Taking Kharg Island

[ammolab]

There are no producing oil or gas wells on Kharg Island. We would occupy it to deny Iran its use as a shipping terminal and significant source of income. I can’t see them blowing it up themselves as that would accomplish exactly what a U.S. occupation would do.

They are attacking other Gulf oil facilities yes, but they want to remain as a big time exporter when (if) this thing ends.

 

[slo town]

20 + years ago, I definitely would have been a part of this mission.

The Army's 82nd Airborne Division, other than being the military's main conventional QRF, (Quick Reaction Force), is charged with the seizure of enemy airfields WITHOUT the total destruction of said airfield, to allow follow up forces to land from the air. This idea, and objective, omits indiscriminate bombing, and in most cases, bombing in general, as the mission is to take and hold an area, and to allow its use by friendlies. By in large, it is a direct action, engagement, under the cover of night.

Another argument on this forum, about A10s being obsolete.......they are perfect for CAS in these situations, over course as @Astro14 stated, with air dominance from fighter jets.

Although this island is not an airfield, it is well within the divisions mission statement.

Would it be easy, no. Would it cost lives, yes. It would be a massive joint effort, of all branches, all in support of the paratroopers.

To be honest, on behalf of those in line and being one of them in the past.......I hope they do it. As a paratrooper, there is no higher honor than to have a combat jump. No member I know of in service has a "mustard stain". Last official combat jump was in Panama in 1989. Some of the readers here will not understand this concept. It would be quite a thing really.

If they go.........godspeed.........and unleash hell.

Thanks for your service @burbguy82.

Scott

 

[Astro14]

He was the one making the decisions after the F-14/F-15 fly off too. If they had chosen the F-15, that might be a lot more sources of parts.

His principal consideration at the time was shooting down the MiG-25.

MiG-25s routinely overflew Israel and Iran in the early 1970s, with impunity.

Iran’s analysis showed that the F-14 was more capable, with AIM-54 and AWG-9, than the F-15 with APG-63 and AIM-7 against Mach 2.5+ targets. The multi-track capability (which the F-15 lacked at the time, it had search only) of the AWG-9 was also an advantage in a country that didn’t have AWACS.

So, they bought the F-14, the complete package, with weapons, spare parts, training and maintenance support, and the overflights suddenly stopped.

The F-14 was used for fighter intercept control during the 8 year Iran-Iraq war just as the Shah had anticipated, by the way, vectoring other fighters, like the F-4 and F-5 towards Iraqi aircraft.

 

[y_p_w]

I’d just point out that in Iran, it’s the chador. I remember a former coworker from Iran telling me how ridiculously hot it got under all that in the desert heat.

 

[Al]

Indeed! The island itself can be taken. The question is why, because that's an act of war.

We would take it to deprive them of resources which of course would lead them to kill more people.

 

[Astro14]

We would take it to deprive them of resources which of course would lead them to kill more people.

Well we have tried appeasement for the past 40+ years (president Carter’s hostage rescue attempt was the last direct military action) and they are still killing people inside and outside their country.

Tens of thousands* of Iranians in the past year alone.

I wouldn’t call that approach successful.

*Reported numbers vary according to source.

 

[dubber09]

I don't know what the percentage of Iranians willing to die fighting for the current government would be? Max 10-15%? Now people can be coerced to fight of course, but the average worker on that island is surely not loyal to the Revolutionary Guard.
The majority of people in Iran are regular people under a brutal theocratic dictatorship, but can't find a way to remove them.

They are fighting for their country, not necessarily gov. And gov support in Iran is actually growing ever since Israelis organized 'protests' in Iran killing police and civilians before starting the military attack. Who attacked who?

 

[CleanSump]

Taking the island won't in itself make it safe to sail in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. It's just one obvious choke point in almost 400 miles of Iranian coastline. The Iranians doing the shooting are still using missiles and drones.

 

[CKN]

The US, and really the West, is unprepared for drone warfare. An airbase in Saudi Arabia housing US aircraft was hit. The US can take the island, but what is the plan to defend troops against a drone swarm? Ukraine is going to be quite the modern warfare leader for the West. Multi-million dollar missile systems are simply not sustainable.

Exactly. We are taking down inexpensive drones with 1 million dollar sidewinders. Each day goes by and the U.S. says we have knocked out their capability-and yet they are still firing rockets/drones.

Now Yemen has entered the conflict.

This has disaster written all over it.

My Son served in the Middle East- Can't tell you anything else-because he hasn't told me-it's classified. But one thing he was saying-is that serving at the Bases in the M.E. once once considered a gravy assignment. Now they are getting hit with drones/etc.

 

[Astro14]

Exactly. We are taking down inexpensive drones with 1 million dollar sidewinders. Each day goes by and the U.S. says we have knocked out their capability-and yet they are still firing rockets/drones.

Now Yemen has entered the conflict.

This has disaster written all over it.

My Son served in the Middle East- Can't tell you anything else-because he hasn't told me-it's classified. But one thing he was saying-is that serving at the Bases in the M.E. once once considered a gravy assignment. Now they are getting hit with drones/etc.

I’m OK with that, depending on drone supply. Many of the counter air capabilities include guns, which are cheap to use and very effective against drones. So, it’s not a one for one trade.

Before one makes military analysis/assessments, one should know what our full capabilities actually are. They’re classified of course.

