Hypothetical war with Iran

https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...man-allegedly-spied-us-slain-general-71146898
Amid US tension, Iran builds fake aircraft carrier to attack
Iran appears to have constructed a new mock-up of an aircraft carrier off its southern coast for potential live-fire drills

 

Means little to nothing. About as much as the outline of one that China painted in the Gobi desert.

Now, are they going to surround it with a bunch of missile cruisers and destroyers? And also a dozen or more modern US fighters in a CAP over it?

This is what is known as "pointless propaganda", and most who know about such things see it as such.

 

Iran likes to engage in 'pointless propaganda', while the propaganda from the US/Israel certainly has a point.

But what use or "point" would there be for me to engage you on a speculative issue regarding a replica of the Nimitz shown by satellite that Iran is building, which US media and military outlets have been commenting about but Iran hasn't even commented on for us to really know if this is supposed to be for purposes similar to the first replica in 2015 (naval war games practicing hitting a US aircraft carrier) or for some other purpose? For now, I am going to sit back and follow the issue and then draw my conclusions from what is shown. And those conclusions (unlike yours) won't be to repeat whatever assumptions I have and to treat them as dogma, but will be based on what the facts will reveal.

Iran's ability to strike, hit, and sink US aircraft carriers is pretty much recognized (even if reluctantly) by the US military, regardless of how many missile cruisers, destroyers accompany them or are there to escort the carrier. I have already gone through that and if you can't accept it, that is your problem, not mine. Especially since you are the type that can't even accept concessions regarding very clear factual points (e.g., CEP of Iranian missiles) by the very sources that had misled you in the first place, insisting on the dogma you had been taught even when those who taught the dogma have had to change their tune!

In the meantime, for others who are less dogmatic about things, from my perspective, the "more the merrier' when it comes to ships escorting a US aircraft carrier. That will only make for more targets. It won't make any difference regarding Iran's ability to overwhelm their defenses and sink them. The one exception, in certain contexts and for certain purposes, would be America's stealth aircraft (F-35s and F-22s in particular). I am not confident that Iran has developed a reliable enough defense against these aircraft and, to be defenseless against them, has the same kind of implications for Iran as the US/Israel being defenseless against Iran's precision guided ballistic missiles. The Patriot and other ABM systems for the US, or the Bavar-373 and other ABM systems for Iran, notwithstanding, since neither side can realistically claim or imagine that these systems (even if they were able to detect their targets in time) could successfully engage the number of targets that each side can throw against the other. It is simple math actually: there are just aren't that many anti-missile projectiles that either side has compared to the number of missiles each side can fire from different platforms.

 

An article published today that I found noteworthy:

https://www.thenational.ae/world/me...cision-missiles-that-deter-invasion-1.1032312

I don't want to nitpick, but the best estimate of the CEP of Iran's missiles would be: a) Fateh family of missiles (which includes some of the missiles that hit the Al Assad air base and also Iran's arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles): under 10 meters; b) CEP of other Iranian missiles whose precision is improved through a kit developed by Iran (which includes the Qiam II missiles that were also used in the attack against the Al Assad air base): around 30 meters. Why is this noteworthy? 1) because no other country, not even the US, has ballistic missiles as precise as those developed by Iran. 2) because the difference between under 10 meters (8.5 meters to be precise) and 30 meters makes some difference in hitting even US naval vessels smaller than aircraft carriers.

Depends on what you count as 'rockets', Hezbollah's arsenal is usually described as being over 100,000 rockets and missiles. But 14,000 sounds like the right number as it relates to things which aren't simply crude projectiles.

Highlighted for those who imagine that US air defenses are all that capable in protecting against the kind of missiles we are talking about here. That is leaving aside what I have called "the math" (i.e., the limited number of ABM batteries and missiles compared to the numbers that can be thrown at them).

The real concern for those who want to bully Iran isn't either/or: it is the whole package that includes missiles, drones, and much more. But I liked this graphic in the article about Iranian drones.

Forget monopoly: Iran has moved ahead of the US in this area!

 

Funny, the title and subtitle of that article were changed. Now the same article reads:
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/iran-s-rocket-arsenal-puts-middle-east-peace-at-risk-1.1032312

Which also gives an idea of what US/Israel understand what 'peace' means, namely the ability to attack a country without that country being able to hit back!!

 

Which still does not explain now such miracle rockets would be able to strike a moving target from hundreds of kilometers away.

Tell you what. Tell Iran to have a truck tow a carrier sized cutout in the desert as the speed of a carrier, and have them make honest evasive movements in keeping with what a carrier can do. Then let me know if the missile comes even anywhere close to the carrier. If it lands within even 500 meters of such a target, I will be impressed. But remember, anything other than striking the cutout is a complete failure in reality. Even close really does not matter if these are ever used.

