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Playing on Iran’s Home Court: The Great Strait of Hormuz Test
Playing on Iran’s Home Court: The Great Strait of Hormuz Test
Courtesy of Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner
Any good armchair general with a good search engine and time on his hands can figure out in a hurry that the song and dance about Iran being unable to close the Strait if Hormuz for long is just a plain crock. Worse than that. Yet, this big Orwellian lie persists, so I want to set the record straight. Iran has the capability of not only closing the Strait for some time, but creating a world of hurt for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Iran possesses a build-up of anti-ship weapons called Sunburn missiles, which it has procured from Russia and China over the last decade. These are top-notch weapons developed by the Russians as a low-cost challenge to the expensive, tech-heavy weaponry of the U.S., and specifically the aircraft carrier task force. A conflict, which I now assign a high probability to [see Scenario for an Israel Attack on Iran], is going to be a huge test of a global-naval doctrine that Russia and China will watch with tremendous interest. Iran's mix of anti-ship missiles (Sunburns, Onyxs, home produced, etc) is an unknown, but I think they are armed to the teeth. The big question: How many of these weapons does Iran have? I would suggest thousands, and that this is the real show.
Given that U.S. crony logic seems to be about squandering money on weapons in the military-industrial complex, I fear for sailors and marines on the 5th Fleet. Don’t get me wrong, the US Navy is professional, but the Strait doesn’t allow for the normal defense in depth available in open seas, in fact it offers the Iranians a cross fire setup or triangulation (see map of Strait below) . If you read discussions on various military sites, there is a lively debate on American ship defense system like the Aegis. However, almost nobody claims this to be fully protective against ship strikes. And an oil tanker, no way. It is important that the US is working on new generation lasar defense to counter these missiles, however they are still in development. This puts added pressure for Iran to have this fight now, not later. The following is from ”Russian Military Equality Network. (I have cleaned up the English a bit.]
U.S. Navy Pacific Commander Admiral Timothy Keating said that due to lack of sufficient funds for the procurement of simulated target missile defense system, the U.S. Navy can not now afford to fight “the club” category of supersonic anti-ship missiles. It is reported that the U.S. military that is used to simulate the “club” missile target missile is still being developed, and is expected to be put into use in 2014.
The Sunburn is perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world, designed to fly as low as 9 feet above ground/water at more than 1,500 miles per hour (mach 2+). The missile uses a violent pop-up maneuver for its terminal approach to throw off Phalanx and other U.S. anti-missile defense systems. Given their low cost, they’re perfectly suited for close quarter naval conflict in the bathtub-like Persian Gulf.
The Sunburn is versatile, and can be fired from practically any platform, including just a flat bed truck. It has a 90-mile range, which is all that is necessary in the small Persian Gulf and 40-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz. Fired from shore a missile could hit a ship in the Strait in less than a minute. It presents a real threat to the U.S. Navy. Tests using the Aegean and RAM ship defense technology stops the Sunburn 95% of the time, but such testing was done in open seas, not a bathtub. The payload hit with a 750-pound conventional warhead can be witnessed at 1:53-1:57 in this video. Not enough to sink a carrier, but it could take down smaller capital ships and crew.
You don’t have to be Hannibal preparing for the Battle of Cannae to see that the Strait is a potential shooting gallery. Without a doubt, Iran has plotted and mapped every firing angle and location along the Gulf, their home-court coastline. This is going to put enormous interdiction pressure on U.S. warplanes to spot and destroy platforms, which may be as simple as a flat-bed truck. In reality, Iran has dug in from Jask in the east to Bandar in the west and can easily cover any ship, commercial or military, traversing the narrow Strait.
Equally disturbing is Iran’s missile range for the entire Persian Gulf. Bahrain itself could be hit by the longer-range version of the Sunburn, the Onyx. Is the U.S. (which has three aircraft carrier groups in play currently) going to stick around or clear out to the Oman Sea, leaving control of the oil lanes to Iran? Or will they stay and slug it out with the Iranians? If so, at what cost? Iran’s home court strategic advantage and weaponry may mean nasty losses for the 5th Fleet. If they leave, the Iranians would use naval mines to close the strait and missiles to hamper the mine clearing operations.
