"Finally, what can they really do?" we'll see, btw they created some cool stuff.since i'm not a pro i won't say anymore-but they have some things that may cause heavy damage.I don't think it would be enough to stop US though-if U.S has more casulties the people in U.S will cause problems to government this is the real damage!

You're probably right - the biggest threat to the US military is the Congress and "progressive" (read: "anti-US") citizens.

They're not gonna strike at the US navy. They're gonna strike at merchant shipping in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman (oil tankers).

Iran's military capacity - they advertise it because the world's media are idiots and ignorant people can easily be scared. This war is an information war afterall. But I'm thinking if the U.S Navy is in the area, Iranian anti-shipping capacity will be reduced to zero. I heard the 200 mph torpedo has a range of 5 miles (any boat that fired it would be detected / killed at a much greater range), is loud as hell, and can easily be avoided by... turning, or diving. I think the Navy should advertise our military capacity, announcing that we're deploying hundreds of X-boxes to our ships in theater, so they won't be bored when they're taking on Iran.

Imagine Iranian construct hundred or thousands small boat with reduced RCS and decoys, of 50 metres with some only equiped with Skvhal or missiles, other are use as decoys identical in appearance or short range attack (as they don't care of life of crews).Cost of a small boat: 2 m€.Cost of 1000 probably 3B$ with ammunitions in Iranian prices. I hope you have a lot of gear to shot all of them! In shallow water surrounding Ormuz Iran COULD have some options. We could add sea mines as Iran could have manufactured 10 or 100 thousands mines(it is cheap). Undertestimating adversaries is a disease in USA, it seems.Iran is not Iraq, some capacities are unknown, they have an indigeneous industry which is doing spectacular progress even they have benefited of foreign help, and they are ready to fight unless most of Iraqian army, and less rigid and conventional than Iraqis who did have a totally centralized army with a command unable to say the true to Saddam as paralyzed by fear.In Vietnam or North Korea you have joked with your adversaries before being checked.

Because France never underestimates its adversaries… http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/images4/sh_ww2_germans_paris2.gif Explain to me who we’ve underestimated? Afghanistan? Iraq 1991, or Iraq 2003? Panama? Every decisive American victory in the last 25 years has been preceded with tales of gloom and doom from our European allies and from our very anti-American left. Our Vietnam was a political, not military defeat; this contrasts with France’s Vietnam where your troops surrendered and were slaughtered in-mass. We didn’t underestimate NK, the cost of war was too high to justify the results – we’ll see if that calculus was correct in the next 20 years. What were you willing to do about it? It constantly amazes me that, while France can’t even protect its citizens from Muslims in Paris, it ankle bites and nitpicks every effort the US makes in the Middle East. Do you actually think that the world would be a better place with a nuclear Iran selling or giving its know-how to other Islamic nations (which is what their nutjob president promised this past week)? As to your other point: It seems to me that thousands of small patrol boats would be a perfect target for AGM-65F equipped F/A-18s. Even Hellfire equipped Apaches would most likely be able to put them out of action. I’ll trade a 150k missile for a 2M dollar boat and its crew anytime. A patrol boat with limited sensors in confined waters is just a floating target. The only thing the 1000 boat strategy gets you is the chance to practice over-water SAR on a grand scale. CardEE

I agree with FJV. The issue is not what damage they can do to the USN: that's likely to be limited, barring "lucky" shots. Let's not forget the Sheffield, Glamorgan, Atlantic Conveyor, and Stark - all Western warships sunk or heavily damaged by 3rd world armies packing exocet missiles. Iran's SSN-22 Sunburns are significantly more capable than exocets, and their Mach 2.2 low level flight speed means that in a minute they cover over 20 miles. At the Straights of Ormuz the narrow quarters mean a Sunburn can hit in literally seconds, and they wouldnt even need active guidance to hit a large target at that range. You'd have to shoot them down, or neutralize them beforehand. Elsewhere in the Gulf (600 miles of Iranian coast) the flight time would be a few minutes. The real issue, though, is not what they can do to the USN, but what they can do to commercial shipping in the area, particularly to oil tankers. 2/5th of the world's oil flows through the Gulf, and a typical oil tanker cannot maneuver significantly even with 20+ minutes of advance warning. At 5 minutes or less they are essentially unmaneuverable, as well as being extremly vulnerable to any kind of a hit, even artillery. Leaving aside the Sunburns, they also have 3 North Korean mini-subs, a variety of light coastal vessels, old-fashioned torpedos, that funky supercavitating torpedo, plain old artillery, MLRS rocket artillery, and mines. Given that and the geography of the area, the question is not whether but for how long they would be able to interdict tanker traffic in the area. Estimates cary widely; some folks think the threat could be addressed through air strikes and naval escort missions, while the more pesimistic think you'd have to physically control all 600 miles of Iranian coastline, 10-20 miles inland. In either case, we're talking about weeks or months. China, who are economically dependent on Iranian oil are not likely to take kindly to such a disruption. Given that, a lot of the thinking is going towards impact mitigation - strategic oil reserves, enhancing the Suez-Sumed pipeline complex in Egypt, increased capacity outside of the conflict area and so forth. These are, of course, longer term infrastructure projects. The $300-barrel question is, of course, in the interaction of the two. How much time can we buy through such measures, how much time would the USN, USAF and Army need to secure Gulf shipping, and what would 3rd parties (notably China) do about it... eu4ea

Oh yeah, and for what it's worth - screw that, FS. The thread is about the Iranian naval threat, not about whether or not the US (or France for that matter - Algeria, anyone?) has "underestimated" it's various adversaries over the years. eu4ea

"Oh yeah, and for what it's worth - screw that, FS. The thread is about the Iranian naval threat, not about whether or not the US (or France for that matter - Algeria, anyone?) has "underestimated" it's various adversaries over the years. eu4ea" ---- Wow, not only do I agree with eu4ea, but actually he didn't go far enough. Not only is the thread about the Iranian naval threat, it's about the REAL Iranian anti-shipping threat, not the HYPOTHETICAL "death by 1000 pinpricks" future possible Iranian anti-shipping threat. We possibly have "underestimated" what Iran might possibly be able to do if they decided to follow one hypothetical course of action. Of course, long before they were actually able to flood the Persian Gulf with their speedboat fleet we'd know what they were up to and prepare whatever seemed the best course of action to counter that threat. Displacedjim

;) Stranger things have happened, Jim.... eu4ea