I have seen a lot of wildly inaccurate estimates of Iranian Capability on BITOG, and huge errors in US capabilities on US and foreign news sources. It makes me laugh. I worked on advanced capabilities 20 years ago against the kind of threats we face today.

20 years ago, we knew this capability development was coming. We’ve been planning for it coming.

A prediction example - the US Navy will be overwhelmed by small boat swarms. Because Iran has swarmed our Navy ships with small boat swarms, and claimed great success. We never confirmed or denied that success. We watched their tactics, watched their training. Let them do it while we quietly analyzed it.

The pundits all stated how easy it was to defeat our Navy with small boat swarms, because we didn’t share our counter swarm capability development.

Well, the pundits, armchair admirals, and others, were completely wrong about small boats.

There are other, higher end, greater threat, Iranian capabilities, which we identified back then and built the Doctrine, Organizations, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel and Facilties to counter the eventual development of those threats. That entire military capability is in place, fully manned, trained and equipped, ready to respond, if needed. Can’t really say more.

Time will tell how effective the drones end up being, but I would not be so quick as to predict a bloodbath imposed by Iran. That prediction has been laughably wrong so far.

Right now, blue on blue is a greater threat. Trigger happy Kuwaiti pilots caused the loss of the F-15Es.

 

[y_p_w]

The US, and really the West, is unprepared for drone warfare. An airbase in Saudi Arabia housing US aircraft was hit. The US can take the island, but what is the plan to defend troops against a drone swarm? Ukraine is going to be quite the modern warfare leader for the West. Multi-million dollar missile systems are simply not sustainable.

There are a variety of moderate sized ammo that goes poof like a shotgun blast when close enough. Similar to WWII style antiaircraft artillery, but in a smaller size for drones. Drones are easy to disable, but they’re hoping for numbers to allow some through. The issue now is that production is ramping up. This includes the XM1225 developed by the US Army and the XM1211 from Northrop Grumman.

 

[xspeedy]

Taking the island won't in itself make it safe to sail in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. It's just one obvious choke point in almost 400 miles of Iranian coastline. The Iranians doing the shooting are still using missiles and drones.

I think the point of taking the island is to choke off Iranian oil, which funds their war.

 

[y_p_w]

I think the point of taking the island is to choke off Iranian oil, which funds their war.

The issue would be if they sabotage it, which would then throw a wrench in the idea that oil prices might go back down anytime soon.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Before one makes military analysis/assessments, one should know what our full capabilities actually are. They’re classified of course.

I figured we are saving the "good stuff" for later or when it's really needed. Can't show our hand now.

 

[cheetah50]

If we take the island then I would look for Iran to make good on their threats to hit more petro infrastructure in the area, mainly the LNG facilities. I think at this point Cooler heads on both sides are gonna have to prevail if we don't want to risk being bogged down into even more of a quagmire then what we are now. If any side really hits the Desalination infrastructure hard then I'm not sure what we would have to do at that point to try to deescalate, that basically the nuclear option without actually going nuclear. You'd be talking about Mass migration in a hurry to try to avoid dying of thirst....I say that as someone who , after his mining career ended, worked on DeSal infrastructure (Power systems) that went to the middle east.

 

[cptbarkey]

Putting on my armchair general hat, having played lots of strategy games, Kharg Island is a distraction. Land invasion of Bandar Abbas and its surrounding areas makes more sense. There is frankly few options, except for the far east along Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

[CleanSump]

I think the point of taking the island is to choke off Iranian oil, which funds their war.

We're already doing that with a naval blockade. There's only one way out and ships can't go far without being observed one way or another.

 

[4wd]

For a guy who claimed to not know much about Middle East History, now you’re going to lecture us?

What a pile of retrospective projection and careful selection of data, while ignoring the larger picture.

Ten years of Democracy after 6 years of Revolution, imposed with the help of the Russian Army.

It wasn’t the idyllic Western Democracy that you’re projecting, it was exclusive, and denied the right to vote to “women, foreigners, men under 25, "persons notorious for mischievous opinions," those with a criminal record, active military personnel, etc.

Members of the parliament were required to be fully literate in Persian, "Iranian subjects of Iranian extraction," "locally known," "not be in government employment," between the ages of 30 and 70, and "have some insight into affairs of State.”

It collapsed under massive corruption and a resultant coup d’état (maybe they should have allowed soldiers the right to vote?). It was a dictatorship after the coup d’état, and remained so, even though the country was Western in style, and various freedoms for the populace.

Let’s not forget that you said, “Middle East” not “Iran”. Related but not the same.

Finally, and this is really a significant point given your post above - the Anglo Persian Oil company that was formed in 1909 was solely British, not American, and as a part of the Commonwealth, before Dominion was granted, Canada was part of that enterprise.

In 1954, APOC became British Petroleum.

I love history but revisionist history is repugnant.

So is moral preening.

Other than that Mrs Lincoln - how’d you like The Play?

 

[4wd]

I have wondered the same thing. More profits for the oil companies when oil prices go even higher? I have no skin in the game except my wallet getting lighter. Send the boys in and let’s see where the chips fall.

Really ?

 

[4wd]

They are fighting for their country, not necessarily gov. And gov support in Iran is actually growing ever since Israelis organized 'protests' in Iran killing police and civilians before starting the military attack. Who attacked who?