This is a classic fog of war situation, and has game changer potential.
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Nowhere in this article did I suggest that Iran would win a war with the US. It has other war objectives: 1. close the straits for weeks, thus disrupting westerm economies. 2. world of hurt: damage of destroy as many US warships and aircraft as possible to try and knock a few notches off of US hubris, and impact US public opinion. The causa proxima of the war was covered in the linkin the article, namely that Israel strikes first.
Israel will strike first... with a torpedo to the USS Enterprise!
It seems to me that naval power has become irrelevant in regards to conflicts between major global powers since the advent of ICBMs. It seems to me that not only Iran, but also Russia and China, have the capability of sinking every ship the US sends out there with missiles launched from within their borders.
I really don't know squat about this kind of thing - care to refute me? This whole "blue water navy" story seems a bit outdated.
It isn't.
In fact, people said tanks were obsolete when attack helicopters appeared in big numbers.
Again, not so.
Then they said attack helicopters were finished when MANPADs proliferated.
No so.
Nothing has ever made such systems totally ineffective. They simply change tactics and develop new capacities to defend, attack and survive.
The USN has been planning ways to defend capital ships from balistic missile attacks since the mid 1950s, because contrary to the modern internet-mythology, the USA's enemies were not the first ones to think of attacking ships with precise BMs.
It was bloody obvious!
The US was planning to attack ships and also to defend ships against ballistic missiles, long before any of the others seriously considered it, and was already fielding powerful SAM missile systems capable of intercepting a Soviet nuclear RV in the early 1960s.
The very notion that the USN would be caught unaware by a ballistic missile attack is quite laughable, when you examine what the US has been doing and how long its been doing it for. The truth is that China, DPRK and Iran are simply playing catch-up in this area, and from a very long-way behind the US.
This is not to minimise the threat of Iran's BM capabilities but it is to put them into a proper perspective, and to illustrate that the USN IS ANYTHING BUT UNPREPARED for theatre-range anti-ship ballistic missile attack.
So don't make such assumptions.
Theory: Obama knows the carriers are doomed and doesn't care. They're huge, resource-wasting showboats and they need to be retired. But the military-industrial complex has too much momentum to simply decomission them outright. So he'll sacrifice them to change the way America spends money on the military.
Hardly! Those ships are ONLY a means to launch AIRCRAFT (hence the name), and those aircraft are extremely effective at denying an enemy access and control (as required, on a transient basis) and in delivering precise hits against defended targets on an almost endlessly repeating basis. They exist simply because the USSA wants to be able to do that to other countries. Until that changes, or a better munitions delivery means appears, carriers will stay. Even then, diversification of delivery capabilities ,ay require such ships and their protection and support ships to remain.
It doesnt take anti-ship missiles to win against the united STATES of america. Just poison the homeland city water supply or ship a bunch of defective printer cartridges or send a couple guys with sniper rifles to take out people from the trunk of their car at gas stations. Systems disruptions. 911 was dumb, they coulda just leased a couple of planes and crashed them into the IRS building. How much did it cost to kill Osama? And to think that he didnt even claim the 911 attack.
US water sheds already being poisened,...called fracking!
If theyre smart, they'll take the fight off their turf into the agressors' turf,
I dont think the Sunburn has ever been used in combat. So we will see.
Sinking a US carrier or a bunch of escort ships would be a victory to rival Pearl Harbor.
You mean, it would be an insane, suicidal move by an inferior power leading to complete destruction, as was the case for the Japanese in attacking Pearl Harbor?
