Discussion for article #244828
Clearly, the Navy is not releasing the entire story. You donât transport navy personal 300 miles between bases in small limited range riverine command boats.
Itâs possible they were repositioning the boats themselves, but these boats are designed to be moved long distances on larger ships.
Sounds like the Navy got caught snooping around inside Iranian waters.
ActuallyâŚthose small vessels are routinely used that way. They are 50 feet long and almost never moved via large vessel. There is nothing odd here.
First: so happy they are safe and diplomacy worked.
Second: from a womanâs standpoint, did anyone else notice the rugs they were sitting on. The Repubs were probably upset they were sitting on the floor, but we wouldnât sit our captives on seats worth thousands of dollars. Lol
If Iran really wanted to get in our good graces, they would have given each serviceman a Gabbeh as a parting gift.
1 Like
Yeah, having the Coast Guard cutter there for refueling makes it pretty evident this isnât an unusual move for transporting these boats. Basically unless youâve got something with a well deck in the area and available to make the trip, then these things are fine to move through open waters if the weatherâs not expected to give them an intolerable amount of chop.
So unless youâre gonna move an entire LPD / LSD whenever you realize you need two more shallow-draft patrol boats⌠you send them out on their own. Avoiding Saudi waters would be necessary unless you want to go through the lengthy procedure of requesting permission for these boats to operate in those waters - which isnât done unless thereâs no other option, because it opens the door to all sorts of questions being asked about why, about whatâs on them, etc etc, and that means losing time. So instead of taking a couple of days to get permission to drive closer to shore, you drive down the middle of the Gulf. At the point between Nakhiloo and Ras Tanura, thatâs not a lot of margin for screwing up the navigation.
Note that thereâs a few interesting bits of language in the article, too: âthey were to have refueledâ, â10 minutes after the scheduled refuelingâ. These arenât âthey refueledâ and â10 minutes after completing their refuelingâ. Either the USN didnât include confirmation of a successful refueling for some reason, or they never made that rendezvous. Which makes sense, if you think about it, because at 30kts (comfortable speed for a CB90), even if thereâd been no mechanical trouble, theyâre less than 5 miles from a US Coast Guard cutter - the same cutter that fired a warning shot over an Iranian dhow in August of 2014, and can herself make 30kts to be on-site in 10m (and inside effective range of Monomoyâs 25mm chain guns in under 5).
So thereâs no way they made that fueling stop - not if they were inside Iranian waters (as everyone involved acknowledges they were), and Monomoy was waiting in international waters (because you donât take chances and put the cutter near Iranian waters). But at the same time, C&C didnât lose contact with them until well after the Iranians showed up.
The other thing thatâs interesting to me here is: one of the CB90s had mechanical trouble, but the next morning, they went on their merry way. The Iranians clearly went over the boats. Frankly, itâd be irresponsible of them not to at least make sure they werenât exposing their own sailors to something hazardous. I know Rachel Maddow raised the possibility as snark, but⌠these are Swedish-built craft designed 25 years ago, with commercially-available diesel engines. (Scania DSI14s. You can get the manual online and buy parts on ebay.)
Maybe the Iranians did repair the damned engine while they had it?
4 Likes
Guess you will cover the Iran Deal & prisoner release next week! 
1 Like
Bingo
I honestly doubt they were snooping. CB90s just arenât the right tool for the job, especially not w/a carrier battlegroup within a hundred miles (as Trumanâs CBG is). Without even getting into drone operations from Riyadh, a carrier battlegroup adds all sorts of stealth recon options that make using a pair of CB90s laughable as anything other than âhere, come arrest meâ. From EWACs and high-altitude platforms to small-sonarprint special operations submersibles, thereâs simply nothing a CB90 offers for âsnoopingâ that Truman and her escorts canât do better, with fewer sailors at risk⌠except operate as highly visible, near-shore, shallow-water patrol boats.
Which is exactly what the US Navyâs CB90s are used for. Youâre basically suggesting the equivalent of having police stake out a suspected mafia hangout in an uparmored Humvee with a pintle-mounted .50 cal on top.
I wonder if they drifted as they were trying to solve the mechanical problems of the one boat. In that case wouldnât that put Iran under obligation to render assistance according to maritime law?
If they sent an SOS, yes. Sounds like they didnât, because they werenât watching where they were drifting.
And if this all turns out to have played out as a very tense version of âThey got towed in, fed, put up for the night, and their boat fixedâ, well, wouldnât that just be kinda hilarious in its own right?