War with Iran.

[Simon C 0]

But let's not forget that it would probably be better if no war were to take place and for any situation to be solved amicably? ;)

[HyperU2 11]

I don't think anyone anticipates war with Iran more than those who oppose it. It's odd.

[HyperU2 11]

Well we did take out Iraq better than Iran managed. I see there was a bombing in Iran today too, 21 dead.

[maturin 12]

We can seal that Gulf shut and fly over Saudi Arabia if need be. :)

Iran isn't Serbia. An aerial bombardment wouldn't accomplish anything other than screwing every single one of our Middle Eastern policy imperatives for a generation. And unless we were willing to kill a few (dozen) thousand civilians, Iran would get a nuclear weapon and remain a theocracy for the foreseeable future.

[HyperU2 11]

Iran isn't Serbia. An aerial bombardment wouldn't accomplish anything other than screwing every single one of our Middle Eastern policy imperatives for a generation. And unless we were willing to kill a few (dozen) thousand civilians, Iran would get a nuclear weapon and remain a theocracy for the foreseeable future.

We always start with taking out command and control.

[W0lle 1047]

All posts from BUK-M3 aka syria removed and both permbanned for having multiple accounts. Please report such users so we can take care of them.

[Big Mac 19]

We always start with taking out command and control.

What's to stop Iran from becoming another Iraq except twice as bad?

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

What's to stop Iran from becoming another Iraq except twice as bad?

Iraq was a problem because we decided to stay and rebuild a New America. You avoid the problems of insurgency by not being around.

[HyperU2 11]

What's to stop Iran from becoming another Iraq except twice as bad?

Time would tell, but I don't think it's really going to happen anyway.

[Takko 10]

Time would tell, but I don't think it's really going to happen anyway.

You're acting like a thinktank.

What's to stop Iran from becoming another Iraq except twice as bad?

That would be the worst case.

[maturin 12]

We always start with taking out command and control.

Yeah, just like we did with Saddam, right? Iraq was a one-man show, and we still had to occupy to bring about regime change. Iran's government is a mature institution with the support of broad segments of the population. It can't be toppled by taking out a few clerics. And since you were talking about dropping bombs from Saudi Arabia, I assume you realize that an occupation of Iran would be the death of our volunteer military and probably our economy and stature in the world.

But I don't think it's going to happen either.

[Blackhawk 0]

The most likely reason for the US to attack Iran is if intelligence suggests that a WMD is ready or close to being ready. This is of course, as long as the International Community still opposes a Nuclear Iran.

The US would just try and take out Iran's nuclear capacity, if they manage to do that via an airstrike or special forces, There would be no need to invade Iran at all.

Sure Iran would be bloody angry at this, but without a Nuclear weapon, what can they do against the US?

[Baff1 0]

With the amount of US destroyers surrounding the carriers, I doubt that subs could get anywhere near them. Minesweepers in front of the taskforce to clear any mines, so mines won't be a problem. The missiles will probably be located and destroyed by Special Forces with laser designators as in Iraq. Although, I'm not too sure on how many missiles Iran has.

Just like the Scud missiles were in Iraq?

Nice fantasy mate.

Any one of those missiles can kill 5,000 men at a time and cost the U.S. billions.

How many do they have?

.....How many do they need? All it takes is one.

How many thousands of dead American's would the American public stand for? How much is Iran worth to them?

What if they have 13? One for each carrier. Lol! Imagine that. 30,000 dead, American sea power destroyed for a generation. China becomes the worlds only superpower by default. Rofl.

They won't be sending the carriers in.

I agree that mines can be swept and the subs in particular are likely to be sunk, but the restricted and heavily mined waters of the Gulf are no place for a naval engagement. There would be a lot of casualties there, and as we saw in the Falklands, shipbuster missiles are a very real danger, especially in constrained waters with little room for manouvre.

It is important to recognise that all these weapon systems combined with artillery, and speedboats provide a far more complex battlefield than their individual components. I'm not suggesting to you that Iran would win, only that Iran has the capability to deny naval usuage of the Gulf which in turn limits the effectiveness of any carrier based aircraft to operate over Iran.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Baff1

[spooky lynx 73]

There was a huge problem with taking out all naval mines during "Desert storm", so there will be the same if another Gulf war would start. Also don't forget about relief and dimensions of Iran. There won't be any flat desert shooting range anymore, like in Iraq. If you look at the 1999 campaign against Yugoslavia, mountain relief helped a lot serbian army to avoid heavy losses from airstrikes. The same would be in Iran. In 1999 only massive strikes on civil infrastructure helped NATO to achieve its purposes. But... iranians aren't so dependant on infrastructure and have no such fear of death as serbians.

