About that Carrier Group now in Iran's back yard

[charlie and algernon]

who the hell puts a large carrier group within range of anti-ship missiles? The Iranians have been importing the Chinese made C-802 anti-ship missilies and placing them on their ships and the mountians over looking the Gulf. These aren't cheap missiles, but damn good ones.

From Wilkipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802
The Yingji-82 or YJ-82 (Chinese: 鹰击-82, literally "Eagle Strike"; NATO reporting name: CSS-N-8 Saccade) is a Chinese anti-ship missile first unveiled in 1989 by the China Haiying Electro-Mechanical Technology Academy (CHETA), also known as the Third Academy. Since the Yingji-82 missile has a small radar reflectivity and is only about five to seven meters above the sea surface when it attacks the target, and since its guidance equipment has strong anti-jamming capability, target ships have a very low success rate in intercepting the missile. The hit probability of the Yingji-82 is estimated to be as high as 98 percent. The Yingji-82 can be launched from airplanes, surface ships, submarines and land-based vehicles, and has been considered along with the US Harpoon missile as among the best anti-ship missiles of its generation.<1> Its export name is the C-802.

Is our administration that dumb to put up to 15,000 sailors and marines within striking distance of VERY good missiles??? WTF IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!

[Larkspur]

1. Maybe Bush wants a "Pearl Harbor" event in the Persian Gulf

I also thought that the Iranians had a Soviet missile that our radars can't detect.

[Dems Will Win]

12. THis is my theory. Remember the PNAC Plan says a "New Pearl Harbor" is needed

to really fulfill the plan. Commit acts of war against Iran, get a ship sunk, hundreds or thousands of sailors drowned and bingo!

Media Frenzy and a demand for a Draft. Could the Dems stop it?

Probably.

That's why it's triple-crazy!

[helderheid]

16. I fear you're right

[havocmom]

23. Goes back even further: 'Remember the Maine!'

These guys can't come up with a new idea to save their own asses...

[robertpaulsen]

38. Wouldn't surprise me if they called it a New Gulf of Tonkin...

Without a trace of irony. ;)

[northzax]

2. saccades are nothing

welcome to the wonderful world of the Sunburn.

[charlie and algernon]

3. yup

we're going to lose some ships and it scares the hell out of me

[havocmom]

25. Air Force has brass hung-ho for more 'crusades'

Navy brass has more wits about them. Guess the junta decided the Navy needs more convincing about how dangerous Iran is.

Sad reminder of the Gary Larson cartoon of two deer talking, one with a bull's eye on him:
"Bummer of a birthmark, Hal"

The junta doesn't give one whit for ANYONE in uniform. Just expendable resources to them. Right now, they need the nation to be distracted from the crimes they have already committed. What is a few more crimes to them at this point.

The Navy is not buying what Cheney is selling, so the navy will get hit. Cheney uses more than bird-shot to make his point.

[northernsoul]

30. is this where the Fundy/Rapturist infiltration of the USAF comes in ?

We know the fundies / "Left Behind" crowd has been trying to turn the Air Force Academy into their own private indoctrination center. Are there now enough fundie moles within the USAF to have a major branch of the military decide to drive us right off a cliff?

[havocmom]

31. Would only take a couple crews for a couple of big bombers, wouldn't it?

You bet they have the personnel with the, ahem, right stuff

Remember back in the very early days following the invasion of Iraq... 'Presidentail Prayer Cards' given to troops to fill out? Think they were building their own version of Saddam's Republican Guard?

You bet

Lyrics from one of my favorite songs from long ago:

Many years have passed,
but still I wonder why:
The worst of men must fight
And the best of men must die.

[hobbit709]

6. True

The Sunburn is much more formidable and we don't even know how many of those the Iranians got from the Russians.
The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes “violent end maneuvers” to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution –– not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder “just in time.”

The Sunburn’s combined supersonic speed and payload size produce tremendous kinetic energy on impact, with devastating consequences for ship and crew. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet. Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat.

[Solo_in_MD]

20. Your information is quite dated

[hobbit709]

24. So exactly what is dated

about the missile specs?

[Solo_in_MD]

32. Effectiveness

[Richard Steele]

36. So you keep saying. But your reticence to offer ANY evidence in support...

...of your hit-and-run claims leaves us SANE folks with
absolutely no reason to take your unsupported word
over that of the actual Weapons Experts whose DOCUMENTED
assessments are in complete disagreement with yours.

[northernsoul]

8. bring me up to speed on the lingo

for those of us whose appreciation for military lingo ends somewhere around the time of the Napoleanic Wars, what are saccades / Sunburn?

[charlie and algernon]

10. Saccades are the chinese missiles I talk about in the OP

[seemslikeadream]

13. Iranian missles & the US Navy in the Gulf

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=3039044

[northzax]

14. sunburn is the NATO designation for the Soviet P-270 Mosqit

a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile developed by the Soviets in the 1970s and recently rumored to have been sold to Iran.

imagine, if you will, a missile with a rumoured range of 150 km that can travel 860 m/s (roughly mach 2 at surface level). you have 220 seconds, just under four minutes, from launch to impact at maximum range.

[northernsoul]

15. Yoiks!

Thanks for the info. Nice to know that our sailors are being used as bait like that.

[Kagemusha]

4. The US has put carriers around the Gulf and not in it for years

There's no reason for the US to put carriers close enough for Iran's land based anti-ship missiles to strike at them. None. Zero. Nadda. Zippo.

