Are we stupid enough to think TPTB aren't in control?

[dudley]

Well, I'm still convinced that anyone tangling with a US carrier group would get a good kicking ... one way or another.

Don't forget the US ships are supported by satellite intelligence, drones, electronic intelligence, cruise missiles, GPS.

This is not really WW2 or the Falklands replayed.

It could be that the majority of Iranian anti-shipping missiles etc simply would not exist by the time the US fleet was in range.

In the event of salvo attacks I don't think the US would be too reluctant to use nuclear weapons for defence.

And I'm not sure that it is even necessary for such a group to get too near to land anyway.

Finally, if the battle group was badly mauled, then the US would get out the big sticks ...

What WILL kill such a fleet is over confidence ... I hope they learned from the war games!

Iran could also choose to send missiles into the Saudi Abqaiq plant.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/10/news/in ... /index.htm

I imagine 10 or so missiles could shut down the 6 million barrels/day without even being very accurate.

[syberberg]

Sure, one or more carriers could be lost in an instant ... BUT ... I don't really think that armchair generals can assume that all US carriers will be toast in a few seconds just because the Iranians get antsy.

Well, from a technical perspective, you could call Paul van Riper an "armchair general", but he DID sink 70% of the US fleet in the Gulf. Only a wargame, but the most expensive wargame that far.

Edit: You Britons lost Singapore because of this particular kind of hubris! Battleships were VERY vulnerable to airplanes. As you discovered the hard way. Guess its considered as rude to mention Singapore, but it don't change the facts. You had been better off with some bloggers who could have warned you...

Not rude in the slightest, it gets a mention alongside the Maginot Line at RMA Sandhurst etc. as "how not to prepare ones defences properly."

The Germans learned the same lesson when the Bismark was sunk that the Royal Navy learned with the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales by the Japanese.

@Vortex, the Persian Gulf is 340km at it's widest point. The Chinese CAS-1 Kraken I mentioned earlier has a maximum range of 280km. As for the Sunburn, a target ship has between 25-30 seconds from launch to detect, track and kill the incoming missile and it has a range of 220km (there are reports that the Chinese have extended this to 240km). Given that we're talking about the Persian Gulf here, and not the open ocean, you can reduce that by around 10-15 seconds depending upon exactly where the launch site is in relation to the target.

As for all the wonderful US mil-tech, the Israelis had the same and they failed miserably to find and destroy Hezbollah's rocket launchers, the same applies to Iranian mobile launchers and fixed position launchers in coastal towns and cities.

To be quite blunt about it, as soon as the Iranians detect the aircraft taking off and heading towards them (or incoming Tomahawks), the missiles will be fired and all the pilots will have to aim at are empty launchers, 15 to 20 seconds later and that carrier battle group will be on the receiving end, followed possibly a minute or slightly less later by the subsonic missiles. The whole engagement would be all over in under an hour.

Can you tell I have a subscription to Jane's Defense?

[Totally_Baffled]

To be quite blunt about it, as soon as the Iranians detect the aircraft taking off and heading towards them (or incoming Tomahawks), the missiles will be fired and all the pilots will have to aim at are empty launchers, 15 to 20 seconds later and that carrier battle group will be on the receiving end, followed possibly a minute or slightly less later by the subsonic missiles. The whole engagement would be all over in under an hour.

I am no expert so bear with me.

What is to stop the US parking her ships outside of the range of sunburn (surely iranian planes would not get anywhere near given US air to air superiority) and then flattening everything military lining the coast of the straights of hormuz?

2-3 weeks of air strikes and tomahawks and B52 carpet bombing, and tactical nukes would cover most of the sunburn launchers?

Most of their radar/satallite communications would be screwed by bombing too? how would they target their missiles without this?

Its funny this fear of anti ship missiles seems to be bigged up a bit like the republican guard in Iraq which vapourised in about a week. There was a similiar force in Afghanistan that was supposed to cause alsorts of issues during the invasion which never materialised too.

[MacG]

Its funny this fear of anti ship missiles seems to be bigged up a bit like the republican guard in Iraq which vapourised in about a week. There was a similiar force in Afghanistan that was supposed to cause alsorts of issues during the invasion which never materialised too.

Its only "bigged up" in very small circles on the net. MSM seem to avoid the issue completely.

