What Those Sailors Captured By Iran Should Have Done
BY Herschel Smith
8 years, 10 months ago
No doubt as you have noted, we have some sailors being held by Iran. No doubt either, their vessels have been confiscated by Iran and are being reversed engineered now, perhaps with the help of Russian engineers and programmers.
Daniel (my former Marine) and I discussed it. We both agreed upon the necessary course of action had we been on board those vessels prior to being confiscated by Iran. Call on a satellite phone with your last known location, deploy life rafts, water, guns, ammunition and food, and then scuttle the vessels.
If they could not do that, they should not be sailors. I’m sorry if this offends former sailors, but this is what I think. And it’s what Daniel thinks. Sailors are supposed to be warriors too. We’ve become soft.
On January 13, 2016 at 8:55 am, TimeHasCome said:
Sandford and Son Navy where nothing works . Not even a tow line.
On January 13, 2016 at 7:04 pm, boogyoogyoogy said:
Too cool and too accurate.
On January 13, 2016 at 10:42 am, Toastrider said:
The whole thing seems weird. One vessel goes awry, and they can’t tow it? And both vessels get neatly snapped up by the Iranians?
On January 13, 2016 at 7:15 pm, tayronachan said:
Maybe that was the plan? Just guessing here.
On January 13, 2016 at 11:39 am, l2a3 said:
Being the nasty “piece” lover that I am, I’d have waited until they were on board before the scuttle charges detonated. FYI those boats were not “Gear Adrift”.
On January 13, 2016 at 11:45 am, john said:
First, it was a purposeful “incursion”. If it was really a matter of a boat having mech problems, they would have towed it. I’m sure we’ll never hear the real story from MSM or the State Department.
Instead of dicking around in the region, we should either completely abandon it, or start stepping on some towel-head necks. We look like an even bigger bunch of feckless pussies to the rest of the world now.
On January 13, 2016 at 3:01 pm, DAN III said:
How soon we forget….from Wikipedia….
“USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class environmental research ship, attached to Navy intelligence, which was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known today as the Pueblo incident or alternatively, as the Pueblo crisis.
Pueblo, STILL HELD BY NORTH KOREA TODAY, officially remains a commissioned
vessel of the United States Navy. Since early 2013, the ship has been moored
along the Botong River in Pyongyang, and used there as a museum ship at the Pyongyang Victorious War Museum. Pueblo is the only ship of the U.S. Navy still on the commissioned roster
currently being held captive.”
Gee, nearly fifty years ago the North Korean nemesis did what the Iranians just did to us. The Pueblo crew didn’t scuttle their ship then. Why would anyone think today’s pacified Navy, American military, would do any different than their predecessors nearly 50 years ago ?
And they say history repeats itself.
On January 13, 2016 at 3:15 pm, Mitch Rapp said:
My sentiments. Has the navy ever heard of a tow line? Holy shit! On the other hand, maybe they didn’t ‘drift’ any place, but instead were captured by an overwhelming force. Maybe they just wanted a closer look at “farci island’.
On January 13, 2016 at 4:26 pm, Hoss Green said:
The first thought that came to mind was; I wonder if this is a ploy on the administration’s part to win the hearts of the people over the messed up Iran deal?
On January 13, 2016 at 6:23 pm, Vern said:
Something smells awful Rotten about this whole thing !
On January 13, 2016 at 7:00 pm, Joseph Ferguson said:
You don’t think for a second that they wouldn’t have just plucked you out of the water? It would take them next to nothing to pick the boats off the bottom. They got a lot of heavy lift capacity around Kharg Island.
On January 13, 2016 at 8:01 pm, Archer said:
I think you miss the point of scuttling. It’s not just to sink the ship (although that is part of it). It’s to render it — and any useful equipment on board — completely inoperable and unsalvageable, or as close to it as possible.
Anyone can build a boat. That’s not what Iran (or Russia, or anyone else) will try to reverse-engineer. Electronic communication systems, radar/sonar detection systems (and counter-measures), targeting/tracking systems (and counter-measures), etc., will be what they’re after, and should be (should have been?) destroyed immediately.
On January 13, 2016 at 9:40 pm, FedUpWithWelfareStates said:
Sailors are supposed to be warriors too? Since when…
On January 14, 2016 at 3:40 am, Mark Dietzler said:
I don’t believe the official story for one second. I’m with Matt Bracken, those boats were hijacked in international waters by something much bigger then those bass boats shown.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/10_us_sailors_held_by_iran_confirmed_freed_comments.html
I’m relatively recently retired (2014), and no way would I meekly stand there and let Iranians, of all people, take me into custody. I remember the Iranian Hostage crisis, and I am not about to be used as a pawn like that. Not by Iran, no way no how.
On January 14, 2016 at 11:49 am, Backwoods Engineer said:
From Matt Bracken, former Navy Seal and author extraordinaire, via his Facebook page. Summary: Iran & US State Dept are both lying.
“I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat’s icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats “strayed into Iranian waters” is complete [bovine effluvia].
For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation’s claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that’s why two boats go on these trips and not one! It’s called “self-rescue” and it’s SOP.
This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a “hands up!” situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America’s face.
Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.
The “strayed into Iranian waters” story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other.”
On January 16, 2016 at 10:47 am, joe said:
Here’s a relevant comment from a prolific poster on several military sites with the handle M&S:
“It’s 277 miles from Shuaiba Kuwait (their major port) and Mina Salman (Bahrain). It’s 142 miles from Shuaiba to Farsi Island.
The former distance is approximately 4hrs 26 minutes down Route 95 by car at highway speeds, it’s probably closer to 10 hrs at a throttle-easy 25-30 knots, by boat. You would likely have to upload added gas to have a safety margin to do it.
Wiki CB90
Propulsion:2 × 625 bhp Scania DSI14 V8 Diesel; 2 × Kamewa FF water jets
Speed:40 knots (74 km/h)
Range:240 nmi (440 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
It would not be something which a small craft would be doing, unescorted, without a sailing plan as the equivalent of a blue water op, beyond coastal support and in a busy sealane populated by tankers and freighters that don’t exactly stop on a dime (I also considered covert VBSS but if that were the case, there would have been an RWA presence in track-ID-sniping support).
To steal a line from ‘Predator’: “You lose it here and you’re in a world of shit.”
If these were CB90s, with all of four light weapon pintels, they have next to no real combat capacity against Iranian FAC-Ms with MRL, RCL and even light AShM. Their function is as a FIAC/PCI/SWCC type craft (i.e. against like craft where they have the advantage of initiated combat and for riverine support of light units ashore) and so…
Sans fuel and sans a plan with reach out to supporting assets (I assume we still keep a destroyer tender and flotilla in the Gulf and there are likely RWA assets as well), you can almost bet that this ‘transit mission’ between the two countries was NOT an ordinary thing, no matter what they say about it.”
On January 18, 2016 at 10:41 am, Submariner said:
“Don’t give up the ship. Fight her ’til she sinks.” Captain James Lawrence, USS Chesapeake