You do not seem to grasp somehow that trying to strike a moving target that moves autonomously is not the same as hitting a section of the ground. Or even better yet, have them tow this thing out into the gulf and give it an honest test. Remote control it from somebody who wants to honestly show it will not work, and tell me the results.

Traveling at over 30 knots (35+ at emergency power), the carrier will also make a radical direction change in under a minute from the time of the launch. So unless they have some kind of magical powers to determine what direction it will turn in and what speed it will take before the missile is even launched, they will essentially be firing blind. This is not a cruise missile, which only has to get a single point of data right to strike the target. Your actual target area will be a circle around 14 miles across. Because that is how far that carrier can travel from the time of launch until "impact" (which I use laughingly). Actually, the distance the ship travels is 6.7+ miles, but since the direction is not known it must be doubled to cover all directions of travel.

That is an awfully big area to try and hit a moving soccer field in.

And this is not my bashing Iran. I also do not believe China can do it either. Now the Soviets did make such a weapon once, but it had a 500kt nuclear warhead so actually striking the target was not needed. India has developed one, but it is very short range (35km), and intended to strike targets that are at anchor, not on the open sea.

Only China and Iran are crazy enough to think people will believe they have developed one that can hit a moving vessel with a conventional warhead.

 

First, anti-ship ballistic missiles follow a moving target based on their guidance system (whether Terminal Guidance or Electro Optical or whatever) and what it is designed to hone in on. That is basic to all anti-ship missiles with guidance system, not just anti-ship ballistic missiles (which don't take long to get to their targets). It is also basic to other forms of missiles (e.g., air-to-air, ABM, etc) designed to hit moving targets traveling much faster than any moving naval vessel. Targets like this one HERE.

Second, you need to better understand what Iran has and has not tested. The Khalij Fars has been tested successfully against moving naval targets -- a claim made by Iran in 2013 (when it also said that the CEP of the Khalij Fars was under 10 meters). (You can read about it HERE in the National Interest). While US sources (until recently) used to dispute the CEP claims by Iran, curiously none of them ever disputed Iran's claim that the missile had been tested against a moving target. Something the US, which closely monitors and tracks Iran's drills (and more so, those at sea) could easily do if the claim wasn't correct. But, just to satisfy your curiosity, I will put in a word that the videos of the drills by Iran next time show the missile hitting moving naval targets and not stationary ones

Third, Iran is actually the only country in the world which has shown an anti-radiation ballistic missile system designed to take out enemy warships. That missile system is called the Hormuz I and Hormuz II. The guidance system of the Hormuz hones on the radar and takes the missile to follow wherever the radar signature of the target takes it. If the radar is turned off to avoid the Hormuz II, then the carrier becomes defenseless against the other Iranian missiles (e.g., Khalij Fars, or Fateh Mobin, which use different guidance systems).

Fourth, Iran won't be allowing any carriers it is seeking to engage the movement you assume anyway. Nor would it be going after such carriers with only one specific system. The drills you ridicule follow a very clear design, which includes boxing in the carrier and escort groups through swarms of speedboats and other vessels, in areas which are meant to be saturated with various other systems (short range anti-ship missiles launched from all sorts of platforms, drones firing missiles, submarines launching torpedoes at speeds greater than any torpedo anywhere else, and mines too).

Finally, I would have hoped that, by now, you would have learned that those 'experts' who actually don't know much about Iran, and substitute what they know from weapons built by other countries and assume those would constitute the pinnacle of what Iran could develop, would have learned by now that this isn't exactly a reliable methodology. In other words, I don't care what other countries are or aren't able to do.

 

Now you are just trolling. No U.S. carrier has even been attacked since World War Two. And in the Vietnam War U.S. carriers showed the ability to survive the equivalent of several large anti ship missiles hitting them.

 

I have had this debate with you and there is hardly anything in what you mention in your historical narrative that I feel requires a response. But to move on, I will concede this much: until Iran or some other country with sufficient A2/AD capability (e.g., China or Russia) is engaged in a war with the US and sinks a carrier, ultimately the issue is one of opinion not fact. Regardless of how widely held is the opinion I hold on the vulnerability of the aircraft carrier, even among the US military.

 

You don't know I guess how horrendously difficult it is to actually "sink" an extremely large naval vessel like an aircraft carrier do you?

 

I know what all the people I have referred you to on the issue say. What war games simulating a war with Iran have shown. And what others who I could refer you to would say. Even those advocating US aircraft carriers sailing in the Persian Gulf and believe that its vulnerability notwithstanding, the implication of Iran sinking one will be sufficient to deter it from actually doing so.

