What would WW3 look like?

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jderimig said:
Defense against small airborne terrorist weapons is hard. The real question where the heck is our reponse(s)? Pathetic.
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We’re operating in another country under negotiated rules, at least some of which aren’t public. Iraq may not be interested in having a major assault, especially if the drone operations sites are in civilian neighborhoods.

If it gets bad enough, we will either renegotiate the rules of engagement or leave.
 
jderimig said:
Defense against small airborne terrorist weapons is hard. The real question where the heck is our reponse(s)? Pathetic.
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Modern Automated Shot Gun tech? Shot guns have been taking down small airborne targets for food at about 100 feet for a few centuries ?
 
Art Upton said:
Modern Automated Shot Gun tech? Shot guns have been taking down small airborne targets for food at about 100 feet for a few centuries ?
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As long as it can distinguish between drones and birds…
 
Ummm, I was sitting there whooping it up when the news came in that the carrier group shot down "h"outhi drones and missiles. Go, go, go U.S. technology.
I bet the U.S. radar folks on the ships were tense as hell when they saw the stuff coming in. Good thing the admiral or maybe captain"s" ordered to stop them.
The guys in the weapon control centers of the ships were probably ordered to "track and go for it". Bring up the anti-missiles and drones to kill'em.
We're better than they are and got them neutralized.
I'm not a war monger but attack U.S. ships in international waters and the ignorant idiots deserve what they get!! Kurt Savegnago
 
It's past time to take their missile launch sites and ammo warehouses out. I know that they have mobile launchers but we could or should stop them from doing what they are doing. By causing ships to go around Africa and incurring a higher cost to do so. We are going to see higher prices and a shortage of goods around the world. If Iran wants to play we could green light the Israeli's to go after them. This crap has to stop. The World is being held hostage by a group of terrorist's. If the Europeans are afraid to get involved because they are afraid of their Muslim populations then so be it. We can do it by ourselves. The attacks on our troops in Iraq and Syria have to be stopped too. It's time to get off our collective butts and take the fight to them rather than being on the defensive and taking it. Someone needs to make a decision.
 
teepot said:
It's past time to take their missile launch sites and ammo warehouses out. I know that they have mobile launchers but we could or should stop them from doing what they are doing. By causing ships to go around Africa and incurring a higher cost to do so. We are going to see higher prices and a shortage of goods around the world. If Iran wants to play we could green light the Israeli's to go after them. This crap has to stop. The World is being held hostage by a group of terrorist's. If the Europeans are afraid to get involved because they are afraid of their Muslim populations then so be it. We can do it by ourselves. The attacks on our troops in Iraq and Syria have to be stopped too. It's time to get off our collective butts and take the fight to them rather than being on the defensive and taking it. Someone needs to make a decision.
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Which 'Europeans' do you have in mind? Europe is not a homogenous bloc but a continent which stretches from the Urals in Russia to the Atlantic coast and Iceland. It comprises 45-50 countries (depending on your definition 'country'), all of which have different military capabilities, economic situations, political agendas and heritages. Some are in election years or have weak governments. Others, particularly those with mediterranean coasts, are overrun with immigrants from Africa and the Middle east and whose navies are committed to slowing that flood. Some are landlocked.
Your comment show a massive oversimplification of Europe and does nothing for the credibility of this thread.
 
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PhilC said:
Which 'Europeans' do you have in mind? Europe is not a homogenous bloc but a continent which stretches from the Urals in Russia to the Atlantic coast and Iceland. It comprises 45-50 countries (depending on your definition 'country'), all of which have different military capabilities, economic situations, political agendas and heritages. Some are in election years or have weak governments. Others, particularly those with mediterranean coasts, are overrun with immigrants from Africa and the Middle east and whose navies are committed to slowing that flood. Some are landlocked.
Your comment show a massive oversimplification of Europe and does nothing for the credibility of this thread.
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It is a bit of an oversimplification however, it is expedient. There are Europeans participating in the Combined Task Force in the Red Sea to stifle the Houthis/Iranians. (I think GB, FR, IT, SP, BR...Germany is currently preoccupied with Lithuania...which should be a whole new thread topic!) I don't think the Europeans are "afraid" by any stretch but their actions will be limited for various reasons that include lack of capability, limited resources and the geopolitical implications of direct involvement. But they are participating and that can only be seen as a good thing! As I stated earlier in the thread, the US's role here is purely to support the needs of allies in Europe and the Middle East. European involvement means they are taking some ownership of the problem.

The impacts of not shipping goods through the Red Sea directly impacts Europe but not the US so much. If China can't get goods to Europe, they'll likely dump them on the Americas and that will surely impact the trade balance for a while. @boatgeek can jump in and speak to the simple fact that a boat design going around the Cape of Good Hope is vastly different than that of one transiting the somewhat "protected" waters of the Red Sea and Med. The old saying; "We're gonna need a bigger boat" comes into play here.

NOTE: "Europeans" could simply mean European Union as an economic bloc which is kinda the implication. Of course that excludes United Kingdom (not Ireland but Northern Ireland) but clearly their best interest is supporting the free movement of goods to "Europe".
 
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Bravo52 said:
@boatgeek can jump in and speak to the simple fact that a boat design going around the Cape of Good Hope is vastly different than that of one transiting the somewhat "protected" waters of the Red Sea and Med. The old saying; "We're gonna need a bigger boat" comes into play here.
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Yes and no. The waters around the Cape of Good Hope are certainly far less pleasant than the Med and northern Indian Ocean. It will definitely take more time (=money) to get back and forth, and there will be more cargo damage and lost containers. There will be more minor damage to ships from heavy seas.