Planes fly for a decent distance, see, so you can put carriers in a place where Iran is in striking distance of the carrier's planes, but the carrier is not within striking distance of the missiles.

You see that the range listed is 120km, right? A carrier can strike from much further than that.

I'm not saying someone couldn't put a carrier closer in a very stupid way but, I doubt Bush is doing so. The military knows better and would say so.

[jabeguy]

18. reason for Bush putting ships in harms way on purpose....

Uh, please look up the U.S.S. Liberty incident....

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=uss+liberty&hl=en

Anything is possible w/ what the higher-ups want. Including putting US soldiers in harms' way on purpose to fulfill their desires. Don't doubt the evil in our government. It gets much worse than this too.

Look up 9/11 Mysteries:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=911+mysteries&hl=en

You think they wouldn't do this on purpose? Or at least let it happen?

[Kagemusha]

19. NOT THE CARRIERS, no.

The carriers are FAR too expensive in terms of dollars, lives, and time. No, not the carriers. Lesser ships, fine. BUT NOT A CARRIER. THEY ARE NOT REPLACEABLE.

Sorry to shout, but I needed to be crystal clear. There is reasonable suspicion and unreasonable suspicion. I want to differentiate between the two.

[alfredo]

34. The USS Liberty was in international waters. It was not sailing

at attack speeds. It was not a threat. They were just monitoring the activities and were not taking sides. Israel knew it was an American ship, in fact two Israeli pilots refused to attack an unarmed American ship. They were the only people punished for that attack.

The Israelis knew it was an American spy ship, and that is why they attacked. There were two things they wanted to hide. The first was that Israel fired the first shots, and second that they were executing POW's. Which one was the prime reason for the murders is still being debated.

They wanted no survivors. Using jets and torpedo boats they sunk lifeboats and tried for 2 hours to sink the ship. Unfortunately for them, the ship refused to sink and most of our sailors survived. One of my friends was supposed to be on that ship that day, but his orders were delayed.

I have spoken with one of the officers that was on the bridge that day.


The Commander of the Liberty got the CMH but the ceremony was held away from the Capitol and away from the public so not to embarrass the Israelis.

I am still angry at the Israelis and the American officials that sided with Israel and against our soldiers and sailors.

[Strelnikov_]

28. Especially considering the eastern end of the gulf can be 'serviced'

from our grand spanking new bases in Iraq/Kuwait.

[Kagemusha]

33. Even they're too close

Just saying, just because they're being sent towards the Gulf doesn't mean INTO the Gulf, but rather, south of the Straits, in what's technically the Pacific Ocean. Saner. Safer. And even if they were gonna sacrifice a ship, it wouldn't be a carrier itself at all.

[Strelnikov_]

37. What is too close?

I agree, there is no need for a carrier in or near the gulf. We have enough land bases around the region to support close air and rescue. Missions off the flattops would probably be long range strike and CAP, which as you say can be provided from distance.

[Kagemusha]

40. Iraq/ Kuwait

Land to land missiles could hit them.

[Marie26]

5. I think we're hoping they attack.

It's Bush's way of saying "Bring It On!"

[Avalux]

7. I agree with you.

They will try to provoke Iran to attack us. The sacrifice of one of our ships is acceptable to these nutcases - then they'll have a reason to bomb the shit out of Iran. Remember, with them - "the end always justfies the means". Human life means nothing.

[global1]

9. I Just Hope That Iran Is Smarter Than * And Will Not Take The Bait.....

and practice restraint.

[rman]

21. Or at least make it plausible that they did if W claims they did.

It'd just be a variation on the "they've got WMD's" theme.

[Norquist Nemesis]

22. Wouldn't surprise me if they did some provocation

just like they did with the no-fly zones in Iraq before the "official" invasion.

[havocmom]

26. A big hit on a US Fleet would get the recruitment #s up too.

Nothing like picking a fight to get the young bucks in the crowd pumped up to come out swinging.

Lord knows, there are no jobs in civilian life for the young people in America. A BIG war is just the ticket for the neocon's to solve the jobs problems.

Added benefit: with all the strong young Americans in uniform and overseas, local business fat cats will HAVE TO HAVE a loosening of enforcement against the illegal hiring of undocumented workers.

All part of the neocon/corporatist alchemy of turning blood into gold.

[Norquist Nemesis]

29. Oh, you mean like picking a fight by storming an Embassy?

Check.

[SpiralHawk]

11. That's what happens when you have a known DESERTER pretending to be the

commander in chief, and backed up by Dick 'Fivc Deferments' Cheney

The republicons must hate our soldiers to put these lame-ass jokers up as leaders of our troops

why do republicons hate our soldiers?

[dogindia]

17. Craziness. K&R.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

27. A link to a detailed spec ssheet

Courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/c-801.htm

[mod mom]

35. Does anyone know where the patriot missle defense has been deployed?

[Done]

39. If Bush goes after Iran...

Those missiles won't be targeting American warships. They'll be targeting oil tankers. When the Iranians disrupt the flow of oil, it will cause an economic catastrophe.

What will the Chinese do? Will they stay on the sideline and wait to see what happens?

The Chinese may enter the war to help the Iranians, and this is what the Iranians would be counting on. For this reason the Iranians will not back down from Bush's aggression. The Iranians may attack the US, or Bush may fake another attack.

If we can't impeach Bush and Cheney, we should eat, drink and be merry...for tomorrow we die.