: How much can the shah give us? When and on what conditions? You say he won’t? Then insist, Your Excellency! We offer guaranteed service and will ensure favorable publicity! Instead of elegance and seriousness, pushing and shoving without end, feverish glances and sweaty hands filled the waiting rooms of even the most petty Iranian ministers. People crowding each other, pulling at each other’s sleeves, shouting, Get in line, wait your turn! These are the presidents of multinational corporations, directors of great conglomerates, representatives of famous companies, and finally the delegates of more or less respectable governments. One after another they are proposing, offering, pushing this or that factory for airplanes, cars, televisions, watches. And besides these notable and—under normal circumstances—distinguished lords of world capital and industry, the country is being flooded with smaller-fry, penny-ante speculators and crooks, specialists in gold, gems, discotheques, strip joints, opium, bars, razor cuts, and surfing. These operators are scrambling to get into Iran, and they are unimpressed when, in some European airport, hooded students try to hand them pamphlets saying that people are dying of torture in their homeland, that no one knows whether the victims carried off by the Savak are dead or alive. Who cares, when the pickings are good and when, furthermore, everything is happening under the shah’s exulted slogan about building a great civilization? In the meantime, Mohammad Reza has returned from his winter vacation, well-rested and satisfied. Everyone is praising him at last; the whole world is writing about him as an exemplar, puffing up his splendid qualities, constantly pointing out that everywhere, wherever you turn, there are so many foul-ups and cheats, whereas, in his land—not a one.

Unfortunately, the monarch’s satisfaction is not to last long. Development is a treacherous river, as everyone who plunges into its currents knows. On the surface the water flows smoothly and quickly, but if the captain makes one careless or thoughtless move he finds out how many whirlpools and wide shoals the river contains. As the ship comes upon more and more of these hazards, the captain’s brow gets more and more furrowed. He keeps singing and whistling to keep his spirits up. The ship looks as if it is still traveling forward, yet it is stuck in one place. The prow has settled on a sandbar. All this, however, happens later. In the meantime, the shah is making purchases costing billions, and ships full of merchandise are steaming toward Iran from all the continents. But when they reach the Gulf, it turns out that the small obsolete ports are unable to handle such a mass of cargo (the shah hadn’t realized this). Several hundred ships line up at sea and stay there for up to six months, for which delay Iran pays the shipping companies a billion dollars annually. Somehow the ships are gradually unloaded, but then it turns out that there are no warehouses (the shah hadn’t realized). In the open air, in the desert, in nightmarish tropical heat, lie millions of tons of all sorts of cargo. Half of it, consisting of perishable foodstuffs and chemicals, ends up being thrown away. The remaining cargo now has to be transported into the depths of the country, and at this moment it turns out that there is no transport (the shah hadn’t realized). Or rather, there are a few trucks and trailers, but only a crumb in comparison to the need. Two thousand tractor-trailers are thus ordered from Europe, but then it turns out there are no drivers (the shah hadn’t realized). After much consultation, an airliner flies off to bring South Korean truckers from Seoul. Now the tractor-trailers start rolling and begin to transport the cargo, but once the truck drivers pick up a few words of Farsi, they discover they’re making only half as much as native truckers. Outraged, they abandon their rigs and return to Korea. The trucks, unused to this day, still sit, covered with sand, along the Bander Abbas–Tehran highway. With time and the help of foreign freight companies, however, the factories and machines purchased abroad finally reach their appointed destinations. Then comes the time to assemble them. But it turns out that Iran has no engineers or technicians (the shah hadn’t realized). From a logical point of view, anyone who sets out to create a great civilization ought to begin with people, with training cadres of experts in order to form a native intelligentsia. But it was precisely that kind of thinking that was unacceptable. Open new universities and polytechnics, every one a hornets’ nest, every student a rebel, a good-for-nothing, a freethinker? Is it any wonder the shah didn’t want to braid the whip that would flay his own skin? The monarch had a better way—he kept the majority of his students far from home. From this point of view the country was unique. More than 100,000 young Iranians were studying in Europe and America. This policy cost much more than it would have taken to create national universities. But it guaranteed the regime a degree of calm and security. The majority of these young people never returned. Today more Iranian doctors practice in San Francisco or Hamburg than in Tabriz or Mashhad. They did not return even for the generous salaries the shah offered. They feared Savak and didn’t want to go back to kissing anyone’s shoes. An Iranian at home could not read the books of the country’s best writers (because they came out only abroad), could not see the films of its outstanding directors (because they were not allowed to be shown in Iran), could not listen to the voices of its intellectuals (because they were condemned to silence). A dictatorship that destroys the intelligentsia and culture leaves behind itself an empty, sour field on which the tree of thought won’t grow quickly. It is not always the best people who emerge from hiding, from the corners and cracks of that farmed-out field, but often those who have proven themselves strongest, not always those who will create new values but rather those whose thick skin and internal resilience have ensured their survival. In such circumstances history begins to turn in a tragic, vicious circle from which it can sometimes take a whole epoch to break free.

