Perhaps the time has arrived to swat that annoying little fly that keeps begging to be swatted. On Monday, January 7th a task force of three U.S. Naval vessels attached to the 5th Fleet were making the transit through the Straits of Hormuz between the Gulf Of Oman and the Persian Gulf. The lead vessel was the cruiser U.S.S. Port Royal (shown) followed by a destroyer and a 
fast frigate.
The Straits of Hormuz is twenty miles wide and considered to be international waters. Making a single file transit through the straits, their radar picked up five fast moving vessels coming from the shoreline of Iran. Radio communications picked up indicated that the Iranian Navy clearly announced their intentions to "blow" up the naval vessels. As the Iranian Navy approached to within several hundred yards of the these ships, they discovered that the task force took them seriously and all guns and missiles launchers were trained in their direction. Wisely, they broke off their engagement and headed home. Although, the Iranian's would later state that the gun boats only went out to identify the ships. One has to wonder, why the message was sent about "blowing up" the vessels and whose fleet did they expected to identify. The 5th Fleet of the U.S. Navy has been operating in this area for decades. This was strictly a harassment procedure, hoping to create an incident.
Or was it it dumb leading dumber, this is one of the five boats (right) that was sent out to intercept this task force of three naval vessels. I wonder how this fire fight would have ended, perhaps if we got them all aligned at one time, one missile could take them all out. If not, I am sure a couple of missiles, several burst from the reciprocating deck guns would have ended the engagement rather quickly. Even the Iranian navy has to realize that three U.S. Naval vessels of this class do not travel far from the mother hen. Oh, did I fail to mention what was on station just over the horizon and within
five minutes of the strike zone. The U.S.S. Harry Truman is the flag ship of the Fifth Fleet and can launch attack forces at an alarming rate. They got away with the attack on the U.S.S. Cole from the former administration, I would not recommend that they try it again.
five minutes of the strike zone. The U.S.S. Harry Truman is the flag ship of the Fifth Fleet and can launch attack forces at an alarming rate. They got away with the attack on the U.S.S. Cole from the former administration, I would not recommend that they try it again. Had I been the Commander of the 5th Fleet, I most likely would have used the same restraint, however, I would see no harm in putting one across their bows just to get their attention and give them a moment of pause to reflect on their poor judgment of taking a "rock" to a gun fight.
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