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Iran's Guards launch aircraft carrier-scale warship amid tensions with U.S.: TV

Are you serious? This thing would be nothing but a metal coffin in a battle. It would not last 2 minutes. Warships are made to be able to sustain damage and still function. This is like strapping a mortar on a Kia and calling it a tank.

No. It's a launching platform at sea for their limited weaponry and reconnaissance. It's cost effective, and there's absolutely no reason to think Iran would, nor should, be willing to build a 21st century navy to compete with ours. That would be ridiculous. The observation you make about the military disparity is no different than the same one that could be made between the US navy and 40 or 50 other nation's navies. None of them would last 2 days. The bottom line is, Iran has every right to patrol and defend its territorial waters in whatever way it sees fit. Retrofitting a freighter to project arial reconnaissance at sea is a viable tactic in any country's defense. I suspect our own navy takes it more seriously than you do.
 
It has, but by very competent and powerful armed forces throughout history, including some of the most capable armies in human history.

But a competent military force could easily exploit Iran's natural defensive barriers to make the country very hard to invade. It would be a much easier task than trying to defend Iraq, which is smaller, less populated, and has a giant highway leading straight up to it's major population areas from the south.

There's also the reality that Iran has an actual national identity, and isn't just a collection of tribes and groups help together by a dictator, like Saddam's Iraq was.
Iran has hundreds of miles of hard to defend coast lines and a few million Kurds that would be happy to join a party to smash Iran and regain their homeland. Iran also has near zero economy and little means to carry on a war. This ship shows how desperate they are for a navy.
 
No. It's a launching platform at sea for their limited weaponry and reconnaissance. It's cost effective, and there's absolutely no reason to think Iran would, nor should, be willing to build a 21st century navy to compete with ours. That would be ridiculous. The observation you make about the military disparity is no different than the same one that could be made between the US navy and 40 or 50 other nation's navies. None of them would last 2 days. The bottom line is, Iran has every right to patrol and defend its territorial waters in whatever way it sees fit. Retrofitting a freighter to project arial reconnaissance at sea is a viable tactic in any country's defense. I suspect our own navy takes it more seriously than you do.
Iran is nothing more than a drowning rat, squealing as it goes under. Having nothing but a dwindling oil reserve to fuel it's economy and a world that is slipping away from oil dependence and ME oil in particular, Iran is doomed to return to a bunch of tribes herding camels.
 
Iran has hundreds of miles of hard to defend coast lines

You mean hundreds of miles of rugged coastline where concealment of anti-ship missile batteries would be easy to do? Underestimating your enemy is a bad idea. The Iranians don't share the incompetence of the Iraqi military.
 
Don't want to disillusion you but it takes a lot more than mountains to fight a war. Iran has been invaded and conquered several times.
I really don't want to get into this discussion, however, I will note, America simply doesn't have much of a stomach for financial and casualty costs right now.

Iran has advantages in modern warfare that it didn't have previously. Basically, many Iranian cities are near mountain ranges, as planes clear the ranges they are more susceptible to shoulder fired rockets and other anti-aircraft measures.
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Additionally, Iran is problematic for me ideologically. Of the Middle Eastern countries I spent time in, Iran felt the most like America. The people are so much more Westernized than places like the UAE. Their government is very different than their population.
 
Iran is nothing more than a drowning rat, squealing as it goes under. Having nothing but a dwindling oil reserve to fuel it's economy and a world that is slipping away from oil dependence and ME oil in particular, Iran is doomed to return to a bunch of tribes herding camels.
Having been there several times... Me thinks you are talking from the bottom lump.
 
I guess you're admitting to just being incapable of looking at it from their perspective. ??!! No less of what they do is to satisfy their own internal politics. It doesn't have to make sense to us if it makes sense to them.

Unlike Americans, everyone in Iran knows the history of their own country, and America's efforts to overthrow their duly elected democracy and install the Pahlevi Monarchy. We have an army on their Eastern border, an army on their Western border, never less than one carrier fleet in their gulf, and we declared them part of the "axis of evil". Anyone who thinks they don't have every right to do everything to defend themselves is merely a naive idiot. Taken from the Persian perspective, not only do they have every right to try to obtain nuclear weapons, under the circumstances I just described, they'd be fools not to !!

1) Calling what's his name "duly elected" is quite an exaggeration.
2) The handful of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan don't qualify as "armies".
3) All nuclear weapons will do for Iran will justify the U.S. and the American people considering them a justifiable target for attack.
 