[Baff1 0]

Yuo can also see with the kind of weapons Hezbollah deployed against Israel that armoured assaults can be repelled with Iranian technology (if they can be bottlenecked through choke points and not outmanouvred).

I do not feel however that they can defend themselves against airpower. I think punitive and disruptive air assaults alone would the kind of conflict I expect should any take place at all.

[Big Mac 19]

What if they have 13? One for each carrier. Lol! Imagine that. 30,000 dead, American sea power destroyed for a generation. China becomes the worlds only superpower by default. Rofl.

They won't be sending the carriers in.

A scud missile couldn't sink a carrier. It's highly questionable that it could even hit a carrier since it was designed for area targets and there for it has no guidance system. Now if one did hit a carrier the worst it would do it blow a hole through the flight deck and flight ops would be suspended until the hole was fixed which would require a drydock and that's only if it isn't a dud. Good luck hitting a carrier with a scud though, I'd use an Exocet missile any day for sinking a ship. I don't put much stock in second hand russian military hardware. Edited July 16, 2010 by Big Mac

[Daniel 0]

I thought we were talking Chinese dedicated anti-ship missiles and how many Iran might possess? I agree, if it's one with a high speed second stage warhead, such a threat could be very difficult to defeat. Of course it would depend on the current level of counter-measure and counter-missile systems and whether the US are willing to take the risk.

I think the point Baff1 was making was that we can't simply rely on Special Forces to take out their missiles, since we failed to take out all of Iraq's Scuds in the first Gulf War, which, coupled with botched Patriot systems still resulted in allied casualties despite the Scud's inaccuracies.

That said, I don't think there's a US/Iran conflict on the horizon. I don't think either side want that.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Daniel

[walker 0]

You're acting like a thinktank.

Quote:

"What's to stop Iran from becoming another Iraq except twice as bad?"

That would be the worst case.

Hi Takko

No Where Near Worst Case.

Here are some examples.

Assuming Israel attacks Iran on its own

A) Assuming Iran has no nukes or perhaps even no intention of creating them and is just as it says pursuing a civilian nuclear power and research.

The attack on exiting reactors, remember all previous attacks on nuclear reactors have been on ones that were not fueled up, causes massive fallout similar or worse than Chernobyl as Chernobyl was largely contained. Remember nuclear reactors contain far nastier and much larger quantities of polluting elements than a nuclear weapon; unless the nuke is designed to be dirty. Tehran, where some of the reactors are, becomes as unlivable, prevailing winds carry the fallout in to Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China.

Thousands die from radiation sickness all played out in the glare of the media.

1) The world turns against Israel on mass including Europe and America. Embargo and blockade with constant threat of nuclear annihilation from Russia China and India until it gives up all its nukes and cedes everything to pre 67 borders. Jerusalem becomes the capitol of a recognised Palestinian state.

US Foreign policy is down the toilet, possibly never to recover.

2) Tehran gives various terrorist groups very dirty substances: strontium, cesium and the like and Israel suffers a worse fate than Iran.

3) Pakistan tips and Al Qaeda get control of Pakistan's Nukes (Al Qaeda's long term plan), political via a revolution or coup or individual because Johny, with his hand on the red button, who's family are dieing of radiation poisoning, gets pissed off. Nukes Israel. Or gives the Nukes to terrorists to drive there slow style.

4) Bad enough radiation and China gets pissed off, China has a very short fuse on such things, and nukes Israel to smoking ash.

B) Iran already has one or two nukes

5) Iran embarks on a crash program to get them to Israel and Nukes Haifa and Tel Aviv. Israel responds and nukes Tehran (already evacuated as it is already Irradiated like Chernobyl), Isfahan, Tabriz and other major Iranian cities.

Cases 3 and 4 are both the likely results of 5 as well.

Assuming the west is complicit in an attack on Iran

1) The world turns against Israel and the West on mass including most of Europe. America is riven with dissension. A new Eastern block forms including all South America China Russia and the bulk of Europe.

US, UK, Canada Australia and a few small states are all that remain of the west massive Oil embargoes cripple their economies.

2) Iran Irradiates US Bases in Afghanistan, Iraq and the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, using dirty bombs. Mines and Irradiates the Gulf Straights. Sends terrorists with dirty bombs to London, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Sydney etc.

Heck it don't even have to do that, Iran can just sneak terrorists into the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and pump radioactive substances down the Saudi wells. Then every oil tanker from Saudi Arabia becomes the transport for a dirty bomb poking out of the tail pipe of every car in the world.

