Iran plans to sail it's navy off of Americas shores.

[powderman]

DIXIE DUDE. We toured the North Carolina in Wilminton NC years ago and met a man who served 33 mo on her, what a blessing it was to meet him. He pointed to various places on deck where men died, he named them too. POWDERMAN. 

[mechanic]

Ah, the heck with it.  We can line up some fella's with 45-70's.  I like long range shooting.
 
Ben

[ironglow]

  You guys who claim our defensive capability is not that good, are reinforcing the old adage;
 
  "The best defense is a good offense"..  Maybe we best warn them to stay away...then if they come nearer than say 50 miles deep-six them..
  With the limited defense some of you guys present..that's about the best we can do.

[finisher]

I served during a very transitional time for the US Navy as far as it's combat function was concerned. The mission is still the same; presence, projection of power and to protect the trade lanes.


But the fact is that naval warfare has never at anytime in history been a clean affair particularly when ships squared off and went toe to toe. The cleanest it may have been if one can call it clean was in WWII with the advent of carrier warfare.


Sad to say that technology has in a sense taken theoretic naval warfare backwards in the sense that no surface or SS ship for that matter is immune to today's weaponry. The punches will be thrown and the ship and crew will have to bear them. Any old "salt" will tell you that because he knows that that ship is his home and their is no retreat for a sailor.

I can second most of what YT has to say ( I never had any faith in CIWS. Seen it miss in practice too many times, always had trouble tracking and engaging multiple targets). It doesn't sound pretty but he presents a very realistic picture of it. This doesn't mean that the US Navy cannot dish it out. Since WWII, it's strength and ability to project  still lie in the carrier force and air superiority.

Further more, the one thing that everyone overlooks (because the combat side of it is so much more interesting) is logistic capability. Ours is doing just fine and without logistics any military force will not last. The ability to SUSTAIN OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS is, has been, and always will be the deciding factor..

The true strength of any seagoing vessel is in the training and effectiveness of it's damage control teams. The US Navy has learned some hard lessons in this area over the decades (Forrestal, Stark, Ranger, etc.) You guys never here about it back home but "excrement" happens out at sea.

I've seen my share of shipboard fires both below decks and on the flight deck. I know, it doesn't compare to a missile impact but at least up to the time when I was still a fleet sailor, I can say that our guys were always 4-0 in this respect and took control of some potentially very bad situations.

As long as a ship can stay afloat and maintain propulsion and steering there is always the age old option of boarding an enemy vessel. And that's when a sailor gets to take out a lot of pent up aggression. I don't see this as being beyond possibility even in today's modern times when two fleets are faced with the possibility of obliterating each other from afar.

Whoever is left standing when all the long range high tech toys are exhausted will either disengage or go in up close and personal like to finish business just like the old days of sail. That's the job. Ugly, ugly business.

[finisher]

another thing to keep in mind is that as good as the phalanx is...from what i've read, it can locate and neutralize 20 incoming missiles, all the Iranians have to do is launch 21 missiles.


simple tactics defeated Hitler and napoleon just to name two; are we making the same mistakes? we're strung out all over the globe. could we supply all our troops and allies in a real toe-to-toe slug-fest? probably not for long...we were nearly out of ammo and there were no more tomahawk cruise missiles left at the end of the first war in Iraq; it didn't even last two full months.


we can't afford to make a mistake(s) with the Iranians...

YT is absolutely correct, CIWS's only function is to pick up the scraps (in theory) already absorbed (in theory) by the smaller ships in the battle group. It realistically isn't capable of much more.


As far as naval warfare is concerned, the only thing the Iranians have going for them are combat pilots, if they all aren't already retired.


You make a good point about sustained operation though. Any sustained, full scale conflict is going to end coming down to brutal conventional warfare if the high tech toys don't bring about a quick decisive victory. The world is just too small a place now for that kind of foolishness now. In the end, I predict that China will end up dominating the world eventually...one way or another.

[Dixie Dude]

With the exception of a larger cruise missle, the air launched Exocet type missles require the enemy plane to fly fairly close range, thus the fighers from the carrier which can shoot down the enemy plane before it gets the ability to fire.  Carrier fighers have a 600 mile range.  With the look down radar, a cruise missle launched within this range can be shot down.  A high speed IRBM or ICBM require a laser or a fast anti missle missle to shoot it down. 

[yellowtail3]

  You guys who claim our defensive capability is not that good, are reinforcing the old adage;
 

If you mean me, it's a case of knowing what I'm talking about and not being enamoured with Clancy & video games & military worship.
 

"The best defense is a good offense"..  Maybe we best warn them to stay away...then if they come nearer than say 50 miles deep-six them..
  With the limited defense some of you guys present..that's about the best we can do.

Yeah? Will you extend same advice/courtesy to the Iranian gov't, should they take the same positive re the presence of USN off their coast?? After all... our navy has been/is a much greater & present threat to Iran, than any Iranian navy is to US homeland.

[ironglow]

   YT;
    Iran is safe from our Navy as long as they don't strike out in agression...and they know it.  All they have to do is behave themselves.
  You seem to make the same mistake as many liberals..that of assigning "moral equivalency" to parties who have not demonstrated any worthwhile moral standing.

[yellowtail3]

  You seem to make the same mistake as many liberals..that of assigning "moral equivalency" to parties who have not demonstrated any worthwhile moral standing.

you ought to explain exactly what you mean, and provide some ferinstance, and refer to what I wrote.
here's what I wrote:

Will you extend same advice/courtesy to the Iranian gov't, should they take the same positive re the presence of USN off their coast?? After all... our navy has been/is a much greater & present threat to Iran, than any Iranian navy is to US homeland.

Fact is, our navy has attacked Iranians OFF THEIR SHORES, while their navy has NEVER attacked us off OUR shores.. it never has, in fact. We regularly operate in close proximity to Iranian territory.

Do you remember when the USN shot down an airliner full of civilians off Iranian shores, then claimed it was a diving, attacking fighter? I wonder what your reaction would be to the Iranians shooting down a US airliner off the coast of NY?