© 1982 by Ryszard Kapuściński. English translation copyright © 1985 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Used with permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

CONTINUED...

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/politics/dictators-folly

...not even the greatest nonsense is beyond the reach of human invention...

[7962]

58. We could learn a bit from that. We dont encourage people to go into the trades anymore

This is the first generation of kids growing up not having any idea how to use a tool. As your article shows, you can have a lot of stuff, but if you've got no one who knows how to operate or fix the stuff, you really have nothing!

[bananas]

32. Historical context is always relevant. nt

[Adrahil]

19. A Navy ship captain fucked up.

Therefore celebrate ridiculous fake attack on a fake carrier? WTF? More the Hair-short politics Brigade.


Sorry... no matter side you're on, this propaganda video is pure comedy GOLD. Can;t wait to see what Jon Stewart does with it!

[Hissyspit]

37. I didn't say that that was a reason to celebrate.

And there have been plenty of Daily Show sketches that miss the mark.

The Iranian TV show is pathetic. Some things are just not that funny, though.

[JackRiddler]

62. It's not an "attack" of any kind.

It's a minor and ineffective military exercise played for nationalist propaganda and picked up by Western media as though it matters.

U.S. (and other) big militaries game-plan nuclear war, no one gets offended by that, although it's much worse.

[JackRiddler]

63. Also, "a Navy ship captain fucked up" explains nothing.

It's a lot bigger than that. First a situation had to be created in which it could make any sense that U.S. military warships should be dispatched to the other side of the world, where they treat a crowded area as though every plane taking off is a potential threat. Then, on top of that, said warships actually invaded Iranian territorial waters. Only then did this particular "fuck-up" become possible.

Three years after the incident, Admiral William J. Crowe admitted on American television show Nightline that Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles.[20] This contradicted earlier Navy statements. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) report of December 1988 placed the USS Vincennes (CG-49) well inside Iran's territorial waters.[35] Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of USS Sides, the warship stationed nearest to Vincennes at the time of the incident, is reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers's aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago".[36]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[dembotoz]

15. needs work to achieve production values of "amurican sniper"

[hunter]

25. Yep.

Our propaganda machines are much more sophisticated than theirs.

Should we be proud of that?

[ronnie624]

31. Absolutely!

And our ability to destroy things and cause mayhem in other countries is second to none.

[Telcontar]

45. We are the Empire

Embrace it or rage against it, but accept the fact.

Plywood doesn't stand a chance with us.

[ronnie624]

59. My post didn't indicate

an unwillingness to accept US military supremacy in the world as a matter of fact. It's been a given since the second world war.

[blackspade]

17. Pointless propaganda.

They would never get that close to a carrier. They don't travel alone.

[GOLGO 13]

20. LOL @t anyone who takes the Iranian military seriously

As was stated earlier, this is just precious comedy gold. Attack an aircraft carrier group with speed boats? Oh my! So remind me whom did the dreaded Iranian Navy ever defeat in battle and how many engagements have they been in?

