Much has been written about the recent "incident" between the U.S. Navy ships and the Iranians speed boats. But in an article from Family Security Matters, Col. Kenneth Allard (ret.) puts forth some very interesting speculation as to just WHY the Iranians would be trying such maneuvers. I find this strategic plan very interesting that Allard puts up:
Thus, in the recent skirmish with the American Naval Fleet, the Iranians have probably taken away the intel that they can get VERY close to our ships and unless the Navy officials change some rules of engagement specs, there is going to be some very bad news coming out of the Straits of Hormuz.
Here's the full account by Col. Allard at Family Security Matters.
As somewhat younger intelligence officers during the Cold War, columnist Ralph Peters and I regularly analyzed Soviet maneuvers specifically designed to assess U.S. responses. His take on intelligence questions the Iranian operation may have been: “How soon do the American weapons radars activate? How close can a small vessel get to a major American warship? …Can we use phony mines to steer them into real ones? …Above all: Does an American commander have the courage to make a decision on his own?”Let's face it...the Iranians have nothing to match the power of the American Fleet off their shores, but a few speedboats laden with tons of tnt rammed into several hulls of destroyers could make a huge statement as well as create some chaos. Look back at what the Iranians did with the Brits. They pressed the issue with the Brits to get a response - how close they could get, what response would the Brits make...up until the Iranians went from option A to option B to option C which was outright capture of the Brit sailors and marines. It could be contended that the Iranians were shocked they got to Option C and then literally didn't know what to do with a boat full of Brit captives.
Thus, in the recent skirmish with the American Naval Fleet, the Iranians have probably taken away the intel that they can get VERY close to our ships and unless the Navy officials change some rules of engagement specs, there is going to be some very bad news coming out of the Straits of Hormuz.
Here's the full account by Col. Allard at Family Security Matters.
Luck, Strategy or Something Else? Iran’s Game of Cat and Mouse
Col. Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)
However, the classic problem of intelligence is the difficulty of predicting how the other guy will react, especially when you’re right in the middle of congratulating yourself for being so restrained and reasonable. But suddenly last Sunday morning, gunboats from the naval arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, apparently indifferent to such high-mindedness, conducted a simulated attack against our hi-tech warships entering the Straits of Hormuz.
They used classic PT boat tactics – fast gunboats closing with the Navy’s much larger Aegis-class cruiser and escorts. The Iranian boats then conducted maneuvers designed to show how close they could approach, either to lay mines or to mimic the same suicide tactics used to such devastating effect in 2001 against the USS Cole. And just to make sure our Navy got the point: they also broadcast radio messages announcing their intentions to attack and blow our ships out of the water. Know what such provocations are called? Acts of war.
In this case, the hostile speedboats were allowed to escape unmolested, although the usual Pentagon briefers assured reporters that overwhelming naval firepower was only seconds away from reducing the Iranian small craft to splinters. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he found the incident “quite troubling, actually and a matter of real concern….I can’t imagine what was on their minds.”
Never content to leave such ambiguities unresolved, CNN soon got to the bottom of things. Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr informed Lou Dobbs that the major issue was that Pentagon rules of engagement in such instances were classified. Only luck, it seemed, had prevented a senseless tragedy at sea.
Dobbs’ statesmanlike reply: “And one of the ways in which…it might be prevented, Barbara…(is to) make it very clear to Iran what the rules of engagement are and the distance at which we will tolerate their vessels approaching a ship of the line. This is an absurdity, it seems to me.”
3 comments:
This was a test no doubt, but the boxes and tnt ramming are probably distractions. If/when they really attack it will be many at once, and with a close-in missile swarm technique that was partially successful in previous war-games.
Thanos, thanks for stopping by. I agree that an actual attack may be played out more to your scenario but at this point, I think the Iranians are actually looking more to provoke - thus, I'm thinking more along the lines of a speeding bomb striking a secondary ship - you know, create all that smoke and such without literally mounting an organized missile attack.
I think the Iranians want to push the envelope and knowing them, they feel they could stage an "explosion" by doctoring some film and then claim the U.S. ship rammed theirs - but the effect is a U.S. ship in those waters, on fire.
Just my guess anyway.
:Holger Danske
Having spent a career on such vessels, and having sailed those water doing tanker escort duty in 89-90, and, while on one shore station where I was assigned to monitor Soviet BEARs flying along the Air Defense Intercept Zone (ADIZ), I'd have to say it was a test of several tactics and responses. We do it, "they" do it.
Add to the equation the issue of the free transiting of "international straits." We regularly were challenged by the Omanis and we responded with the same script (except we said "US warship," not "coalition warship") as a proforma thing about them protecting their waters, and us exercising a right to expeditiously move through confined waters (where the land was less than 12 miles away and geography limited our movement to that area).
The Soviets would fly right up to the ADIZ, skirt it for many miles, then all of a sudden pop in and then parallel the boundary, just inside until our interceptors arrived in their tails. At that point, they'd move out. Testing our response time at various locations along the East coast.
Coming at you in small boats at high speed, armed, with communications issuing threats falls under the "hostile intent" category. COs have to make that split second determination as to take the hit ("hostile act") and then respond (covering their 6 at the possible expense of the crew or, at the least the damage to the structure of the ship, or to preempt and engage before taking fire.
The boxes dropped could well have been floating mines (in this case they seemed to be merely models), the equivalent of seaborne IEDs. All you would then need was a command detonation capability, far more simplistic than a pressure switch on a device that may be swept away from the hull of a ship moving at a moderate to high speed by its bow wave.
We haven't seen how the ships there last week reacted, but the prudent thing would have been to have quickly maneuver clear. Channeling does come to mind here and it was the Iran Ajar that was laying mines in the tanker wars days, not an Iraqi naval vessel.
I think it was all well planned, and the hope was for someone (read : the US) to engage. Regardless of the proper and legal response under international law (the right to self-defense), the MSM and the Iranins would most certainly use this as propaganda, claiming we sank their vessels and killed their sailors on a pretense. The cost of a few IRG personnel lives would be well worth the media value in return for them.
Consider if the CO(s) had fired, within days of President Bush coming to the ME. Oh, the riots that would have been hedl, with the real probability of countries on the visitation list asking our President not to land. What a coup that would have been for the Iranians. Keep him out without even traveling out of their borders.
In land warfare, I believe the term is "probing." The next time, they will come closer. The question is for the crews: Who will be willing to take one to save us in the dreaded "Court of World Opinion."
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