This map of American military bases around Iran show how vulnerable Iran would be to attack from US forces if it came to that. The US could easily open a four or five front war that Iran would have no way of countering. If Iran conducted war against the US in the same manner they did against Iraq, they would soon find themselves without a male population.

American military bases near Iran - Google My Maps
 
Looks like a surplus medium sized freighter that a helicopter can land on - like probably nearly every other freighter ship in the world.
 
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have added a warship capable of carrying aircraft, missile launchers and drones to its naval fleet, state media said on Thursday, at a time of high tension between Tehran and Washington.

Apparently Iran has mounted missiles and helicopter landing pads on a 150 meter cargo ship.....though, unless Iran has developed or acquired VTOL capable fighter jets, it would be far more accurate to describe this as a "Helicarrier" of sorts.

US Aircraft Carriers tend to be in the realm of 300 plus meters, and Amphibious Assault/ Helicopter carriers ( Wasp Class) about 250 plus meters.

Sink it.
 
Hey - if it has weapons, it's a warship. And frankly, it's very smart. Old freighters are a dime-a-dozen, so retrofitting them as floating weapons platforms is cheap. They don't have sophisticated systems, so not much crew training is involved. It makes more sense than spending billions on designing and building a modern warship that we could blow out of the water relatively easily. Not much of a loss to them if we sink one of these. They can probably outfit and man a dozen of these for less than it costs us to build one carrier - and in a fraction of the time.

Hi MamboDervish,

I fully agree with everything you say here.

If however, this is being used to attack the US they will have likely lost all 12 of the ships you mention before the are even within 10 miles of a US carrier.

But for local scarecrow tactics I think this is a very good idea. And also in terms of propaganda it is a great idea.

But in order to get close to a US Carrier Fleet they will need to do better than this. Actually, I am not quite sure if they have the capabilities to get close to a Carrier Fleet at all. Just 1 carrier comes with an armada of vessels continuously watching for any threads and ready to respond accordingly.

And than there is the massive retaliation they would face if they were to succeed in sinking a carrier. They will not allow such a humiliating defeat unpunished.

Joey
 
I really don't want to get into this discussion, however, I will note, America simply doesn't have much of a stomach for financial and casualty costs right now.

Iran has advantages in modern warfare that it didn't have previously. Basically, many Iranian cities are near mountain ranges, as planes clear the ranges they are more susceptible to shoulder fired rockets and other anti-aircraft measures.
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Additionally, Iran is problematic for me ideologically. Of the Middle Eastern countries I spent time in, Iran felt the most like America. The people are so much more Westernized than places like the UAE. Their government is very different than their population.
Hi Simple Tom,

I have never been there, but I have met many people whom worked there and they all say that the people of Iran are much more western than the surrounding countries. Also, the few Iranians I have met over the years have confirmed this feeling for me. But it is like this in many countries that the government is not very representative of the people it represents.

And as others pointed out, Do not under estimate your enemies. They can bite. Not win a war, but still bite.


Joey
 
I admit they are a good place to hide and conduct gorilla warfare. However, as the Taliban found out air power rules.

Hi BahamaBob,

And as the US found out, it takes a lot of effort and money to purge the area.

And it kinda makes you feel stupid to use 1,000,000USD missile to blow up a 500USD hut in the mountains now, doesn't it?

Russia was forced to ultimately leave Afghanistan....

Joey
 
Not to mention all the support ships and aircraft around a carrier, they would stand a chance in hell of getting anywhere near being able to hit a carrier. I know countries like to rattle their swords and show how tough they are, problem is when they take that too far with the Biggest Super Power on the Planet, it never works out for any that tried.
Like the Vietnamese did?
 
Hey - if it has weapons, it's a warship. And frankly, it's very smart. Old freighters are a dime-a-dozen, so retrofitting them as floating weapons platforms is cheap. They don't have sophisticated systems, so not much crew training is involved. It makes more sense than spending billions on designing and building a modern warship that we could blow out of the water relatively easily. Not much of a loss to them if we sink one of these. They can probably outfit and man a dozen of these for less than it costs us to build one carrier - and in a fraction of the time.
How many aircraft carriers have been blown out of the water in your lifetime?
 
I admit they are a good place to hide and conduct gorilla warfare. However, as the Taliban found out air power rules.

You mean the Taliban that have been carrying out an insurgency for nearly two decades in spite of complete control of the skies in the hands of NATO/ISAF?
 
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