I can't seem to remember.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

24. Those 12 speedboats wouldn't get very close before being blown to paradise.

[happyslug]

39. The Persian Gulf is tiny, boats can get close enough by justing be in the Gulf

The Iranian Island of Qeshm is only 56 km (35 mi) from the United Arab Emirates on the South Bank of the Persian Gulf. Maximum depth of 90 meters and an average depth of 50 meters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qeshm

Iran has the most small islands in the Gulf:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Persian_Gulf

The gulf itself is generally less then 120 miles from shore to shore, through in one spot is it over 200 miles from shore to shore. The problem is from an attacking speed boat point of view if the attacks occurs in the Straits of Hormuz, they generally only have to travel 15-20 miles. In that 15-20 miles the US force has to detect the Speed boats and then determine if they are peaceful or hostile and take action. Given that the Population on BOTH Sides of the Persian Gulf is Shiite and thus tend to support Iran (The Governments are Sunni and support Saudi Arabia and the US, but the people is a different story), it is possible for those gun boats to attack from BOTH sides of the Gulf.

On top of this is the Gulf is rich in fishing and transporting other goods. Thus you have a lot of Dhows sailing up and down both coasts and between both coasts all the time. Each dhow could be carrying a missile. Do you blast all of them? and get everyone in the Gulf mad at you, or do you just keep them away from the US Ships, but in a way they can still do the fishing and trading they have always done?

In one war game before the Invasion of Iraq, the Generals in Charge of "Defending" Iraq in that war, just armed dhols and sailed them all around the gulf. They armed hundreds of the Dhows, and sent other that were unarmed just to further confused the Carriers and their escorts and it so confused the Carriers and their Escorts that when the attack came, we "lost" all four Carriers in that war game.

That war game was one of reasons the US did all it could to keep Iran Neutral in that conflict. Iraq could not actually do such a maneuver (and Saddam Hussein did not have the support of the Shiite Fishermen of Southern Iraq to pull off such a maneuver himself). Iran and they close ally, post invasion Iraq. can do such an maneuver.

Thus the better plan for the US would be to keep the Carriers out in the Arabian Sea, till the US can secure the Persian Gulf and only then sent the Carriers into the Gulf. Tehran may be out of reach of US Carrier launched planes, but most of the Persian Gulf would NOT be. The could sent in the Gator Navy and see what the Iranians do. THE Gator Navy can then secure the southern coast of Iran (Launching some marines here and there, with air strikes from the Carriers on hiding spots for speed boats ad dhols.

In the Persian Gulf, if the Carrier and its escorts come under a combined Air, Land lunched missiles, speed boat launched missile and Dhow launched missiles, we could lose the whole fleet.

Now the real question can the Iranian do such an multifunctional attack? I do not know.

In 2005 the US Navy decided to sink the USS America while testing missiles and other methods to sink a Carrier. How those tests went would be a better idea then this sinking. Hopefully no one sold the results to the Russians (Who then turned them over to China and Iran). I bring it up for if the Iranians duplicated what the US did to the USS America it would be interesting. All ships can be sunk, the real issue is how much punishment and of what type would sink one.

Sinking of the USS America (NO jokes about the US Navy sinking America):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_America_%28CV-66%29

[Baclava]

42. they are working on it - 'Navy Moves More Patrol Craft to 5th Fleet'

The U.S. Navy has sent two additional Cyclone-class patrol craft (PC) to U.S. 5th Fleet to increase U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf, U.S. Fleet Forces announced late Wednesday.

USS Hurricane (PC-3) and USS Monsoon (PC-4) left Naval Station Norfolk, Va. on Wednesday to join eight other PCs already stationed in Bahrain later this summer, a Fleet Forces spokesperson told USNI News on Thursday. The ten ships will operate as far afield as the Gulf of Oman.

“The primary mission of these ships is coastal patrol and interdiction surveillance, an important aspect of littoral operations outlined in the Navy’s maritime strategy,” according to the Wednesday statement from Fleet Forces.

In December, the Navy conducted a series of tests of the 33-pound missile, with a range of about 3.5 miles, onboard Monsoon.

http://news.usni.org/2014/07/10/navy-moves-patrol-craft-5th-fleet


LCS Defends Against Swarm Boats in Live Fire Tests



The U.S. Navy’s third Littoral Combat Ship fired its 57mm and 30mm guns against mock enemy targets while moving quickly through the water and coordinating with an MH-60R helicopter during its recent live-fire test of the surface warfare mission package aboard the USS Fort Worth, service officials said.

