Tanker War Redux

[Anixtu]

Predators and hellfire would do fine, they were in international waters.

Worse, they were in Omani TTWs: https://mobile.twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1152602065325215744

 

Violation of Omani sovereignty by Iran. Oman should at the very least be providing security against foreign attack for vessels inside their TTWs in the strait.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Anixtu

[Anixtu]

Double tap.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Anixtu

[Stuart Galbraith]

They seem to have a highly capable navy. Which begs the question, if they dont use it to enforce their territorial waters, whats it for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_of_Oman

 

I get that they dont want to enter into a confrontation with Iran. But if they are having their international trade interfered with in this fashion, you have to wonder at the cost for them of avoiding one being as bad as being in a war.

[Anixtu]

They seem to have a highly capable navy. Which begs the question, if they dont use it to enforce their territorial waters, whats it for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_of_Oman

 

I get that they dont want to enter into a confrontation with Iran. But if they are having their international trade interfered with in this fashion, you have to wonder at the cost for them of avoiding one being as bad as being in a war.

 

They may have lots of well equipped vessels, but that doesn't make them capable. However, I suspect they are more so than some of their neighbours. Oman is less reliant on expat labour than most of the GCC.

 

Relatively little of Oman's trade is likely to pass through the Straits of Hormuz - only whatever they trade with other GCC states and anything trans-shipped via the Gulf. Oman's own ports are on the Gulf of Oman or further south. Oman is the GCC state diplomatically closest to Iran, though also very close to UK - we have loan service personnel embedded in their armed forces.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Anixtu

[Stuart Galbraith]

With all that in mind, wouldn't it have made more sense to have a naval base in Oman, rather than the Bahrain as we went for? The former would have given more opportunity for working with and building up their navy.

[sunday]

They should probably leave that to the Spanish.

 

Yes, Spain only needs to let Iranian operatives to use the Algeciras port as a base for raids into the port of Gibraltar.

[Anixtu]

With all that in mind, wouldn't it have made more sense to have a naval base in Oman, rather than the Bahrain as we went for? The former would have given more opportunity for working with and building up their navy.

 

Bahrain was our base pre-withdrawal from East of Suez. The "new" base there is an expansion of our existing presence and benefits massively from co-location with the USN facilities. It is ideally placed for operations inside the Gulf.

 

UK, US and others make use of other facilities, both naval and commercial, throughout the region, including several in Oman. We had a "permanent" naval presence operating RN Merlins from Oman until last year.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Not the most authoritative paper, but I link it for the quote. Which is surely a first.

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9550565/iran-tanker-row-freeze-assets-tobias-ellwood/

THE Royal Navy is too small to protect British ships from the Iran threat, the Defence Minister warned today.

Tobias Ellwood also threatened to freeze the assets of Iran if the country doesn't release a UK tanker as he called on the next PM to beef up the military.

 

Britain has been facing down Iran for two weeks after seizing a tanker on its way to deliver oil to Syria.

On Friday, the Islamist regime retaliated by boarding and capturing a UK-flagged tanker, which is still being held.

The Stena Impero was boarded by Iranian troops as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow body of water which is crucial for the world's oil trade.

British authorities are considering new sanctions on Iran if the country's government refuses to release the ship.

The measures could include a freeze on the regime's assets, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Asked if the drastic move was being considered, Defence Minister Mr Ellwood said: "Cobra was taking place yesterday, so we're looking at the operational responsibilities from that but, yes, we are going to be looking at a series of options."

He admitted the Navy is too underpowered to prevent all British ships, saying: "It is impossible simply to escort each individual vessel."

Mr Ellwood added: "If we want to continue playing a role on the international stage - bearing in mind that threats are changing - all happening just beneath the threshold of all-out war, then we must invest more in our defence, including our Royal Navy.

 

"Our Royal Navy is too small to manage our interests across the globe if that's our future intentions and that's something the next prime minister will need to recognise."

Ministers and military chiefs have discussed sending a nuclear submarine and Marine commandos to bolster Navy defences in the Gulf.

Jeremy Hunt will tomorrow announce a series of measures aimed at convincing Iran to shift course.