No I think he means Pearl harbor was a tactical success. The loss of 29 planes to disable the US Pacific Fleet has to be a win in my book. On a side note the US with its conditions to lift the embargo left Japan little option but to go to war. The hubris at the time was that they were inferior and we would defeat them quickly. This sounds eerily familiar with current events, we are backing Iran in a corner with economic sanctions, we are exposing a fleet to a retaliatory blow (The Pacific Fleet was initially stationed in San Diego, but was move to the more exposed Hawaii). The 5th fleet is suppose to be safe from missiles (torpedoes were not suppose to work in Pearl Harbor). Our military feels we will defeat them with ease, and is ignoring any message to the contrary (anyone remember Billy Mitchell). When losing the Japanese used effective suicidal tactics to inflect serious military losses. Do you think Iran would not resort to these tactics and does not have its "kamikazes" waiting to strike. Yes I feel we will win a war with Iran. but at what cost and for what political gain.
They didnt have many other options. Same with Iran.
And Japan got nuked, options or no.
NONSENSE!! We're the U.S. OF FRICKIN' A!! We ALWAYS WIN. And fast too! Look at the way we beat those Ay-Rabs right outta their flippy-floppies in Afghanistan! They never knew what hit em! Just like they said about Korea, "The troops will be home for Christmas. Christmas 2035, sure.. BUT THEY'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS ALL THE SAME!!!
Iran doesn't stand a chance! They're AY-RABS, and Ay-Rabs Are DUMB! I saw it on TV! Not only that, They're MOOSLIMS! G-D MOOSLIMS!!! And EVERYBODY knows that MOOSLIMS just chant "Alla Ackbar" and run around sayin' Durka! Durka! Wearing bedsheets! They cain't never win 'nuthin!!!!
We Just gotta elect SANTORUM! SANTORUM'S GONNA KICK ACHMADINOJAD RIGHT IN THE BABYMAKER!
USA! USA! USA! USA!
WE"VE GOT FRICKIN ELECTROLYTES! YEAH!!!!!!!!!
DAS GREAT IRONY!
and it can all be taken out with one or two nuclear devices, if need be. EMP, baby. If the US starts loosing the battle, you just watch how quickly we will deploy the nukes and say they started it.
If I was the lead planner for the theater, I'd be working on placing a crude, small nuclear weapon INTO Iran on a simple transport system that could be knocked out in the delivery phase, so that I could make it look like Iran started a nuclear exchange, we stopped it in flight and then we had to react in the same manner.
The good news is that most of Irans population centers are not close to the where the real detonations would occur and the fallout patterns are not too bad. It's a great set up to start a nuclear war.
this is the same nutty argument edward luttwak used in gulf war 1 and sent him into arm chair analyst oblvion....luttwak spent pages in commentary (the neo nazi thought publication of the neocons) defending cheap numerous easy to use arms vs high tech capital intesive smart weapons....the latter won out in an unfair match - making it somewhat indeterminate....
however, the real issue is a complete subversion of operational and strategic war fighting which this article and argument compel.....the usa will have to make a preemptive attack to remove this threat, but it can quickly gain control of air and land to support naval operations....it would indeed be costly....
but the author is right that fighting in a bath tub is a losing proposition....hence the need to fully exploit deep battlefield doctrine to control the situation....iran is in a weak position which could turn disasterous with weak generalship....
the usa has strategically enveloped iran - without russian or chinese assistance it is toast....the blood thirsty wall street new world order marches on in its murderous conquest....who can make war against the beast? come now lord jesus....
Yeah ... and the US thought they could control Vietnam by bombing the shit out of Cambodia until it was more cratered than the far side of the moon. And that brilliant show of raw fire-power and flanking capacity didn't work either.
abandon ship!
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=starship%20enterprise%20destr...
Blah, Blah, Blah..... If we weren't concerned about what our liberal allies thought and were more like our Arab allies, we would merley send over hundreds of small neuclear devices and turn Iran into glass. I mean what would Genghis Kahn do? It seems to me this is what our manufactured enemies in the Muslim world would do to us if they could. Law of the jungle. What is a little bit more of nuclear fallout circling the globe going to matter?
Have a nice day.
@ lincolnsteffens
Let me guess ... you're Jewish ... right?
Made me laugh.
No, no, those options are not on the table for US citizens.