The live-fire exercise aboard LCS 3, which took place at Point Mugu Range, Calif., was designed to place the ship’s surface warfare weapons in a combat-like scenario in order to assess its ability to defend the ship from fast-moving small boats, said Capt. John Ailes, an official with Program Executive Office, Littoral Combat Ships.

“We demonstrated in day and night environments that the optical sights would slew to the target, hit the target, and destroy things despite the high speeds of maneuvering small boats. From a fire control standpoint, this showed that you have an end to end capability and can bring ordnance on targets,” Ailes told Military​.com in an interview.


Read more: http://defensetech.org/2013/11/12/lcs-defends-against-swarm-boats-in-live-fire-tests/#ixzz3StGUJMXY
Defense.org

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

46. Thanks, slug, that was very infomative!

[tabasco]

57. I'm sure the Iranian people laughed their asses off, too

They're no dummies.

[damyank913]

72. Nobody gets close to an aircraft carrier in modern warfare.

Between her ability to defend herself and the ability of her escort ships to defend her, it's almost impossible-especially, to sink her. I don't care if you bring on all the dhows, rowboats, speedboats, Toyota pick-up trucks-WHATEVER! It is only restraint by the US Navy that allows anyone close. They've been keeping waterways open (and shutting them down) for a long time. Nothing new here for the Navy.

[happyslug]

74. Thus the carriers stay out of the gulf

The Persian position to narrow and to busy for Carriers to stay that far from other ships if the carriers stay in the Gulf. It takes a lot of ocean to turn carrier around at full speed thus in the gulf Carriers never come close to their top speed. Furthermore you have wake problems i.e. the wake of the Carrier and the ships around the Carrier all have to kept their wakes down low so not to swamp the numerous small boats that operate in the Gulf. You can not keep those small boats out of Gulf except by sinking them and if you sink all of them you just declared war on all of them including Saudi Arabia.

In the Arabian Sea avoiding other ships is NOT a problem, you have the space to do so. Most of the advantages of a Carrier disappear in a high volume of traffic narrow corridor that is the Persian Gulf. No one is planning to attack a Carrier in the open ocean, but in someplace like the Persian Gulf that's a whole different battle situation.

General Van Riper in a US Navy exercise did sink a Carrier and the ships Around it Thus the position it is clear Carriers can be sunk in the Persian Gulf. In such narrow confinements Carriers have been considered nothing more then missile magnets since the 1960s. In the open ocean the Carriers are supreme bu you take the open ocean away all of the advantages of the carriers goes with the lost of being able to maneuver. That is the situation with the Persian Gulf.

[damyank913]

76. I do remember this. It was called Millennium something or other.

This wasn't just a Navy thing. It was a multi-service operation designed to test the ability of the various services to coordinate such an attack. I think there were amphibious operations as well. Because of the Bush administration's hubris, I believe it was more a show of force to all of the governments of the region.
Van Riper was in command of the opposing force. He violated the script in a supposedly unscripted war game. It was supposed to be a show of force that became very expensive. Although I applaud what Van Riper did because Rumsfeld and the boys came out smelling like shit; I don't think this is an accurate representation of the Navy's skill set on the water.
The Navy has carriers entering the area all of the time. For obvious reasons the most vulnerable spots are the Straights of Hormuz. The biggest threat are mines. Iran, which occupies one coast of the straights has not shut it down because of the Navy.

[cpwm17]

52. I consider it a good thing that they don't start wars

or waste huge amounts of money on their military. Perhaps you don't and you find it appropriate to belittle weaker nations.

I suppose you prefer aggressive wars?:

Shock and Awe

[ronnie624]

61. Many US citizens, in their propaganda induced ignorance,

feel great pride in the US government's aggression against other countries.

[marble falls]

21. Moving tanks into position.

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?&id=HN.608044572183691732&w=300&h=300&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0

[davidpdx]

22. Are we sure the Iranian Government didn't tell their people it was real?

I mean if the cameras were far enough back, it would probably fool most.

[RKP5637]

27. Good question! n/t

[Turbineguy]

23. That should impress

a few kindergartners.