 

 

 

It will be remembered that the Former Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was pushing a plan to build some small special forces support ships, based on a USN model. Not that there was any funding for it, but it would perhaps be a very useful platform right now.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Here is the radio exchange.

[BansheeOne]

I thought this was probably the best place to point out this neat animated chart of global oil production from 1965 to 2018 I saw on Linkedin.

[Chris Werb]

Jason, sorry, I just glanced at the post on my phone and went back to respond to it later, I thought it mentioned joint exercises with RoK, but that could just be my poor memory conflating that and one of your other posts with my poor ship recognition skills. I'm still a bit concerned that you think I'm wantonly deleting your stuff - remember that I've done my best to keep your China threads unpolluted and have often praised you for the quality of info you post. I have never had an axe to grind against you and I wouldn't let it affect my moderation if I did. The last moderation action I took (reluctatly) was against someone you and others on the thread had identified as a troll. I basically let everything aimed at me go - I just want this place to be what the likes of Michael Brunk, Geoff and King wanted it to be and I don't want to suppress any (at least relatively) polite discussion of military matters here.

 

To your above post, I accept it as completely factual. I don't want to rake the whole thing over again. How you confront your regional problems is for you and your regional partners to sort out and fund. We have regional problems too (and I would include the Middle East in our region). If China became more than a regional problem (and I find it really hard to come up with a scenario where it would), then we would have to assist in mitigating that problem. There could be assymetric things we could do, particularly involving submarines. However, no one is going to attempt a naval arms race with China - there is no way anyone is going to be able to build enough ships (even combined with partners) to confront them on an equivalent basis in their own back yard (remember also the virtual attrition of having to operate at extreme distances which makes thing far worse than the abysmal raw numbers would indicate),

 

As for your participating in regional defence against other threats - I'm not aware of any actual combat operations and I'm struggling to come up with potential kinetic scenarios in what is, after all, a pretty peaceful region, outside of the SCS, which appears to be all but a done deal for China. Geography really favours many of the nations in the area defensively (remote islands, hugely populous cities, gigantic continents etc.) and the Islamofascist problem seems pretty much confined to Indonesia. Would you get involved if Taiwan was invaded? I could see the Chinese being pretty explicit about potential attacks on your home islands in that eventuality. Russia, we've already covered. So joint ops make for great photo opportunites, but you're not going to be confronting enemy fleets or conducting Okinawa landings anytime soon (even the US has made very little use of its amphibious capability since Korea - it's arguably the single most redundant part of its military).

 

We on the other hand, do have a proven recent aggressor right on our doorstep. They're not 10 feet tall, but they have numerous geographical, cultural and technological advantages over us, including some interesting emerging technologies in long range precision strike - most of all, they simply don't have Rules of Engagement. Countering that threat is where I believe we need to prioritise our conventional military resources. I also think it is a no brainer that we (and yourselves) should make it a national priority to reduce energy dependency on volatile areas of the World. Of course that's much easier for us than for you due geography and geology. I also really don't think we should be relying on or sponging off American cash or direct military support for anything except perhaps intelligence (but that is a two-way street) and basing (likewise reciprocal). This would allow America to more fully reorient toward the Pacific.

[seahawk]

"We have not enough warships to escort every commercial vessel" means either you have a very tiny commercial fleet, or you are an idiot.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well clearly we don't have the vessels to escort them everywhere, but we don't need to. What this is shown up is we don't have the vessels to escort them even where we need to. Which is something of a new low water mark.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just to illustrate the Hubris going around in British politics at the moment.

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-mp-warns-situation-iran-18497507

A Labour shadow minister warned the situation in Iran could be even worse than the war in Iraq.

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon said the UK risks being drawn into a conflict between Iran and the US as "Donald Trump's sidekick".

Speaking on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Mr Burgon said: "If we end up in a conflict backed by Donald Trump then I think it would not only be comparable with Iraq, in fact it could be even worse than Iraq, and that should really scare everybody."

He added: "We need sensible negotiations. We've got a really important part to play diplomatically in this. We can use our negotiating weight.

"I think that our Government has international respect and this country has international respect in a way that Donald Trump doesn't.

"I think we need to use that for the purposes of conflict resolution and for the purposes of making sure this doesn't escalate out of control."