For instance: John Bird, VADM John Bird (USN, Ret.), and former commander of U.S. 7th Fleet
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/iran-could-sink-us-aircraft-carrier-what-happens-after-76511
Iran Could Sink a U.S. Aircraft Carrier (But What Happens After)?
Doom.

 

Has it ever occurred to you that U.S. officers have an ulterior motive for claiming the vulnerability of U.S. carriers?

And I've explained how wargames with the U.S. participating work but you choose to ignore that.

 

If you had actually read what he wrote, maybe you would know his ulterior motives! It has nothing to do with what you imagine: he is a member of a pro Israel advocacy group (JINSA) and quite hawkish on Iran. His argument neither has anything to do with any of the ulterior motives you imagine, or even to claim that war with Iran would be too costly. His argument is that the fact that Iran can sink an aircraft carrier should not deter the US from acting aggressively against Iran, since if Iran ever sunk a carrier, it would face "doom".

 

The US would win, in the end, but it would not be an easy war. It would probably be comparable to another Vietnam.

 

The U.S. is very unlikely to fight another war as half assed as it did in Vietnam.

 

I doubt war with Iran would resemble the Vietnam war. In fact, I am pretty sure that it won't.

A war with Iran most likely involve the same game of chicken we have now, except the stakes will be much higher. The US will be bombing things, while Iran will be told it will be 'obliterated' if it responds using all means available to it to respond. If Iran adheres the America's dictates, and leaves out taking measures that would hurt the US the most, the war would last as long as it takes for Iran to cry uncle and accept America's demands. While the US is not Saudi Arabia and Iran is not Yemen, the basic equation wouldn't be all that different in that case.

If Iran does not accept America's dictates on how the war is to be fought, and goes for the jugular, the US and the world economy will take a huge hit, perhaps bringing them close to collapse. The US will also suffer serious casualties in the first few days of such a war, both from attacks against its bases in the region as well as by virtue of finding many of its warships sunk. The war will not know any traditional boundaries either: not only will Iran close the Straits of Hormuz, encourage and unleash its allies to attack US and Israeli targets from places such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, but it will also use cyber attacks to bring the war closer to home in America, unleash a lot of destruction on Israel, and try to disrupt shipping even further away: from the Bab-Al Mandeb to the Suez canal. And further away still, depending on what the US is doing in response. The dynamics will then see the US try to show what Trump means when he threatens Iran with destruction "like no other nation has ever seen". At this point, perhaps others will get involved and try to pressure the two sides to deescalate. Or perhaps we will see the fully hypocrisy of the US/Israeli position on nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation exposed for everyone else to know the real dangers and costs of not building them.

All of what I have outlined above is very likely and, indeed, the most likely set of things that would arise from a war. But ultimately, it is true that predicting the outcome or course of any war is a 'fool's errand'. There are many other possibilities which may be less likely now, but which may be what actually happens.

 

If the US declared war with Iran (or the other way around), how do you think KSA will respond? Would be interested to hear your point of view being an Iranian.

 

The Saudis are no longer in the forefront of those cheering for a war, having been reminded of what with Iran would mean to them, but they will certainly follow America's footsteps if such a war is waged. I don't think that is really much in question. Even though the Saudis will be one of those who likely will pay a huge price in case of any such war.

 

You don't think KSA would jump at the chance to expand into Iran?

 

The reason I ask is because Iran/KSA waters separate two nations that want the world oil power.

 

I am not sure what you mean. Iran is not even a major oil exporters anymore. Even when it was an oil exporter before Trump's maximum pressure campaign reduced Iranian exports close to zero, Iran had already lost much of its market share. And, given increasing domestic consumption eating away at its oil production, many studies showed that Iran was likely to become a net importer of oil in the near future.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is a different story. They are obviously a major oil power.

 

LOL
The Saudis will try, as they have been doing, to forment terrorism and separatist movements among Iran's Arab minority, but they won't find much takers even there. But as for expanding into Iran, the Saudis will need to first show they can beat the Houthis! And not see them advance into Saudi Arabia. The idea that Saudi Arabia would want to 'expand' into Iran doesn't sound serious to me. On the other hand, the idea that the US/Israel will want to break up or Balkanize Iran into several states as some neocons have been salivating to see happen for some time, is a real threat.

 

Israel is another story. Hah. Imagine if the US let Israel off its leash. Imagine a war with Iran when the US and Israel (without restraint) are fighting side by side?

The Iranian holocaust deniers have really been a thorn in Israel's side. I think they would be excited to unleash the "weapons" they "don't possess".

 

It is no secret and Israel has been letting everyone know that in case of war with Iran, those 'weapons' they 'don't possess" might end up being used.

One day you (or your children) will realize none of this is good. Not even for the US.

 

It will be a lot worse for Iran.