
Iranian Ship, in Plain View but Shrouded in Mystery, Looks Very Familiar to U.S. - philip1209
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/middleeast/a-ship-being-built-in-iran-looks-awfully-familiar-to-the-us.html?hp&_r=1&gwh=10DD5A902B682246FE7C82CE454323A9&gwt=pay
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jjoonathan
The purpose is hardly "shrouded in mystery." Iran has been very busy
perfecting their anti-carrier missiles:

[http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/09/the-sunburn-
mis...](http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/09/the-sunburn-missile-the-
weapon-that-could-defeat-the-us-in-the-gulf-2467754.html)

(^ that's quite possibly an overstated opinion piece -- I wouldn't know, I'm
not an expert on these things -- but I'm sure there is a kernel of truth
there)

[http://www.militaryaerospace.com/blogs/aerospace-defense-
blo...](http://www.militaryaerospace.com/blogs/aerospace-defense-
blog/2013/07/how-vulnerable-are-u-s-navy-vessels-to-advanced-anti-ship-cruise-
missiles.html)

[http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/irans-carrier-killer-
missile-...](http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/irans-carrier-killer-missile-
improves-accuracy/)

I'd bet that the barge was built to test them in a live-fire exercise. Of
course, the real question is how well the missile can get past a real
carrier's defenses. A barge won't help with that, but the behavior of American
carriers _after_ Iran hits the barge might give the answer away.

~~~
vonmoltke
> that's quite possibly an overstated opinion piece

Understatement of the year (so far).

> I'd bet that the barge was built to test them in a live-fire exercise.

Might as well just use a tanker hulk. Its about as useful as this thing.

> Of course, the real question is how well the missile can get past a real
> carrier's defenses.

Yes, and the defenses of the rest of the CVBG. And how well the ship's damage
control will perform. And how well it will penetrate the actual armor of the
ship. And how well the secondary protection systems work at suppressing
secondary explosions and fires from fuel and ammunition stores. And the
overall success rate of these missiles before factoring in everything else I
just mentioned.

Soviet Frontal Aviation's plan for dealing with a US CVBG in the event of a
hot war was to hit it with a saturation raid of 100 - 150 Tu-22 Backfire
bombers each armed with a pair of Kh-22 (AS-4 Kitchen)[1] anti-ship missiles.
The Soviet Navy felt that this level of saturation was required to ensure that
the battlegroup's defenses would be sufficiently overwhelmed after accounting
for bomber losses, electro-mechanical failures, and missile defense attrition.
The Aegis system and F-14/AIM-54 pairing were developed specifically to combat
a Frontal Aviation saturation raid. Sea skimmers, which the Kitchen was not,
add an extra variable but do not have the range.

The Gulf transit scenario is ludicrous. The US Navy would not sail a CVBG into
the Gulf in a war situation where the enemy has significant shore defenses
without first suppressing those defenses. This activity would not be nearly as
difficult as the badly misinformed author of the first piece seems to think,
as finding the installations for launching these missiles is not difficult. If
said installations want to have a snowball's chance in hell of finding a
target to hit they will need to light it up, even if only briefly. At that
point the fire control radar station is getting a HARM up the ass. The rest of
the station is going to be fairly hard (though not impossible) to hide as
well.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-22](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-22)

~~~
gaius
Modern thinking is to take out a carrier with a nuke:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21#DF-21D_.28CSS-5_Mod-4.29_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21#DF-21D_.28CSS-5_Mod-4.29_Anti-
ship_ballistic_missile)

"United States Naval Institute in 2009 stated that such a warhead would be
large enough to destroy an aircraft carrier in one hit and that there was
"currently ... no defense against it" if it worked as theorized."

~~~
kjs3
Yes, but escalation from "attack a US aircraft carrier" to "nuke a US aircraft
carrier" isn't linear. It represents a decision on the part of the attacker to
absorb a nuclear response from the US.

~~~
gaius
You're using Cold War logic in a world of martyrdom.

~~~
dragonwriter
The concept of noble martyrdom has been a tool used by the powerful to
motivate footsoldiers since the dawn of time -- its not something new, or
something that didn't exist during the Cold War.

~~~
gaius
Let's consider another scenario, the leadership of a country like Iran or
North Korea successfully nukes a US aircraft carrier. Would the US respond by
nuking a city full of civilians? Maybe... but maybe not.

~~~
kjs3
Nuke a city? Perhaps not (although I'd get the fuck out of Tehran or Pongyang
quick, just in case). Nuke every military base in the country? Much more
likely. But more importantly, we would be able to do just about anything short
of a chemical or biological attack, for as long as we wanted, under the guise
of "restrained response to a nuclear attack".

~~~
dragonwriter
> Nuke a city? Perhaps not (although I'd get the fuck out of Tehran or
> Pongyang quick, just in case). Nuke every military base in the country? Much
> more likely.

The latter would probably involve several instances of the former.

~~~
kjs3
Which is "collateral damage", not "nuking a city", in the propaganda game.

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fiatmoney
Could possibly be useful in practicing approaches with fast-attack craft &
wargaming the response. Just speculation, but then again, so is the whole
article.

~~~
philip1209
It's not to-scale. Do you think it would have to be full-sized to be used for
this purpose?

~~~
Crito
Maybe they just got bored with making fiberglass "fighter jets".

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jonah
It appears to have been launched already:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@27.0537625,55.9728151,1003m/dat...](https://www.google.com/maps/@27.0537625,55.9728151,1003m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en)

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TerraHertz
Perhaps it's made of cake...

But seriously, mockup for testing optical image-recognition guided anti-ship
missiles, in all weather conditions. Unlike for radar guided missiles, for
image recognition systems 'looking like it' is good enough.

Expect the DOD to place an order for 100 inflatable dummy full-scale aircraft
carriers.

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femto
Might be useful in figuring out what the radar signature of such a boat looks
like?

~~~
ceejayoz
There've been plenty of Nimitz-class carriers in radar range of Iranian ships
and installations for them to know what they look like.

~~~
dingaling
The problem with that is that the aspect of a moving subject keeps changing.

For example they might wish to profile the radar signature in various
wavelengths and from various angles. Carrier groups aren't co-operative to
such study.

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vishaldpatel
Drone carrier?

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tzakrajs
Another Google Black Project...