 

Really important part? The Americans haven't listened to our opinion and acted on it since the early 50's, and Iran hasnt listened with respect to anything we say since 1979. I do have to wonder at the mindset of our ministers, when they still act as if we are a big imperial power, but reject the trappings of it, like actually having a fleet big enough to be present where its needed.

 

Sorry, rant over. If I hear one more stupid politician, I swear Ill run for office myself.

[DKTanker]

What would I do? Well I wouldnt do anything. Id just build our capability up on the region, and start making vague noises about a blockade. Which I suspect is where Trump is heading next anyway.

Why not negotiate with Iran? For instance, immediately return their tanker with maximum apologies and copious amounts of Dane geld, and then promise never to bother them again other than to send annual stipends.

[JasonJ]

Jason, sorry, I just glanced at the post on my phone and went back to respond to it later, I thought it mentioned joint exercises with RoK, but that could just be my poor memory conflating that and one of your other posts with my poor ship recognition skills. I'm still a bit concerned that you think I'm wantonly deleting your stuff - remember that I've done my best to keep your China threads unpolluted and have often praised you for the quality of info you post. I have never had an axe to grind against you and I wouldn't let it affect my moderation if I did. The last moderation action I took (reluctatly) was against someone you and others on the thread had identified as a troll. I basically let everything aimed at me go - I just want this place to be what the likes of Michael Brunk, Geoff and King wanted it to be and I don't want to suppress any (at least relatively) polite discussion of military matters here.

 

...

 

Chris, thank you for your post. I fully believe in what you wrote and I do still appreciate what you have granted to the PRC military activity thread.

 

On mention of that thread, while on mention of it, there are a few reasons why I do update it as much as the other threads such as the Japanese are getting serious thread. First reason is because I'm not fluent in Chinese. I have some recognition ability with Chinese and not only because of some similar characters but also because I have spent some time actually studying the language. But my Chinese language skills are far lesser than my Japanese. The natural result is that reading articles with google translate requires double checking and triple checking to make sure I'm not posting some old thing or some unreliable page. I tend to look for cross checking matching to give better feeling that what I post actually did occur. Second reason is because PRC military activities seem to be more spread out in source location. Many Japanese or American stuff come straight from their websites but sometimes the official PRC pages aren't posting some exercises that are getting posted elsewhere. So its a little harder to come by even though I have several Chinese pages bookmarked and check them fairly regularly but exercise related stuff still finds its way in non-regular places. One example that does have a lot of stuff are the military programs that start with talking heads in uniform. Those look like theyhae lots of good interesting stuff. But sifting through those videos would be time consuming. The third reason is because making the post themselves are quite time consuming by being big with lots of pictures. The end result is that making a post about a PRC exercise can take me 2 to 3 times longer than making a big post about some Japanese related joint-training.

 

Well anyway, that was a long tangent.

 

But thank you again for your sincere clarification.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

What would I do? Well I wouldnt do anything. Id just build our capability up on the region, and start making vague noises about a blockade. Which I suspect is where Trump is heading next anyway.

Why not negotiate with Iran? For instance, immediately return their tanker with maximum apologies and copious amounts of Dane geld, and then promise never to bother them again other than to send annual stipends.

Its the thing I cant quite get my mind round with Labour. They think it a terrible, terrible thing to ever use military force. But they have this utterly inflated idea of the importance of the UK through its ability to negotiate! I struggle to think of a conflict since 1945 we have actually played a role in settling. Well, perhaps other than Northern Ireland.

 

No, there isn't any negotiating to be done. They want a straight swap. To my mind, Id tell them to piss up a rope and let both these tankers rot at anchor. Ours is far newer and empty, theirs is an open anchorage and choker full of oil. We can wait it out, by they cant.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[JasonJ]

...

