Crew from American cruiser USS Normandy boarded a dhow in accordance with international law and discovered a large cache of weapons.
The weapons seized include 150 “Dehlavieh” anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), Iranian-manufactured copies of Russian Kornet ATGMs.
Other weapons components seized aboard the dhow were of Iranian design and manufacture and included three Iranian surface-to-air missiles, Iranian thermal imaging weapon scopes, and Iranian components for unmanned aerial and surface vessels, as well as other munitions and advanced weapons parts.
Many of these weapons systems are identical to the advanced weapons and weapon components seized by guided-missile destroyer USS Forrest Sherman in the Arabian Sea on November last year, say the U.S. Navy.
“Those weapons were determined to be of Iranian origin and assessed to be destined for the Houthis in Yemen, which would be in violation of a UN Security Council Resolution that prohibits the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of weapons to the Houthis.
The seized weapons are in U.S. custody awaiting final disposition. The assessment of the material will be an interagency and international effort. International partner nations and organizations have also been invited to inspect the cache.
The operation is ongoing, and further information will be shared as it becomes available.”
All it would take is a booby trapped missile container and all that would go up, critically disabling that cruiser. I’m surprised the Iranians don’t do it and then say it was mishandling or some other crap.
Sure and risk Donald Trump retaliating by sending every Tomahawk missile, the entire striking power of an aircraft carrier strike group, and the fire power of every B-52, B-1, and B-2 that the US has against it.
Hardly! Over the top! I’m saying make it look like mishandling by the ships company and not a dam declaration of war….
Hardly over the top. An American cruiser disabled with undoubtedly American casualties. Try living in the real world and not some Hollywood fantasy land.
Do me a favour, for once try to respond to others with a little bit of civility, instead of your rather child like efforts at patronising others. Please make an effort not to be a full time bell end…..your turn!
Do me a favour. When someone starts by calling me “over the top” ,comment on his lack of civility, then I might take you seriously. Please just make the effort.
Like I said….
I am sure the captain of the ship would be wise enough to keep his/her distance and dispatch crews by small boats and/or helicopter to seize the dhow.
Haven’t u ever heard of EODs? I’m sure they checked the stash out before bringing it onboard the cruiser. SOP.
I’m pretty sure the US knew exactly what was on the dhow long before they even boarded it (by rib with cruiser well out of the way)
Cam,
Video of the actual boarding of the Dhow in Nov;
https://twitter.com/JosephHDempsey/status/1228041961271111685?s=20
Im curious about the term ‘final disposition’ -are these Weapons destroyed or would they be handed to a friendly ally who could make use of them ?.
I wouldn’t want to fire them, you don’t know how well they have been stored or if they had been damaged. Imagine giving your allies them and half detonated on the launcher, wont be your allies for long.
BV
Good point, didn’t the american’s sabotage munition dumps in Vietnam when they found them. Maybe they should be ‘inspecting the ship behind closed doors’ before letting it through.
The best use for them, would be to expend them against different types of armour, so we know how to defend against them, as the Iranians are bound to go on supplying them to very dodgy types.
You can work out a weapons performance by stripping them down, its more accurate than firing them against a witness screen. So for example measuring the HEAT warhead/warheads, what sort of liner it has and what angle, what wave shaper is fitted and what material.
BV
Yeep good idea to stripe them down, then again, I’m not sure. It was my uncles job in the RAF to stripe bombs etc down to see how they work. His comment was always that he must have been good at his work as he was still alive to tell me and show me. Used to be able to play with some of the stuff when I was a kid, Oh the days of no health and safety. The job I wanted to do but to young when I joined so did something diffrent. What have I learnt from my… Read more »
More fun firing them off, I’ve heard great story’s of RAF pilots firing off hundreds of going out of service missiles including our old lightning jets fitted with the biggest missiles we had and only the lightning could carry them , not sure they were cruise missiles or what though I can’t remember the name but there were two types. They had great fun I was told.
Cam,
After we took back the falklands in 1982, we as Sappers collated all the ammo the Argies had left behind and made two piles:
1) Stuff we could use
2) Stuff we couldn’t use
The latter was placed on a mexi float towed out to see and sued as target practice by the Harriers.
There where some big piles of BANG! let off shore side in 82/83 . I witnessed one of the piles going up…they really should have checked the cloud height first as the blast wave bounced back off the low cloud and flattened everyone watching it! Such fun! Even us baby matelots where finding ammo caches dotted around on islands we paid visits to sometimes with the bodies of a couple of dead Argentinian soldiers who had been forgotten about/abandoned and died of exposure. Quick call on clansman ( Showing my age!) and a helo with EOD and Graves people turned… Read more »
We could just give them to the Kurds…they’d make use of them.
If the US wanted to be really naughty they’d give them to the Turks…they’d soon be used against Iranian proxies in Syria.
Haha yes there would be some irony in returning them to sender as it were.
Paul T wrote:
“Haha yes there would be some irony in returning them to sender as it were.”
On the 14th May 1945, German UBoat U-234 on a trip to Japan surfaced and surrendered to the US navy she contained as cargo:
Examples of the newest electric torpedoes,
one crated Me 262 jet aircraft,
a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb
550 kg (1,210 lb) of uranium oxide.
That last entry disappeared with no trace and is rumoured to have been used in the atomic weapons dropped on Japan 3 months later.
I dunno, it probably would not have been refined in time to be used.
I’ve read Kapitan Fehler’s was autobiography. Very interesting stuff.