The truth is probably that nobody knows how an armed conflict between Persia and the US would end. The only thing I feel pretty certain about is that such a conflict will do nothing to increase the flow of oil trough Hormuz.

[Totally_Baffled]

nothing to increase the flow of oil trough Hormuz.

Agreed!

[biffvernon]

You Britons...

Look here, it's not as if any of us Britons actually want these carriers. (Apart from the three remaining Glasgow riveters and a boilermaker.)

[skeptik]

Well, I'm still convinced that anyone tangling with a US carrier group would get a good kicking ... one way or another.

Unfortunately the Royal Navy doesn't have any US carrier groups. Just two new carriers. The Navy has more than halved in size since it's last little adventure. the Falklands war

THREAD DRIFT!!!!

No TPTB arent in control. We're suffering from the Law of Unintended Consequences. 'Modern' financial instruments allowed by computing, which have been endlessly touted as stabilizing the markets so that a 1930's style crash could never happen again, turn out to have the opposite effect. Leverage is not liberating but lethal. TPTB are now in panic mode and trying everything they can think of to stop whole structure crashing down in flames. Some of what they are doing will no doubt in hindsight be recognized as having made the situation worse. The financial sector is desperately trying to stop its huge pile of hallucinated wealth disappearing in a puff of 'marked to market' reality.

[MacG]

No TPTB arent in control. We're suffering from the Law of Unintended Consequences. 'Modern' financial instruments allowed by computing, which have been endlessly touted as stabilizing the markets so that a 1930's style crash could never happen again, turn out to have the opposite effect. Leverage is not liberating but lethal. TPTB are now in panic mode and trying everything they can think of to stop whole structure crashing down in flames. Some of what they are doing will no doubt in hindsight be recognized as having made the situation worse. The financial sector is desperately trying to stop its huge pile of hallucinated wealth disappearing in a puff of 'marked to market' reality.

Agree very much on this one. The only solution is a complete re-engineering of the monetary system, abandoning loans against interest as issuance mechanism for money. The only organization which can handle it is the BIS. Quite a tall order for such an organization!

The guys who started the banks might have been super-greedy sociopaths, but those who inherited them and populate them today are linear-thinking accountant types. The best thing to hope for when asking these guys to be creative is a funny decimal number.

What worries me a bit is all these entangled dependencies in the real economy - a specialty chemical manufacturer who goes broke might make it impossible to make some little strange seal for all rubber manufacturers. Nobody really knows how everything is connected and where the single-points of failure are hidden.

[gug]

The guys who started the banks might have been super-greedy sociopaths, but those who inherited them and populate them today are linear-thinking accountant types. The best thing to hope for when asking these guys to be creative is a funny decimal number.

Oh dont you believe it. These people arent simply inoffensive little accountants.

Just look up the history (and current "interests") of the Rockafellers and the Rothschilds.

They've been perverting business and "democracy" for hundreds of years for their own benefit, and they're still at it now.

David Rockafeller admits as much in his biography.

Just look into the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral commission, the Bilderberg group and so on.

If *only* they were simple dull accountants.

They've had a guiding hand in War, Arms, Drugs and corruption going way back to Waterloo, the East India company running Opium into China and if you think that the family business has just morphed into a bit of honest accounting then look into them and prepare to be astounded.

Edit to add: a little pat on the back from the boss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brYWujMC ... re=related

[MacG]

The guys who started the banks might have been super-greedy sociopaths, but those who inherited them and populate them today are linear-thinking accountant types. The best thing to hope for when asking these guys to be creative is a funny decimal number.

Oh dont you believe it. These people arent simply inoffensive little accountants.

Just look up the history (and current "interests") of the Rockafellers and the Rothschilds.

They've been perverting business and "democracy" for hundreds of years for their own benefit, and they're still at it now.

David Rockafeller admits as much in his biography.

Just look into the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral commission, the Bilderberg group and so on.

If *only* they were simple dull accountants.

They've had a guiding hand in War, Arms, Drugs and corruption going way back to Waterloo, the East India company running Opium into China and if you think that the family business has just morphed into a bit of honest accounting then look into them and prepare to be astounded.