US citizens have boundaries issues and you'll struggle to find one example of their restraining from doing something they can do.
One single example.
Glassing Iran is not possible:
-has to recover oil and other resources, including strategical position
-extortion requires to let the weakest possible in the position of the extorted. Disposing of the weakest and puff, a stronger has to fill in.
A stronger means a less easy extortion scheme.
It is no longer 1776. US citizens'ways are now known.
No restrain from US citizens.
When US citizens dont do something, it is because they can not do it.
I can tell you what options are not on the table for Chinese citizenism citizens:
Such is the inherent and eternal nature of the Chinese citizen.
fucking asshole, the guy is autistic somehow but was actually making a point and replying to a complete moron. I am sick with your bullshit. I appreciate a lot what the guy says even though it is against our american culture.
I'm not a military expert so I can't weigh in on all these conjectures about who's got the bigger woodie. But it just seems to me, that what ALWAYS happens pre-war is a massive media outlay which convinces the American public that "it'll be over before dinner". In reality what then goes on to happen is a long dragged-out invasion/occupation that costs a lot of money and alot of lives.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
And remember folks, when you hear "costs a lot of money" it means "makes a lot of money".
Gotta love the "we'll just nuke em" crowd. What? End a war instantly? With 60 Year old technology? How are the big boys gonna get rich selling military contracts if that happens??? Why didn't we nuke Afghanistan? Nobody (not even the Russians) wants to buy radioactive opium.
War; Slow. Painful. Extreemly profitable.
Ah ... the good old, "sixty year old technology" meme/bullshit.
You realise that if I sneak up and hit you, just once, in anger, with a big enough rock, you'll be dead soon afterwards?
>2 million year old technology ... trend-setter.
It still fucks-you-up pretty fast though.
The name of Russia's new SSGN-launched ICBM missile 'Bulava', translates as 'Mace', in English.
A mace is a large heavy-weight fighting club. Or else, pepper you spray in an attackers face to blind them and make them squeal in pain.
Think EMP, first to blind your missile defense and destroy your entire capacity to function above the 19th century level, then a heavy club that follows up minutes later, to fuck-you-up permanently.
Keep deluding yourself that some new tech will save you, if it helps you to cope and escape reality.
A genuine technical strategic defence expert (and tribesman) like Richard Garwin will tell you in a hundred different ways that you can't do much of anything effective, to stop a nuclear attack from succeeding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garwin
The Garwin Archive:
http://www.fas.org/rlg/
Ignore the warnings at your peril.
Pardon me but that sounds like confirmation bias, where you only hear what confirms your opinion of what likely happens in the media leading up to war. You must always miss the huge projections of US casualties from the MSM each time war is imminent. You likewise miss opposing forces talked up as if almost invincible, housed in vast underground complexes by the tens of thousands. You've mised being warned about how they are war-hardened homeland defenders while we have a bunch of high-school dropouts for an invasion force who would rather be home playing video games. You must also have missed talk of how the enemy always has missles that we either can't defend or that will be aimed at other regional powers so they will be drawn into a wider conflict and thence into WWIII. We were told 50,000 to 80,000 Americans dead if we invaded Iraq. And not over years but over several months, if you recall.
Actually, I personally don't recall ANYONE making that sort of assertion at the time in the MSM, and I was most certainly paying attention to the 'debate' of the day.
I had zero doubt that an Allied invasion would be swift and successful, simply because Iraq's military and economy were already on their knees and a pale shadow of what they were in 1990.
On what basis would anyone rationally argue that they could sustain a protracted fight against such overwhelming forces?
Frankly, anyone who had paid attention to what happened in Kuwait would not have said anything like that, so I'm rather surprised if anyone did say that, or that you believe such a sentiment was commonplace.
Because it sounds like bullshit to me.
Actually, we took that many casualties and more. The thing is, battlefield medicine has progressed so that a wound that would have been deadly in Vietnam can now prove salvagable.
max, good points. But it seems like the media brings up the issues you mentioned AFTER the war has begun, or the committment to go to war has been announced. Then the retired Generals come out of the woodworks and are placed around the giant digital map of the area and are allowed (told) to spread the rhetoric.