 

To your above post, I accept it as completely factual. I don't want to rake the whole thing over again. How you confront your regional problems is for you and your regional partners to sort out and fund. We have regional problems too (and I would include the Middle East in our region). If China became more than a regional problem (and I find it really hard to come up with a scenario where it would), then we would have to assist in mitigating that problem. There could be assymetric things we could do, particularly involving submarines. However, no one is going to attempt a naval arms race with China - there is no way anyone is going to be able to build enough ships (even combined with partners) to confront them on an equivalent basis in their own back yard (remember also the virtual attrition of having to operate at extreme distances which makes thing far worse than the abysmal raw numbers would indicate),

 

As for your participating in regional defence against other threats - I'm not aware of any actual combat operations and I'm struggling to come up with potential kinetic scenarios in what is, after all, a pretty peaceful region, outside of the SCS, which appears to be all but a done deal for China. Geography really favours many of the nations in the area defensively (remote islands, hugely populous cities, gigantic continents etc.) and the Islamofascist problem seems pretty much confined to Indonesia. Would you get involved if Taiwan was invaded? I could see the Chinese being pretty explicit about potential attacks on your home islands in that eventuality. Russia, we've already covered. So joint ops make for great photo opportunites, but you're not going to be confronting enemy fleets or conducting Okinawa landings anytime soon (even the US has made very little use of its amphibious capability since Korea - it's arguably the single most redundant part of its military).

 

We on the other hand, do have a proven recent aggressor right on our doorstep. They're not 10 feet tall, but they have numerous geographical, cultural and technological advantages over us, including some interesting emerging technologies in long range precision strike - most of all, they simply don't have Rules of Engagement. Countering that threat is where I believe we need to prioritise our conventional military resources. I also think it is a no brainer that we (and yourselves) should make it a national priority to reduce energy dependency on volatile areas of the World. Of course that's much easier for us than for you due geography and geology. I also really don't think we should be relying on or sponging off American cash or direct military support for anything except perhaps intelligence (but that is a two-way street) and basing (likewise reciprocal). This would allow America to more fully reorient toward the Pacific.

 

The challenge with China needs to be viewed not as a challenge that emerges once kenetic rounds are fired. The challenge is in geo-political and geo-economic competition in the region. Those two mediums are used for gaining influence in the countries in the region. Military power forms part of the geo-political field. For example.. lets take Taiwan. PRC takes the position that Taiwan is part of the PRC, not some other China such as ROC, or a none China, such as ROT. In 1996, Taiwan had its first presidential election. PRC was furious about it and threatened military force. The US moved in some carriers besides Taiwan to demonstrate resolve to defend Taiwan. China resorted to just shooting rockets into the sea. The military capability disparity drove the PRC to make a quick solution by making the Type 22 missile boat. So after having made some 70 of those missile boats and still fully usable, the PRC plans to retire many of them, to be replaced with the Type 56 corvette which can generally do same function as type 22 missile boat but also serve as part of a fully well rounded PLA Navy. I post a Chinese language article about that but can't find it. But the main point is that if China does become much more powerful, than the military aspect in the field of geopolitics might be changed enough for the PRC to just outright invade Taiwan and not be challenged for not being worth the cost to other countries. This is a stated goal of the PRC. It's been a long term stated goal. It is a mistake to not call China out on this only because they haven't fired kinetic rounds to kill. They are playing the long term game and aim to change the underlying strategic situation. "Win the war without firing a shot" or something to that effect. To prevent that is to maintain the balance of power in our favor. Consider this old 2005 thread about the PRC starting work on the rust bucket that they got from the Ukraine. Almost nobody imagined that China was going to actually turn it into a fully functional carrier.

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10374&hl=22%26%2322411%3B%26%2323548%3B%26%2324377%3B%26%2333351%3B&page=1

 

The South China Sea is not an all done deal for China. Not yet. The next step for them is Scarborough Shoal. So far geopolitics has made kept them from building an island on there. But they have threatened to do so before. There are old posts with it. They also have yet to fully deploy actual squadrons on the reef bases that they made. They would also be the next possible stage for them.

 

As far as no one being bale to build enough ships, that is the challenge for the US, Japan, Australia, and other countries. India to even has stepped up in alignment with Japan. There's so much to say and its getting late. Some related reference posts.