3) A destabilized Pakistan fires Nukes at US and NATO bases in Afghanistan and the US Fleets in the Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf as well as Israel. Israel retaliates. Case 1 and 2 results but with Pakistan being the main cause.

4) China gets pissed off, China has a very short fuse on such things, WWIII results though China might be happy with nuking Israel to radio active dust and in all honesty in such circumstances the west and US would probably consider that as ok, as it would mitigate against case 1.

B) Assuming Iran already has one or two nukes

5) Iran Nukes the US Fleet in the Persian Gulf and embarks on a crash program to get a Nuke to Haifa or Tel Aviv. Israel responds or pre-empts because it thinks it might be the case and nukes Tehran (already evacuated as it is already Irradiated) Isfahan, Tabriz and other major Iranian cities.

Cases 1, 2, 3 and 4 are all the likely results of 5 as well.

Now those are worse case scenarios ;)

And of course all of these can result in WWIII.

And they are only ones I came up with in 15 minutes. When you come up with worse case scenarios, you need imagination.

Professional assessment

For a professional assessment see the Paper “Military Action Against Iran: Impact and Effects†by Professor Paul Rogers he also wrote the paper “Iraq: Consequences of a War†which predicted and described in 2003, what would happen in Iraq as a consequence of the war:

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/military_action_against_iran_impact_and_effects

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 16, 2010 by walker

[Baff1 0]

A scud missile couldn't sink a carrier. It's highly questionable that it could even hit a carrier since it was designed for area targets and there for it has no guidance system. Now if one did hit a carrier the worst it would do it blow a hole through the flight deck and flight ops would be suspended until the hole was fixed which would require a drydock and that's only if it isn't a dud. Good luck hitting a carrier with a scud though, I'd use an Exocet missile any day for sinking a ship. I don't put much stock in second hand russian military hardware.

Actually, a Scud missile can hit a carrier. Evena satellite in space travelling at thousands of miles an hour. The Chinese have fitted their Scuds with Sunburn shipbuster missile guidance systems. They can not only hit carriers they can hit them from thousands of miles away. The U.S. Navy is terrified of these weapons and believe they have no effective counter to them.

But we aren't discussing Iran hitting carriers with Scud missiles, we are discussing them hitting carriers with Silkworms. Which are smaller than Scuds and easier to hide.

Any bomb hitting a loaded flightdeck at all can completely destroy a carrier. A molotov cocktail even. Carriers are the most vulnerable of all ships to enemy fire. In WW2 every U.S. carrier that was sunk was sunk by a single 300lb bomb.

(Scuds carry beween 1500 and 2500lb warheads, Silkworms 1250lb)

Shipbuster missiles such as the Exocet (360lb) only needed one to sink their targets in the Falklands, the silkworm's warhead is 4 times the size of an exocets.

The problem for Exocets is that it has a comparatively short range. You have to get well inside a ships radar envelope before you can launch against it.

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 PM ----------

I thought we were talking Chinese dedicated anti-ship missiles and how many Iran might possess? I agree, if it's one with a high speed second stage warhead, such a threat could be very difficult to defeat. Of course it would depend on the current level of counter-measure and counter-missile systems and whether the US are willing to take the risk.

I think the point Baff1 was making was that we can't simply rely on Special Forces to take out their missiles, since we failed to take out all of Iraq's Scuds in the first Gulf War, which, coupled with botched Patriot systems still resulted in allied casualties despite the Scud's inaccuracies.

That said, I don't think there's a US/Iran conflict on the horizon. I don't think either side want that.

The history of ships shooting down silkworms is positive. A British ship shot one down with Sea Dart. (U.S. and U.K. ships buy their anti-missile systems from the same people). Sea Dart of course is only able to enage 2 targets at a time. It can be overwhelmed.

And this is where the heavy mining of the Gulf weighs in. In those narrow shipping lanes, how many defensive ships can you place near a carrier?

I don't know that Iran has any of the supersonic variants of this missile. I wasn't expecting them to.

Personally, I wouldn't be willing to bet thousands of American lives Big Mac's estimation of Russian technology. I'd just park my fleet well out of range and let the airforce do their job. One single U.S. carrier lost would be a loss of life greater than 9/11. Why risk it?

Edited July 16, 2010 by Baff1

[stgn 39]

The attack on exiting reactors, remember all previous attacks on nuclear reactors have been on ones that were not fueled up, causes massive fallout similar or worse than Chernobyl as Chernobyl was largely contained. Remember nuclear reactors contain far nastier and much larger quantities of polluting elements than a nuclear weapon; unless the nuke is designed to be dirty. Tehran, where some of the reactors are, becomes as unlivable, prevailing winds carry the fallout in to Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China.