Rockefellers and the Rothschilds are yesterday's news. Strange things happen as generations pass by and heirs take over. Yes, when big money is involved, various versions of crime and corruption seem to follow by some automatic mechanism, but I suspect that we have a new set of actors today.

And I would not be to hard on Rockefeller - the world of free trade and bribes is definitely a better place than the world it replaced. Before free trade, violence was the usual method to get what you wanted.

Edit: What's left of the opium trade is now a highly respectable company in the form of MacFarlane Smith

[biffvernon]

If you read Misha Glenny's McMafia you'll see how significant crime, corruption and violence is in world trade. Drugs, people trafficking, prostitution, but most of all, guns and oil.

For instance, a whole nation state, Bulgaria, has become so much in the control of organised crime that the EU has suspended fundings:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/70e9b684-56ad ... 07658.html

[gug]

The guys who started the banks might have been super-greedy sociopaths, but those who inherited them and populate them today are linear-thinking accountant types. The best thing to hope for when asking these guys to be creative is a funny decimal number.

Oh dont you believe it. These people arent simply inoffensive little accountants.

Just look up the history (and current "interests") of the Rockafellers and the Rothschilds.

They've been perverting business and "democracy" for hundreds of years for their own benefit, and they're still at it now.

David Rockafeller admits as much in his biography.

Just look into the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral commission, the Bilderberg group and so on.

If *only* they were simple dull accountants.

They've had a guiding hand in War, Arms, Drugs and corruption going way back to Waterloo, the East India company running Opium into China and if you think that the family business has just morphed into a bit of honest accounting then look into them and prepare to be astounded.

Rockefellers and the Rothschilds are yesterday's news. Strange things happen as generations pass by and heirs take over. Yes, when big money is involved, various versions of crime and corruption seem to follow by some automatic mechanism, but I suspect that we have a new set of actors today.

And I would not be to hard on Rockefeller - the world of free trade and bribes is definitely a better place than the world it replaced. Before free trade, violence was the usual method to get what you wanted.

For yesterdays news, its funny how they seem to be still in the driving seat.
As for the good old Rockafellers, is this the same family that bought up and shutdown the street car system so that people would need cars (Rockafeller owned standard oil).

Is this the same Rockafellers that funded the womens temperance movement to lobby the US Govt into bringing in prohibition and as a result shut down the ability of farmers to distill ethanol and sell it as fuel ( You need to consider that Henry Ford had announced that he hadnt decided what fuel would be preferred to run his automobiles).

That'll be the Rockefellers of standard oil that supplied IG Farben, and thus hitler with enough oil to engage in mechanized warfare and kick off the second world war.
(AFAIA, Germany didnt have access to masses of oil before this)



Yes, the Rockefellers. My dream next door neighbors.
Free trade, my ass.

[MacG]

If you read Misha Glenny's McMafia you'll see how significant crime, corruption and violence is in world trade. Drugs, people trafficking, prostitution, but most of all, guns and oil.

I still prefer the world of Rockefeller over the world of Napoleon. I don't think we live in a perfect world now, but complexity actually work against the sociopaths. You cant get microchips made by threatening people.

[biffvernon]

Indeed, but I think Glenny's point is that we are moving on from the Rockefeller world to something else, and it isn't very nice.

[MacG]

For yesterdays news, its funny how they seem to be still in the driving seat.
As for the good old Rockafellers, is this the same family that bought up and shutdown the street car system so that people would need cars (Rockafeller owned standard oil).

Is this the same Rockafellers that funded the womens temperance movement to lobby the US Govt into bringing in prohibition and as a result shut down the ability of farmers to distill ethanol and sell it as fuel ( You need to consider that Henry Ford had announced that he hadnt decided what fuel would be preferred to run his automobiles).

That'll be the Rockefellers of standard oil that supplied IG Farben, and thus hitler with enough oil to engage in mechanized warfare and kick off the second world war.
(AFAIA, Germany didnt have access to masses of oil before this)



Yes, the Rockefellers. My dream next door neighbors.
Free trade, my ass.

Hmm.. The two recent wars had pretty complex origins, and a lot of people with various ambitions were involved. Of course bankers and financers tried to make their cut from the wars. Look at Halliburton, Lockheed and SAIC for today's profiters.

And if agri ethanol had been such a smart thing, how come that nobody else developed it? The Russians or the Japs would have both motive and means.