Strait of Ton..., Hormuz

The Strait of Tonkin, sorry, Hormuz was the scene of a harrowing experience over the weekend, according to The Bush Administration, as tiny boats approached three United States Navy ships just off of the Iranian coast. Among the ships was the Ticonderoga Class Cruiser USS Port Royal. That ship carries two Mk 41 VLS (Vertical Launching Systems) that usually each have eight tubes allowing for continuous firepower of missiles. These missiles can include, Sea Sparrows, which I have seen shoot down a drone flying in at 600 miles per hour, and which can also hit surface vessels. The ship also carries Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, Anti Submarine Missiles, Mk Torpedoes, Harpoon anti-ship Missiles, two Mk-45 that can fire 16-20 five-inch rounds per minute and is fired from an automated system with deadly accuracy, and of course two Phalanx CIWS, (Close-in Weapons System), that can fire a 20mm round (Remember the German 20 mm tearing up the troopers in Saving Private Ryan, when they were on the German tank in the village? Of course that was just a movie, but it was pretty representative.) Well, the Phalanx can fire 3,000 of those rounds a minute. Of course the magazines only hold half that. Oh yeah, they are guided by radar, and again are very accurate. The rounds in the Phalanx are armor piercing.

And that’s only one of the three ships that were “threatened” by the Iranian gunboats.

Now, remember that the Strait of Hormuz is at the narrowest point 21 miles. So they could have been 10 miles off of the Iranian coast, give or take. Imagine foreign ships of that destructive power ten miles off the coast of let’s say, Savannah. Let’s also say that in the past, about 20 years earlier a similar ship from that foreign country had been there and shot down a Delta flight. (1988 US Vincennes, an Aegis Cruiser shot down an Iran Air Airbus A300, which had just taken off loaded with passengers.)

How would we react to that ship being so close?

Of course the Iranians are tempting the U.S. Navy. We have a President who sails through the region, well, not him personally, invading Iran’s neighbors, on both sides mind you. They know The U.S. cannot afford the wars he has already started, much less a confrontation with Iran. Bush is about to go to the region. Perhaps they are just reminding the world that we have that kind of firepower in their waters, before he gets an opportunity to talk to regional leaders and pretend that he is about no more than just puddin’ and pie, peaceful democratic efforts. He’s about the weapons described above.

He makes the First Crusade seem like a game of marbles.