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=42593&page=1

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41612

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=40923&p=1341047

[Josh]

It seems the U.K. shot itself in foot somewhat by holding the Iranian tanker in Gibraltar. It opened the door for retaliation specifically against UK flagged ships that lets the US administration off the hook for an action that would otherwise be interpreted as part of the US-Iran standoff. The Trump administration is being notably quiet as opposed to previous Iran provocations. They are letting this be a U.K. problem, despite the fact it seems likely the Iranian tanker was seized at the administrations request.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Josh

[Nobu]

It seems the U.K. shot itself in foot somewhat by holding the Iranian tanker in Gibraltar. It opened the door for retaliation specifically against UK flagged ships that lets the Current administration off the hook for an action that would otherwise be interpreted as part of the US-Iran standoff. The Trump administration is being notably quiet as opposed to previous Iran provocations. They are letting this be a U.K. problem, despite the fact it seems likely the Iranian tanker was seized at the administrations request.

 

Washington has indeed been quiet regarding it, along the lines of it using London to play the heavy against Iran while retaining the room to maneuver for an eventual deal with Iran for itself.

 

I'm not aware of any actual combat operations and I'm struggling to come up with potential kinetic scenarios in what is, after all, a pretty peaceful region, outside of the SCS, which appears to be all but a done deal for China. Geography really favours many of the nations in the area defensively (remote islands, hugely populous cities, gigantic continents etc.) and the Islamofascist problem seems pretty much confined to Indonesia.

 

The argument that I am thankful has escaped the notice of mainstream America and Americans is the disconnect between the focus on China as an existential threat and both the percentage of Japanese GDP devoted to defense and the lack of a consensus public sentiment for more. I don't have an answer for the implications of this for Japan and Japanese that satisfies me, unfortunately.

 

Would you get involved if Taiwan was invaded?

 

The 1972 agreement between Japan and China establishes Japanese recognition of Taiwan as part of China, and establishes that China will give up demands for war reparations from Japan. The implications of breaking this agreement are two-sided.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Nobu

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think it's probably like the Salisbury affair, they are probably telling trump to shut up so the can negotiate a way out of it. All change next week when we get a new PM.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Britain dispatches nuclear attack submarine to the gulf.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1156053/navy-nuclear-sub-gulf-iran-uk-oil-tanker-middle-east-crisis

 

Be interesting to learn if it's carrying an SOF shelter

[Jeff]

Iran promised to do exactly what they've done after the UK took their tanker. Either the UK had a plan to protect UK flagged tankers in the PG or they didn't. As is clear now, they didn't. Why wasn't it made clear that any UK flagged shipping in the region was traveling at their own risk. Pretending the RN had the ability to protect them and then failing utterly, is the worst possible outcome. The gulf nations and the western powers have been caught flatfooted. This should have been prepared for years ago. As for the Iranians, they are begging for an armed conflict which leads me to believe they see the rallying effect of such as a far better result than the inevitable result of getting the crap kicked out of them. Part of me wants to pound the snot out of them(they're certainly begging for it) but then I think if they want a conflict, then we shouldn't give it to them. That does not mean giving them free reign to grab any shipping they please. This really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone and no one was ready for it. Heads should roll.

[Adam Peter]

BBC reports HMS Montrose played an US policeman, but didn't get farther than reading up the rights.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Iran promised to do exactly what they've done after the UK took their tanker. Either the UK had a plan to protect UK flagged tankers in the PG or they didn't. As is clear now, they didn't. Why wasn't it made clear that any UK flagged shipping in the region was traveling at their own risk. Pretending the RN had the ability to protect them and then failing utterly, is the worst possible outcome. The gulf nations and the western powers have been caught flatfooted. This should have been prepared for years ago. As for the Iranians, they are begging for an armed conflict which leads me to believe they see the rallying effect of such as a far better result than the inevitable result of getting the crap kicked out of them. Part of me wants to pound the snot out of them(they're certainly begging for it) but then I think if they want a conflict, then we shouldn't give it to them. That does not mean giving them free reign to grab any shipping they please. This really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone and no one was ready for it. Heads should roll.

 

Oh, they had a plan. What they didn't have was enough resources to make it work. One more example of the FCO making promises the MOD cant cash. Something the Foreign secretary has been very open about, to be fair to him.

 

In the end, its just one more example of the utter fixation of Brexit over any other concern's. And its only going to get worse through to October, reading of the monosyllabic defective buckets of personality they are lining up to be Bojo's dream team.