[daleo]

29. Some phony shock and awe, for the rubes

Bush did the same, but with real people.

[ronnie624]

30. As a repeated victim of a powerful, brutal empire from across the world,

practicing defense is, no doubt, prudent.

[damyank913]

33. If the plan is to attack the US Navy...

...what would be prudent would be running the other way, and quickly.

[ronnie624]

38. Our country produces some truly fearsome weapons

and our military personnel are highly trained, there's no doubt about it.

[GOLGO 13]

66. Those would be the smartest Iranian sailors in their entire fleet.

Sensible and sound military strategy.

[Xithras]

35. It was movie set for the film Airbus, starring Val Kilmer and Oliver Stone's son. Seriously.

Most Americans are completely unaware of this, but Iran has a large and thriving private commercial film industry that has very little to do with the government. The films do have to be approved by Iranian censors before they can actually be shown, but those censors are primarily looking for concepts that oppose the Iranian government, oppose Islam, or contain nudity. Truth be told, Iranian filmmakers have been given remarkably free reign in their country in light of the oppression that other parts of their society endures. Iranian films have been shown at Cannes and other film festivals around the world, and have been generally well regarded, receiving a number of awards.

The ship was found last year and was the subject of a bit of speculation by our military and here on DU. It didn't take long for people to learn that itwas a prop for the movie Airbus, which is a drama about the Americans killing hundreds of Iranians when we shot down a civilian airliner. Sort of like an Iranian version of the "9/11 fauxumentaries" that have aired in our own country.

After the movie was completed, the filmmakers offered the set to the Iranian government so that they wouldn't have to pay to have it dismantled. The government accepted, and this is apparently what they did with it.

[KoKo]

40. +1

[yurbud]

36. if the intent of posting this is to scare us, recall that Iran's military budget is about the same

as our military's budget--for toilet paper.

[GliderGuider]

41. I wouldn't laugh too hard just yet. Does anyone remember this US naval exercise?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World War II light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications. The Naval Simulation, Joint Semi-Automated Forces (JSAF) had neither a sophisticated electronic network nor the modeling of WWII lights at the time of MC-02 according to the developer of the JSAF simulation; Mr. Guy Purser, Director, Modeling and Simulation, NWDC.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. At approximately the same time that Red had located Blue forces, operators of the Blue naval simulation were directed incorrectly to turn off all self-defense capabilities by a senior Naval Officer who was not in command of the simulated forces nor current in the scenario. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that destroyed sixteen warships while the JSAF simulator operators sat and watched without responding defensively or offensively[citation needed]. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.[1] Again it should be noted, the JSAF simulation did not at that time have the suicide behaviors modeled nor the damage models of interactions of a small boat impacting a ship.

[happyslug]

67. I remember it, not the details, but I used it above in my post 39, but I did NOT name the exercise.

My memory of the exercise seems to have been what Paul K Van Riper did after the initial "Sinking" of the US Fleet (I wrote, from memory that it was four carriers that were lost, but in the Wikipedia Article they said only one Carrier was "lost&quot . I do NOT think VanRiper had any objections to the raising off the fleet, after he had sunk it the first day. It was a Training Exercise and having the ships stay "Sunk" would NOT help in planning or training. The problems was the restrictions imposed on him that limited what he could do using "obsolete" techniques. i.e. he had to turn ON his AA radar, something the North Vietnamese had learned early on was a call to be hit (Thus only turned them on when they was a high possibility of getting a target). Van Riper was told NOT to guard certain beaches, so Marines could land on them without opposition. etc. The "Red Forces" being forced to rely on radio communications NOT motorcycles and loud speakers in Minarets. These were the restrictions Van Riper opposed for they could be used by an opposing army to any US attack.

