US Versus Iran (hypothetical)

[Graham Kennedy]

I don't think the US will pull out of the gulf for fear of missiles. It's not just a matter of the range of the missile; A Silkworm might have a range of 95 km, but that is useless unless you can locate your target at that distance. For a surface radar the horizon is no more than a few tens of kilometres. The only serious threat is going to be from aircraft carrying anti ship missiles, and against the US any Iranian aircraft that takes off is going to have a life expectancy of measured in minutes. Submarines are another potential danger, but it's hard to believe that Iran's sub fleet isn't heavily, heavily outclassed.

First of all if they have a rough idea of where the ships are I do believe a number of their missiles can simply be fired in the right direction and will aquire a target when it comes in range of the missiles radar. Some also have remote video guidance.

Most anti ship missiles cannot do this kind of "search a general area" flight pattern. Fewer still have remote video guidance. Whilst I don't know what missiles the Iranians have, exactly, I would be quite surprised if they had that level of capability.

Planes would be in deep trouble if they attacked our ships, but on the other hand trading a plane for a ship is a good deal.

That assumes that the plane would be able to swap itself, which is highly doubtful.

I don't think many people realise quite what it would take to attack a US carrier group.

Arleigh Burke class destroyers have a radar system which can see everything within tens of miles, and high altitude targets up to well over 200 miles. They carry SM-2 SAMs that have a range of up to 90 miles; each destroyer can carry up to 96 of them. They can also carry the ESSM, a missile specifically designed to take down supersonic maneuvering anti ship missiles. They can be quad packed in the launch cells the SM-2 uses, which means that one destroyer can carry up to 384 of them. Then you have a 5 inch gun and two 20 mm anti aircraft cannon.

If a cruiser happens to be along it could carry all of the above but with 122 launch cells.

Then you have the carrier, which has its own surface to air missiles and cannon. Plus the air wing; 48 fighters which are a hell of a lot better than anything Iran has. And AEW aircraft which can spot targets up to several hundred miles away.

And that's before we even consider the ground based air cover that would be able to operate out of Iraq.

It just goes on and on. Iran would be foolish to even try and take the US navy on, and if it did it would lose its own navy and air force in short order.

The idea that the US navy would scuttle out of the gulf before a conflict is almost beyond absurd.

[sunnyside]

Most anti ship missiles cannot do this kind of "search a general area" flight pattern. Fewer still have remote video guidance. Whilst I don't know what missiles the Iranians have, exactly, I would be quite surprised if they had that level of capability.

They have been able to buy such weapons. Even more primative missiles are capable of aquiring the target if they come in on close to an intercept route. For example if a fishing trawl radios in some GPS coordiantes. Or any other method of getting an idea where the ships are, maybe the US media?


We do have anti missile systems. However we're rather dubious ourselves in regards to exactly how we'll they'll work. Intercepting a manuvering missile head on is not an easy task.

At any rate my point is that it's all sorts of unnecesary risk.

Like a modern soldier starting a fight with some spear and bow armed natives while close to them in the middle of a forest. OK the trooper still has resistant body armor and a better weapon. But if they could just walk out into the plains ahead of time and have the fight there why not do that?

The only reason I can think of for holding our ships there is for the element of surprise. In which case we'd be hoping our first strike would be sufficiant to knock out Irans capability to meaningfully threaten our ships.

However if we're being "diplomatic" and our first strike would just take out the nuclear facilities and leave everything else intact I don't think our ships should be in the gulf.

[Graham Kennedy]

Most anti ship missiles cannot do this kind of "search a general area" flight pattern. Fewer still have remote video guidance. Whilst I don't know what missiles the Iranians have, exactly, I would be quite surprised if they had that level of capability.

They have been able to buy such weapons.

Which anti ship missiles does Iran have?

Even more primative missiles are capable of aquiring the target if they come in on close to an intercept route. For example if a fishing trawl radios in some GPS coordiantes. Or any other method of getting an idea where the ships are, maybe the US media?

This kind of thing is not nearly as easy as you seem to be supposing. It's NOT just a case of phoning in a map reference and punching them into a keypad.

We do have anti missile systems. However we're rather dubious ourselves in regards to exactly how we'll they'll work. Intercepting a manuvering missile head on is not an easy task.

Actually the effectiveness of SAMs is something that has been improving steadily for the last 20 years or so. A lot of people put a lot of money into it after the Falklands, and nobody put as much in as the US did.

There's just no way the Iranians are going to be able to do much to the US Navy. The idea is almost laughable.

But here's what will decide this question once and for all. If the US Navy pulls out of the gulf rather than face combat, then there are plenty of people who will question whether the US Navy is a capable fighting force. "If this expensive navy can't even defend itself from a place that's one step up from a third world country, then why are we bothering to pay out all that money?"

Pulling the Navy out of the gulf is politically unacceptable to anybody concerned. So it simply won't happen. If that means losing a destroyer or two then that's what will happen, but turning and running is just not on the cards.

[sunnyside]

Which anti ship missiles does Iran have?

Their better missiles are of the Yingji-82 variety (a Chinese design). Though they are supposed to have modified some of them, and have copied the design. The missile has at the least an autopilot that works with an inertial guidance system and radar for terminal approach, and is advertised as being able to be fired over the horizon without having an initial target. It's a missile made after anti-missile systems were around so it's designed to be able to get past them. Though it doesn't have the biggest warhead out there.

