[godwinson__4-8]

They were still used heavily... you think aircraft carriers are only useful if you can get right next to your target? A huge part of American doctrine is to kill the enemy before you are ever in their view. This is also just basically intuitive. I'm not sure what is confusing you. Its like asking why isn't a bomber parked next to its target before taking off and deploying its munitions.

[symian]

I think the essence of the question you responded to is: The U.S. has a gigantic navy and couldn’t force safe passage through Hormuz. Why is this the case? Is the U.S. wasting its money given this?

[walrus01]

If we say that you can fit a small unit of guys equipped with Shahed-136 and launcher, or small missile launcher into just about any civilian garage or small industrial/warehouse-sized structure within a 300 km radius of the strait of hormuz, it would be quite impossible to air strike every possible hiding site without causing absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable civilian casualties.

The capability of the IRGC and Iranian regime to hide small to medium sized drone and missile launch equipment within civilian infrastructure (nevermind caves, bunkers, etc) within range of the strait exceeds the capability of the US forces to destroy or remove it.

As long as major shipping companies believe that the Iranians retain enough drone and missile capacity to hold the straight under threat, they're not going to sail through it.

The only possible way would be an extremely bloody and manpower intensive ground operation to hunt it down at the boots on the ground level.

[sudosysgen]

The missile launchers that Iran relied on for many strikes are actually very big, and cannot be hidden in small civilian infrastructure. The US was unable to target them when they were coming out of the very well known and publicly located missile cities because there was no US aircraft that could loiter around them and wait for them to come out without being shot down - that's why the US sent drones to that task, which suffered unsustainable attrition.

And the drones/missile have much more range than 300km. The Shahed-136 drone have a 2000+km range, which is significantly more than the combat radius of carrierborne fighters, even if you add reasonable amounts of refuelling.

The problem in the end isn't that it was impossible to strike every possible hiding site without causing massive casualities. It just wasn't possible. The US failed to durably damage Iranian installations. The backup plan was to exploit air supremacy to interdict whatever was coming in and out of those installations - that also failed. This was an operational failure of US military doctrine, that is unrelated to the tolerance of casualties. It is simply that US military planners overestimated their abilities and made assumptions they couldn't cash. It wasn't a case of casualty avoidance or whatever.

It's also questionable whether a ground invasion of Iran would be feasible to begin with. The Operational Art of War has a great series on the logistics of such an operation, it would be extremely difficult and would most likely require the US to send the troops... through the Strait of Hormuz to begin with.

[godwinson__4-8]

Which will also not work.

America knew how to do this once. Berlin is still in a sense occupied by American troops in that we still have bases there, and through NATO subsidize their defense and way of life.

You simply can't kill your way out of political conflicts into perpetuity, unless you truly plan on annihilating everyone. That is part of what makes the alcoholic running the DoD so galling. His thesis on places like Fallujah is essentially there wasn't enough bloodshed. Americans would be vacationing in Baghdad if only there had been more violence.

[Jamesbeam]

>Berlin is still in a sense occupied by American troops in that we still have bases there, and through NATO subsidize their defense and way of life.

I'm in Berlin for the weekend right now and enjoying my "NATO subsidized way of life".

Can you point me in the right direction where in Berlin i can find those American occupation troops? Seemed to have missed them so far. Would like to take some pictures with them.

[chislobog]

A road trip perhaps to the Lucius D. Clay Barracks near Wiesbaden.

Dagger base, etc. BND pretending to be blind to co-operation efforts and practically subservient to Cryptologic activity seeking NSA and others.

See also

https://www.electrospaces.net/2015/01/german-investigation-o...

[godwinson__4-8]

Are you joking? That's like saying American troops aren't based in the United States because they (typically) don't roam the streets of major American cities.