Van Riper also objected to the lack of understanding of Iraqi by the officers and men that invaded Iraq. To defeat someone you have to understand that oppornet. It is more then knowing how many tanks he has, it also what he expects in life and how he wants to be treated. In the US, if you attack a Church, you will face opposition but it will be limited, the member of that church will hate you, others will think it was dumb, but the opposition you create will be limited to those directly affected by the destruction of that church. In Iraq if you destroy a Mosque you just destroyed the center of what holds that community together. Destroying a Mosque is like destroying ALL of the Churches/Mosques/Temples in that town, the city hall, the police headquarters and all of the social organizations all at the same time. Everyone in that town will hate you, even people who hated the people who controlled that Mosque,

One way to look at Iraq (and a good part of the Rest of the World outside the "West&quot is to look at the African American Community and their local Police Station. Would African American Celebrate the bombing of the local Police Station, that is controlled by whites who are suppressing the local African Americans? No, they will oppose such an attack for the Police Station is part of their Community, they may want it to change and stop being "evil" but they do NOT want it destroyed. That is how the people of Iraq viewed their local Mosque, it is the center of their town, to destroy it is to attack what the town stands for and as such they will oppose it.

Look at what Van Riper says about this:

There's an art and science to war. The science is in support of the art. The science gives you the weapons systems; it allows you to have the communications; it allows you to have all the things that support the actual conduct of war. War, as it is fought, is an art. It's not a science. If you try to make it a science, you're bound to be disappointed.

Van Riper's objections were in the nature of the restrictions imposed on him when it came to NOT using electronics. Van Riper's tactics was to concede to the US (Blue forces in the exercise) electronics superiority and rely instead on the support of the people and traditional communication systems (including using the Minarets tied in with every Mosque to send messages to the people by voice command. I notice he had served in Vietnam where a popular supported but low tech army ended up fighting the US Army to a standstill. Being popular with the people that was all the Viet Cong had to do to win. Van Riper was in Vietnam and saw how the low tech could defeat high tech. At the same time the Viet Cong were NOT ignorant of high tech, when it was to their advantage they used it (i.e. the Viet Cong monitored US Radio Transmissions all the time during the Vietnam war even down to platoon and squad level radio transmissions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_K._Van_Riper

[Corey_Baker08]

70. +1000 ***This Is A Must Read***

[seveneyes]

43. An Allahwood production

If it wasn't so comically ignorant, it would warrant a chuckle.

[alcibiades_mystery]

48. It was called "The Interview"

[Blue_Tires]

64. All this tells me is the Iranians haven't discovered the magic of CGI

[Calista241]

69. Lol, they used mortars on speedboats.

1. A speedboat will have more than an extemely difficult time to just intercept a Navy fleet deployed in the ocean. The Ocean is HUGE and the U.S. Navy doesn't exactly just tell everyone where everything is.

2. If, by some miracle, those boats got within 100 miles of an aircraft carrier, they would be closely monitored and obliterated before they could pose any threat whatsoever.

3. The longest range artillery is around 29 miles, and mortars are extremely short range, around 3-5 miles maximum.

[stevenleser]

73. Now that was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

To attack a carrier with what amounts to a speedboat with mortars, you have to get within 3-5 miles of the carrier passing within weapons range of all the weapons of the ships in the battle group when radar will have detected you well over a hundred miles out:



Besides the carrier's aircraft and all the weapons they carry, the Ticonderoga class Aegis cruisers carry 122 cells of the Mark 41 vertical launching system with Tomahawk, Harpoon and various other missiles.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_41_Vertical_Launching_System

[former9thward]

75. All that firepower did not seem to stop the USS Cole from being attacked.

The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67) on 12 October 2000, while it was harbored and being refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden. 17 American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured. This event was the deadliest attack against a United States Naval vessel since 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

[stevenleser]

77. Because a rowboat with a motor was not seen as a threat. The motor torpedo boats used

By Iran are considered threats and are monitored in the gulf.

Also, a carrier is about ten times the size of the Cole. The Cole did not sink from the attack, nor would a carrier which can endure much more punishment.

[former9thward]

78. Always an excuse.

And when a carrier is attacked, damage done, and lives lost there will another excuse.

[ffr]

79. So are they saying each of our next vehicles should be electric?

Kind of seems strange for them to be destroying a symbol of a piece of hardware that assures that cheap oil continues to flow from that destabilizing region of the world. I'd think for their own best interests they'd want that entire region's seaways open and safe.

If the exercise was to boost oil prices, that just makes electric and green technologies even more attractive. Whatever the reasons, I'm sick of oil and gas power. It's time to wean our love affair with the automobile and waste creating material items.