But here's what will decide this question once and for all. If the US Navy pulls out of the gulf rather than face combat, then there are plenty of people who will question whether the US Navy is a capable fighting force. "If this expensive navy can't even defend itself from a place that's one step up from a third world country, then why are we bothering to pay out all that money?"

Ok. I think a key part of your confusion is in the "rather than face combat" bit there. Our weapons systems are much further ranged. Our Tomahawk cruise missiles can travel over ten times further than their anti ship missiles, and especially with refueling and external fuel tanks we can get about the same range out of some of our strike fighters.

So in short pulling out of the Gulf into maybe the Indian ocean (or even the Red sea if Saudi Arabia gives us fly over rights) means we'd be in a "we can hit you, but you can't hit us" situation.

At the least we could move the fleet down close to the United Arab Emirates/Saudi Arabia in the vicinity of Qatar. That at least makes it harder for them to get at us, being mostly out of range of land fired anti ship missiles, while keeping them in easy range of our weapon system.

[Graham Kennedy]

Their better missiles are of the Yingji-82 variety (a Chinese design). Though they are supposed to have modified some of them, and have copied the design. The missile has at the least an autopilot that works with an inertial guidance system and radar for terminal approach, and is advertised as being able to be fired over the horizon without having an initial target. It's a missile made after anti-missile systems were around so it's designed to be able to get past them. Though it doesn't have the biggest warhead out there.

Nothing I have read on them includes anything about having a search mode - in fact I read that they "sometimes" need targeting info from helicopters or other aircraft for long range engagement. Global Security says that the version the Iranians got lacked high tech hardware, and that they have "improved" it themselves. Which doesn't exactly fill one with confidence. It seems to be a Harpoon equivalent, basically. Nothing especially troubling about them.

Ok. I think a key part of your confusion is in the "rather than face combat" bit there.

I'm not the one with confusion.

Our weapons systems are much further ranged. Our Tomahawk cruise missiles can travel over ten times further than their anti ship missiles, and especially with refueling and external fuel tanks we can get about the same range out of some of our strike fighters.

I'm aware of that.

So in short pulling out of the Gulf into maybe the Indian ocean (or even the Red sea if Saudi Arabia gives us fly over rights) means we'd be in a "we can hit you, but you can't hit us" situation.

At the least we could move the fleet down close to the United Arab Emirates/Saudi Arabia in the vicinity of Qatar. That at least makes it harder for them to get at us, being mostly out of range of land fired anti ship missiles, while keeping them in easy range of our weapon system.

Well I can see you won't be convinced, so I guess we will just have to wait and see.

[sunnyside]

Nothing I have read on them includes anything about having a search mode - It seems to be a Harpoon equivalent, basically. Nothing especially troubling about them.

The don't have a search mode exactly. You have to have a fair idea where the target is. But that's it, you don't need a radar lock or anything ahead of time.

Fundamentally you simply seem to have supreme confidence in our ships ability to down multiple incoming evasive anti-ship missiles.

I don't know of any live fire tests to really see if that works with current generation systems. But generally it seems to me that naval writers are at the least quite uncertain of the anti missile systems capabilities and modern anti ship missiles.

[Tsukiyumi]

Now's a good time for this, I think.



I honestly don't think we have much to worry about from Iran. Better safe than sorry, of course, but we don't need any extraordinary measures to comfortably beat them.

[Deepcrush]

I see something like this just being a costly mess. Our (being the US) leaders are near worthless, our military is stretched across the world. Our people have not faith in victory in any war, let alone the bloodshed that Iran would cause.

[Mikey]

Deep is dead-on; sure we'd win, but the ramifications, political fallout, and international perception of America would be a mess.

[Deepcrush]

If Iran wants war I say lets pull out of the middle east and let those countries go at it. Let them do what they want to each other. If they want money tell them they need to maintain the oil flow. Its best to let people be, when they get their mind they want to fight they tend to find a way to do it.

[sunnyside]

If Iran wants war I say lets pull out of the middle east and let those countries go at it. Let them do what they want to each other. If they want money tell them they need to maintain the oil flow. Its best to let people be, when they get their mind they want to fight they tend to find a way to do it.

Um. What they want is to create a pan arab caliphate, destroy Israel, charge what they want for oil and then go about taking down the Great Satan so they can continue to spread Sharia and make the infidels pay the head tax.

[Deepcrush]

Yeah, because right now their the great super powers...

Really, the best they could do is beat down the overpopulation problem. Then with Israel, let them try. I heard DoD is going to start selling (more like handing over) more F-16's and F-15s to them. Add that to their request for more tanks, the whole arab world wouldn't be able to break them. Iraq is out of the picture and most of the southern countries are to busy getting rich off of oil. Who's left who could take on Israel and even hope to win.

Again, let them fight it out. One last big war to finish everything up for a while.

[Mikey]

Add that to their request for more tanks

I thought that the majority of their armor was home-grown Merkava IV's?

[Deepcrush]

whispers... "who do you think pays for them?"

coughes... "blank loans" clears throat.

[Aaron]

I thought that the majority of their armor was home-grown Merkava IV's?

The Merkava was designed for a very specific function: urban combat. It's not quite up to speed for the kind of war under discussion. They have a pretty healthy mix of rebuilt Centurions, M-60's and captured Russian stuff.

Mind you the whole discussion is ridiculous beyond belief. The entire Middle East is divided by tribes, that all hate each other. They aren't going to mesh either willingly or unwillingly to kill Israel or the US.