Iranian boats (18 of them at different positions) swarmed near an American carrier in the Strait of Hormuz:
FFS, why do we put our carriers into the damned Persian Gulf?! Doesn't anybody else see the folly of this?
This deployment pattern is insane! It practically begs the Iranians to take a shot at one of our big ships.
I mean, this is nice and all:
Iranian small boat threats, limpet mines and Tehran-backed forces armed with cruise and anti-ship killing missiles are just a few of the threats to the shipping channel in the Persian Gulf that supplies nearly one-fifth of the world’s global crude oil.
To bolster the security of US warships at sea operating in tight waterways around the Middle East, the U.S. conducted an exercise in December using Griffin missiles fired from the U.S. Cyclone-class ship Hurricane. ...
The exercise highlighted another means in which the U.S. is rapidly reacting to the dynamic threats in the Middle East by finding new ways to utilize various weapon systems to bolster security for ships in operating in choke points threatened by Iran and its web of militias and proxy forces.
Other security measures taken on board U.S. warships during choke point transits have included the use of Marine light armored vehicles armed with the 25 mm bushmaster chain gun parked on the flight deck.
But we should not even be in the position to have to deploy such weapons to defend our big ships there.
Honestly, I almost long for the days when we concentrated our naval power in home ports to allow enemies to hit us in a surprise attack. At least we made them make an effort. Why would an enemy bother to do that now when we conveniently sail them close to our enemies?
Honest to God I feel like pounding my head into my wall when I see stuff like this.
UPDATE: Remember that the Iranians built a replica of one of our super carriers and then practiced a swarm attack on it. They still had the vessel as of signing the horrible nuclear deal.
At the time I mocked the exercise. But I had no idea we'd be so sporting and dangle our carriers in front of Iran.