Thousands die from radiation sickness all played out in the glare of the media.

Kind Regards walker

:butbut: You don't know anything about nuclear power do you, your just making bs up as you go along. Go learn about nuclear fission and nuclear weapon, instead of dreaming up impossible scare stories.

STGN

---------- Post added at 04:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

Any bomb hitting a loaded flightdeck at all can completely destroy a carrier. A molotov cocktail even. Carriers are the most vulnerable of all ships to enemy fire. In WW2 every U.S. carrier that was sunk was sunk by a single 300lb bomb.

Please explain how a molotov coctail would be able to sink a aircraft carrier.

STGN

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Those were WW2 carriers you dolt! They had WOODEN DECKS! How the hell could a molotov take down a modern, all fuckin metal aircraft carrier? Hell, they aren't even using flammable paint anymore! A U.S. Aircraft carrier can survive a silkworm hit, possibly 2, but it can survive 1 atleast. It may not be able to move if the screws get hit, but they make modern ships to fuckin last man. Where the hell have you been the past 70 years Baff?

[walker 0]

:butbut: You don't know anything about nuclear power do you, your just making bs up as you go along. Go learn about nuclear fission and nuclear weapon, instead of dreaming up impossible scare stories.

STGN

Hi STGN

I was talking about a reactor breach. Eg where the content of a working nuclear reactor is open to the outside, caused by say an explosion and or fire; you do know that Uranium, which is one of the things you get in a nuclear reactor, is Pyrophoric don't you? Uranium has chemistry as well as physics some people tend to forget this.

I am fairly conversant with what happens when a reactor breaches.

Cases.

Winscale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire

Five Mile Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

Chernobyl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

Of course each of these was a partial meltdown and took place in a country where there was an Infrastructure still in existence, eg not destroyed in air attacks, and thus able to mitigate the disaster. Also in each case, even in the case of Chernobyl the outer containment was only partially breached. In this case we are talking a major breach and fire caused by a deliberate attack.

The general factors involved in a meltdown are described here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown

Of course I am only using Wikipedia as clearly I am too dumb to know more. :(

As you profess to know more about the subject than I; well I would be more than happy to enlighten me, :)

but I do not think you will because I do not think you do.

I was of course replying to Takko and his rather weak worst case with both some of my own assesments off the top of my head and a professional assesment by Professor Paul Rogers “Military Action Against Iran: Impact and Effectsâ€

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/military_action_against_iran_impact_and_effects

Hi Takko

No Where Near Worst Case...

(Some worst cases off the top of my head)

...Kind Regards walker

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 16, 2010 by walker

[-Snafu- 77]

This thread.

[Daniel 0]

Those were WW2 carriers you dolt! They had WOODEN DECKS! How the hell could a molotov take down a modern, all fuckin metal aircraft carrier? Hell, they aren't even using flammable paint anymore! A U.S. Aircraft carrier can survive a silkworm hit, possibly 2, but it can survive 1 atleast. It may not be able to move if the screws get hit, but they make modern ships to fuckin last man. Where the hell have you been the past 70 years Baff?

No need to jump on the tiniest things. I'm sure they don't allow smoking on flight decks for a similar reason.

On the topic of attacking reactors:

You really do not want to be attacking sites containing nuclear fuel. I thought it was insane of Israel to attack Iran's reactors until I read that they were in the early stages of construction. Fuelling reactors is dangerous enough without high explosives mixed in...

If there were to be future airstrikes, they'd have to have their intel 100%. I'm with Walker on that one. And as has been mentioned, Chernobyl wasn't even the worst case scenario in its own event.

You don't know anything about nuclear power do you, your just making bs up as you go along. Go learn about nuclear fission and nuclear weapon, instead of dreaming up impossible scare stories.

STGN

You're right in that there wouldn't be a nuclear explosion. There would however be potential for breach of containment, which would spell an extremely bad day for whoever happens to live downwind.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Daniel

[Baff1 0]

Please explain how a molotov coctail would be able to sink a aircraft carrier.

STGN

Because the deck (or hangars) of an aircraft carrier is loaded with bombs and fueled up aeroplanes and aeroplane fuel.

It's one giant fireball just waiting to happen.

Unless of course it is an aircraft carrier that is not using it's aeroplanes, in which case it isn't. But er.. if you aren't going to fly any of the planes from it, you might as well leave it at home if you know what I mean.

The amount of chemical energy stored in that kind of ship is incredible. A cigarette lighter at the wrong time and place could even do it.

Every single U.S. aircraft carrier ever sunk. Just one bomb.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Baff1