Matthew Bracken comments on a Rick Moran American Thinker post:
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 bull$#it.
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.
Bill Cook
Thanks for that. It’s nice to hear from someone with expertise as opposed to the usual WH/State Dept propaganda.
Lee
That answers some of the questions I had. I’ve never been in the military but I sail. And shmo sailing offshore has redundancy, and crazy not to have radar, and pretty good plotters. I couldn’t imagine US Navy vessel being less well equipped than an off shore sailor.
It’s also depressing as hell.
Tim
It is my understanding that the aircraft carrier Truman was in the Gulf at the time, in which case air cover was perhaps a half hour away at most. One would think that fighter aircraft would have been in orbit over these two boats and able to sink anything within 10 miles.
What happened to the air cover?
Lee
I’m reminded of those cop shows, when someone in the criminal world — an undercover cop or a snitch or even a real criminal — had to get something to the police. The police would make a show of a big arrest.
I know this is crazy conspiracy stuff, but what if, just maybe, part of the Iran “deal” was to give them access to some, uh, “things”? What a way to do it!
Boligat
Tim, I have a former student that is currently flying F-18s off the Truman. It will be interesting to get his take on this, if, of course, he will talk about it. If he says anything like, “I can’t say anything” we will know for sure that something is officially really, really wrong with this.
Lee
Okay. Now that for of the hostages that Iran held have “suddenly” been released, maybe my conspiracy idea is not so far fetched.
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