This isn't a matter of an opinion or your cute reply, it's a basic fact. Look up American troops stationed in Germany. Ask yourself why European leaders are constantly falling over themselves to placate an American president they clearly despise. For someone who made it to Berlin you sound profoundly ignorant, I mean why don't you ask the Germans you are spending time with (if you make it out the front door) and see if any of them would feel more safe if the United States unilaterally withdrew from NATO. I mean it would be the most tiring conversation ever but whoever is spending time with you has surely already priced that in.

[Jamesbeam]

Sir, there are about 50k US Soldiers in Germany. With 80 Million Germans. If every German grabbed a stick in the morning and decided to end the "US occupation" those 50k soldiers wouldn't last until lunch.

There are also 185k German Soldiers in Germany right now.

The reason the EU leaders placate the US President is that it worked getting past his first presidency and we are all part of the rollercoaster ride that is his second coming.

The US would never pull unilaterally from NATO, they just lost massive projection power into the middle east by losing the Iran war and Ramstein Air Base is strategically the most important asset the US has in Europe.

Even if it did happen NATO is still able to beat Russia, the biggest threat in the region without the US. UKs nuclear subs can kill 80% of the Russian population on their own as Russia has highly concentrated population centers and launching nukes right of their coast line, which is extremely long and impossible to fully protect wouldn't allow them to launch counter measures on time. Mutual destruction assured usually means both sides have no interest to pull each other into a all-in conflict.

Also stay feisty, refreshing.

[walrus01]

> That is part of what makes the alcoholic running the DoD so galling

Pretty much what I said in Jan/Feb of this year when the major, bloody nationwide protests of Iranians (est. 15,000 to 40,000 death toll killed by their own "government") kicked off domestically in Iran. Specifically, that the worst possible people were running the executive branch and DoD at this moment in history and that they would rush headlong into something foolish.

[godwinson__4-8]

Of course they didn't even prevent those massacres. They watched it happen. As I recall the administration seemed unconvinced of this as a pretext for war, and by the time the decapitation started the regime already had regained total control of the streets. And now a negotiation to give the same regime an economic lifeline just so the administration doesn't have to explain to someone in Iowa why the price of gas is going up.

I recall Reza Pahlavi on Fox News engaging in the delusion that the current administration cared about the Iranian people. Where is he now?

[Danox]

Current American administration unfortunately only care’s and listens to the 1% ruling class in any particular country they support that’s been the problem pretty much since 1945 and because of that they never pay attention to what most of the people in the country care about on the ground, and that’s been a problem in Central and South America and most other countries in the second and third world we just keep getting it wrong and we’re simply running out of steam and money…

[comicjk]

Historically, this is the norm. The British Navy in WWI was a behemoth, but still couldn't force safe passage through the mines and cannons of the Dardanelles Strait against what was considered a third-rate power. "A ship's a fool to fight a fort."

[s1artibartfast]

I think it was a much more specific question. Both are valid.

Iran is a big country ~100 million people. Aircraft carriers can launch planes to disable specific targets. They cant take out an entire country. They could have been more useful if the US was waging total war against Iran, but it isn't/wasnt.

[Gud]

Because Iran is a huge country with a powerful military and the straight of Hormuz is a tiny spec of water?

Obviously this operation was a massive waste.

[AtlasBarfed]

The answer is yes.

The world is deglobalizing, and while drones may not exert Blue water power projection, they now dominate littoral power projection.

Marine invasions may be impossible in drone combat without drone superiority, and right now, Joan superiority is not a thing that I think exists between two fully drone enabled armies

And note the US army is not a fully drone enabled army.

[sudosysgen]

Aircraft carriers lose efficacy rapidly as distance increases. The aircraft flying from them require refueling and longer-range standoff munitions, which requires super-linearly more sorties to get the desired. This is even worse when the targets are far from shore, which can be the case when you want to bomb large countries.

The American doctrine might be to kill the enemy before you are in their view. But the enemy gets a vote. This is no longer something the US can rely on, even against clever enough middle powers.

It's just true that the assumptions that underpinned the current American force composition and strategy are breaking down. That's why the war went much worse than most mainstream analysts expected.