this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Do you think the US war machine gives a damn about the welfare of their saliors and officers? The Cole wasn’t sunk, or badly damaged for that matter but even if let’s say 3 frigates get sunk (an absurd scenario in the case), the US would care less and use it as a justification to increase their presence.
Plus if we’re being honest, it took years of preparation and the bombers being VERY lucky to pull off the Cole bombing. The ships electric detection system was offline, many sailors only died because it was lunch time and everyone was lined up in the galley that was alongside where the detonation occurred, and the captain was expecting a refueling ship which distracted the observation crew, along several other factors. Al Queda had tried a few times before on other ships and all the bombers were just slaughtered, for example with the USS Sullivan.
Also, a “nice tight shipping lane”, unless an attack is happening in the Suez Canal itself, there are kilometers of sea in all directions inside the Red Sea. More then enough space for a pirate ship to be picked up on radar, or even just seen with the plain eye. I’m sure that a speedboat would fare well against a CIWS gun.
Do you doubt the eagerness of the US war machine to make more weapons sales? Plus I feel like you’re putting a bit to much weight in the weapons needed. They don’t need the merchant ships to be auxiliary cruisers, they’re not fighting warships. Literally 1 WW2 40mm bofors gun on the port and starboard side would solve the issue, if I’m being as cheap as possible.
The reason they haven’t done this is because it increases ship insurance.
I think the sailors and officers in the region care. And I think it becomes increasingly difficult to manage a military when your frontline units are constantly flinching and cowering. IEDs in Iraq weren't just about killing individual occupying soldiers. They increasingly bottled troop units up in their bases and "Green Zones". The Highway of Death was no joke. Then, on a prolonged scale, they fractured Bush's already-reluctant "coalition of the willing" and depressed recruitment at home and forced politicians and officers to wade through scandal after scandal as public opinion soured on the war.
The USS Cole bombing had a profound negative impact on public perception of military readiness. It was not eclipsed by the relative success of the US invasion of the Balkins during the Bosnian/Kosovo War or the success of Desert Shield in repelling Iraqis from Kuwait. But while we were in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were having convoys and bases hit practically every day. Hugely demoralizing for anyone interested in making a career as a US soldier.
I doubt the capacity of production, given how much we've padded out the process of construction and distribution. Building at scale in the modern era has proved an insurmountable obstacle. That's fine when we only do a few high profile engagements every couple of years. But in a protracted multi-front war spanning the entire rim of the Asian continent? And when you consider the sheer volume of shipping moving along the coast?
The whole reason we have a Navy to begin with is to defer the need for every merchant vessel to keep its own on-board company of marines. I'm sure someone would love to profit off a new need to arm every shipping container from Kenya to Kyoto. But that person isn't on the board of Maersk.
The Cole was hit in port, not underway in the Red Sea. Also the merchant traffic in the Red Sea, especially where it gets concentrated down near the south, limits options for warship mobility that could absolutely allow determined actors get within striking range.
Yes, those ships, even merchents, do have capabilities and options for defense, but they're not invulnerable. Hamas came over the wall in fucking paramotors. I wouldn't underestimate the levels of ingenuity a beleaguered, desperate, and angry people are capable of.
I'm not saying your points are invalid, I'm just saying the threat against any ship out there is above 0% and there probably aren't simple solutions given those involved and the environment.
I agree with the Cole port bombing, but that doesn’t really change what I said. That just puts it further into context that Al Qaeda was barely lucky enough to hit an out of commission frigate in port, let alone one underway. Plus merchant shipping being concentrated in the south is insanely protected, UN air and naval forces based out of Dijoboiti would make any determined strike a pointless suicide mission. They would be shredded by Chinese, French, US, Russian, British, Korean, Japanese, etc ships and aircraft the second they entered protected zones.
I agree that no ship is invincible, but you have to be realistic. Yemen is not fielding top of the line warships. There’s only so ingenious you can be with speedboats unless they somehow build themselves as SSK submarine I guess.
There’s no simple answer to this, but to act like any sort of rebel force has any sort of chance at victory in a scenario like this is insane.
I wasn't trying to get you to change what you said, I was just adding context, flavor for discussion. We could discuss hypotheticals all day as well. With the way things have been heating up in the middle east over the Israel invasion, we may not have to wait long to see what could happen, to be honest.
Who knows, maybe they'll strike a ship near the Bab-Al-Mandab to lure out that multinational strike force from Djibouti straight into a minefield.
What out of commission frigate were you referring to? The Cole is a destroyer and was struck during inport refueling.