It will be another MOAB (Mother Of All Battles)
For every action there is a reaction I learned in physics.
What does that mean here?
That means if Iran doesn't block the Straits, there will be no need for the war discussed in this topic.
Hitler Mao and Stalin must be scratching their heads in hell, murmuring:
"we should have sucked the bankers more"
The bankers will soon be joining them so they'll get their chance then. Happy days for all.
Take it from someone who been there; the 5th fleet "could create a world of hurt" for Iran...
The shortcoming of this entire analysis is it ignores the SM-3. But, you know, armchair generals and search engines.
My Regards
Yep, and the US "Reap What Its Sows" right?.
Meaning?
[The shortcoming of this entire analysis is it ignores the SM-3.]
SM-3 cost 9 million
Wow so if I send a 100 decoys in I can make you waste $900,000,000?
I wonder how much a decoy missile costs? Do the decoys exist?
How many of those $9,000,000 babies you got on board?
How many missiles do I need to send before you run out?
From Ronald O'Rourke Specialist in Naval Affairs:
MDA states that SM-3 Block IAs have a unit procurement cost of about $9 million to $10
million, that SM-3 Block IBs have an estimated unit procurement cost of about $12 million to
$15 million, and that SM-3 Block IIAs have an estimated unit procurement cost of about $20
million to $24 million. Source page 8
Well thanks for asking; I have some personal experience with such systems...
To begin with, a truly effective decoy missile costs nearly the same as an actual one; it's not the same as decoy nuke warheads deployed from a MIRV "bus". The only difference between an effective decoy and the real thing is the business end.
Now, Carrier Battle Groups (CBGs) typically are accompanied by a Frigate, a couple of Destroyers, and submarines ; of which the surface vessels are equipped with the AEGIS system. Not only is AEGIS outstanding at target acquisition and fire control, against aircraft, surface vessels, and missiles, it is also very useful for discerning not-so-effective decoys from live rounds-based on analysis of the flight dynamics.
Oh, and did I mention that AEGIS is also good at jamming adversary radar, and that the vessels themselves carry decoy systems of their own?
If I recall, the Arleigh Burke class Destroyer is armed with on the order of 120 SMs; and 50 or TLAMs as well. So if an adversary's launch sites are discovered, well, let's just say "Dial 1-800-GPS if it absolutely, positively, has to be on target".
And all this isn't even taking into account an Aircraft Carrier's organic defense system; or the embarked air wing !
Remember my friend, millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute.
All this aside, I pray daily for a peaceful resolution to ME strife, but know from my own time patroling the NFZ that a CBG is one large can of whoop-ass that none of our enemies really want to open...
W/R
Interesting ..... can't wait to see how this all turns out.
You forgot the 64 ESSMs that can also be swapped into the missile mix, for just 16 less SMs in the loadout.
Depends on who strikes first! In these wars fought out of inventory the weaker party has a massive incentive to strike first before his inventory can be destroyed. If war and conquest are inevitable, why not inflict as much damage as possible?
Aggression by the stronger party can only be deterred by willingness of the weaker party to inflict the maximum possible damage and cost.
Surface vessels are the equivalent of horse cavalry at the outset of WWI.
The illogic of attacking Iran is still baffling me. I hope I'm right but I still think this is theater to support oil prices and election campaigns. All this angst is based on the premise that someday Iran will develop the capacity to hurt the US (Israel) and that they will use that capacity. And to stop those unsure and fairly distant hypotheticals the US is willing to gamble on $200 to $300 oil and a protracted war? Can they be that stupid??? Really? Even if a false flag attack gives them cover how can the US see a positive outcome from an attack?
I think the point is that it won’t be easy for either party. No need in getting all uppity about having a week long war and wrapping Iran up in no time. Not only that, think about the impact this has back home. Generals need to think about that too. Is the fight worthwhile if it sends oil to $200bbl?
10-4.
Do you really think that only the Navy is going to show up?