US Navy fails to impress in key exercise around Persian Gulf

cyberhog

A major international naval exercise last month in and around the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, led by the U.S. Navy with more than 30 other nations participating, located fewer than half of the practice mines laid at sea.

This outcome of the highly publicized military drills — not publicly known until now — underscores how difficult it may be for the United States and its partners to detect and incapacitate waterborne explosive devices that Iran has threatened to plant if its nuclear facilities come under attack.

Out of the 29 simulated mines that were dropped in the water, “I don’t think a great many were found,” retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, a former mine warfare director for his service, told the NewsHour. “It was probably around half or less.”

Now a consultant, O’Donnell was invited by the Navy to observe the September exercise firsthand as it unfolded.

...“I just felt that they should have done better,” said O’Donnell, clearly disappointed with the outcome of this key measure of performance. “That’s the point of the exercise, to do mine-countermine [operations] in an area, and to find the mines.”

...some analysts with extensive experience in evaluating Navy mine exercises say the rate of success in detecting practice mines is critically important.

“I would be surprised if the post-exercise analysis didn’t include some kind of a scoring mechanism of how well did we do against this set” of imitation mines, said Scott Savitz, a senior RAND engineer who, in a prior job, led Navy-contracted teams to analyze counter-mine exercises. The central point of a mine-hunting exercise is “to find them all, because in the real-world scenario you want to minimize the subsequent mine risk,” he said.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/us-navy-allies-find-less-than-half-the-sea-mines-planted-in-key-exercise.html

Well the US Navy has clearly failed to demonstrate an ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. I hope the Iran hawks will now realise that attacking Iran is not in their own best interest.

asherbassad

cyberhog wrote: »

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/us-navy-allies-find-less-than-half-the-sea-mines-planted-in-key-exercise.html

Well the US Navy has clearly failed to demonstrate an ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. I hope the Iran hawks will now realise that attacking Iran is not in their own best interest.

That Iran can defend itself is not the point. Iran's anti-ship missile arsenal could tear the US Navy to shreds and send it to the bottom of the Gulf in minutes. Again that's not the point.

The war hawks don't care if you tell them that their agenda is doomed. They don't think about winning wars (or avoiding them), they only think about starting them and then handing the disaster over to jobs-worth generals who talk a good game but don't have the balls to think for themselves and risk their cushy private sector consultancy gig after they retire.
The more equipment that the Navy and Air Force lose in a confrontation with Iran the better. Good for business if aircraft carriers and frigates need to be replaced.