The Straits Of Hormuz

cyrusdvirus

Any of a fair few sources, picked the times at random wrote:

From Times Online
January 7, 2008

Iran speedboats 'threatened suicide attack on US' in Strait of Hormuz

Times Online and agencies in Washington
The White House issued a stern warning to Tehran today after Iranian speedboats buzzed three US navy ships passing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz and threatened to blow them up.

A Pentagon official said that US forces were "literally" on the verge of firing on the Iranian boats and had moved to man their guns when the Iranians turned and sped away. No shots were fired in the incident yesterday morning in one of the world's key shipping routes for crude oil.

"We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future," said Gordon Johnson, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, in a terse statement.

Details of the incident remain unclear, but the skipper of one of the five Iranians speedboats reportedly said in a radio transmission: "I’m coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes."

"It is the most serious provocation of this sort that we’ve seen yet," a Pentagon official said.

The incident occurred at about 5 am local time on Sunday as a US Navy cruiser, destroyer and frigate were crossing the strait on their way into the Gulf when they were buzzed by the speedboats, which dropped boxes in the water in front of them.

"There were no injuries but there very well could have been," the Pentagon official said.

It was the most serious such incident since the Revolutionary Guard's seizure of eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Marines from the HMS Cornwall last March in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the Gulf. Iran claimed that the 15 had strayed into Iranian waters, which Britain denied.

Tensions between Iran and the United States are risen in recent years over Washington's charge that Tehran had been trying to develop nuclear weapons, as well as supplying and training Shia Muslim insurgents in Iraq.

I'm sure we all remember the re-flagging of tankers to the US merchant fleet back in the late 80's to prevent the Iranians and Iraqi's playing silly buggers with the tankers.

The one thing I'm wondering is, most armed forces regard their people and equipment as assets these days (IMHO) and surely suicide bombings on any target are not regarded as a worthwhile use of the asset anymore. And I know that there have been 'suicide' missions (HMS Campbelltown Raid on St. Nazaire) where the possibility of survival was low, capture was high and death was equally high but the missino was designed to be survivable. The divine wind squadrons in the latter stages of the second world war can probably be discounted as well as I can't see any government ordering these types of attacks anymore.

Were the USN ships REALLY in danger or was it just lads playing silly buggers??

Fratton Fred

gatecrash wrote: »

I'm sure we all remember the re-flagging of tankers to the US merchant fleet back in the late 80's to prevent the Iranians and Iraqi's playing silly buggers with the tankers.

The one thing I'm wondering is, most armed forces regard their people and equipment as assets these days (IMHO) and surely suicide bombings on any target are not regarded as a worthwhile use of the asset anymore. And I know that there have been 'suicide' missions (HMS Campbelltown Raid on St. Nazaire) where the possibility of survival was low, capture was high and death was equally high but the missino was designed to be survivable. The divine wind squadrons in the latter stages of the second world war can probably be discounted as well as I can't see any government ordering these types of attacks anymore.

Were the USN ships REALLY in danger or was it just lads playing silly buggers??

I remember a Matelot telling me about the early days of the Armilla Patrol, apparantly an Iranian gun boat would track a RN ship through the straits with missiles pointing directly at them. From what I recall, the Iranian used fly by wire missles that were slower then the RN's anti ship missiles, therefore if the Iranians fired, the RN could fire back, knock out the gun boat and neutralise the missle with relative ease. If the Iranian gunbot came within a range considered safe, the Warship was authorised to shoot first, which both sides knew so the Iranians never came too close. This happened almost daily from what I recall and whilst potentially deadly, was considered as much a game as anything else.

The same matelot was in the gulf the day the yanks shot down the Iranian Airbus, that's an interesting one as well.