But the ship designs aren’t going to be noticeably different. They’re already more or less built for all oceans in all seasons. It’s just that stuff will wear out a little faster. For my entire professional career, cargo ships (especially container ships) have been on a track of increasing sizes to get increasing economies of scale. The lion’s share of container and tanker cargo already travels on very large ships for economic reasons.

What may happen is that smaller ships and lower volume routes get phased out in favor of larger volume runs, but that’s economics rather than the capabilities of the ships. More likely, stuff will just cost more to account for increased cost of transport. For example, oil prices in Greece will rise dramatically if tankers don’t go through Suez because of the massive increase in transport distance.

Also, ship designs depend very much on who is paying for the fuel. For chartered ships, including most bulk carriers and a lot of tankers, there are extremely standard designs that optimize around getting the most possible cargo into the smallest possible footprint of length and beam. These are shoeboxes with little attention paid to fuel consumption because the charterer pays for fuel. These are cookie cutter designs where a Suezmax tanker from one shipyard will be almost identical to one from another yard. Container ships and some large tankers are more optimized since they (a) tend to run faster and (b) tend to be owned by the company paying for the fuel. Even there, more cargo carrying capacity often trumps hull efficiency.
 
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PhilC said:
Which 'Europeans' do you have in mind? Europe is not a homogenous bloc but a continent which stretches from the Urals in Russia to the Atlantic coast and Iceland. It comprises 45-50 countries (depending on your definition 'country'), all of which have different military capabilities, economic situations, political agendas and heritages. Some are in election years or have weak governments. Others, particularly those with mediterranean coasts, are overrun with immigrants from Africa and the Middle east and whose navies are committed to slowing that flood. Some are landlocked.
Your comment show a massive oversimplification of Europe and does nothing for the credibility of this thread.
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My post was because I recently saw a video in which a PM [I don't remember which one] was saying that the influx of so many migrants was destroying European culture. IIRC a few years ago there were riots in France by Muslims because of some police action. Another video I saw was that Ireland had soured on immigration. Here in the US we are being invaded by 10K and 12K a day coming across our southern border. Most of the illegals are from Central America. It is going to be a major factor in our next election.
 
teepot said:
My post was because I recently saw a video in which a PM [I don't remember which one] was saying that the influx of so many migrants was destroying European culture. IIRC a few years ago there were riots in France by Muslims because of some police action. Another video I saw was that Ireland had soured on immigration. Here in the US we are being invaded by 10K and 12K a day coming across our southern border. Most of the illegals are from Central America. It is going to be a major factor in our next election.
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Are these two unnamed sources representative of the whole of Europe? I think not. The EU is 27 of the 45-50 countries, just over half. The EU. Is not representative of, for example, Russia and Belarus, both of which are European countries.
Would you think it reasonable for someone to refer to Americans’ attitudes by citing unnamed Brazilian and Venezuelan politicians?
 
teepot said:
Here in the US we are being invaded by 10K and 12K a day coming across our southern border. Most of the illegals are from Central America. It is going to be a major factor in our next election.
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We should just move the US border south. Would the new states be red or blue, a major political factor in US elections?
 
Retired Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO commander, discusses rising odds of further escalation in the Middle East.

As I see it, continued blockage of the Red Sea global shipping passage by Houthi rebels is potentially going to stimulate UK and/or US attacks on Iran-backed Houthi bases in Yemen. The presence of an elderly Iranian frigate steaming in the Red Sea is also a curious and unwelcome development. Altho Israel is scaling back its Gaza assault, it now says it will continue for many months or even a year, so the claimed root cause of the Houthi piracy will persist until resolved one way or the other. Lebanese border skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel are also persisting, but at a contained level.

 
Politico reports multiple sources in the Administration saying our military is preparing plans to attack the Houthi on the ground in Yemen.

Snippet:
“Although the U.S. has been trying to avoid having the war in Gaza from turning into a regional one, ultimately that decision is not entirely up to us,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Marine, CIA officer and Pentagon official under Trump. “The signs are blinking red for this to erupt into a regional war.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/04/war-gaza-widen-biden-getting-ready-00133949
 
Lord Rory Gin said:
I'm really NOT fond of anyone doing any ESCALATION - this makes me nervous.
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Netanyahu is in an unpleasant place for his political future. He more or less has to stay Prime Minister or he'll go on trial for corruption charges. He also made some moves to prop up Hamas pre-10/7, and he's going to get called to account on that eventually. So he needs some big splashy successes to shore up his popularity so he doesn't get booted and end up in prison. I don't know how the Gaza operation is actually playing in Israel, but the way things usually work is that military operations get less popular over time as the body count on both sides rises. So opening a new front where quick successes might be had may be good political strategy.

There's a lot of tail wagging the dog here. I'm not saying I like it, just what's going on.
 
boatgeek said:
Netanyahu is in an unpleasant place for his political future. He more or less has to stay Prime Minister or he'll go on trial for corruption charges. He also made some moves to prop up Hamas pre-10/7, and he's going to get called to account on that eventually. So he needs some big splashy successes to shore up his popularity so he doesn't get booted and end up in prison. I don't know how the Gaza operation is actually playing in Israel, but the way things usually work is that military operations get less popular over time as the body count on both sides rises. So opening a new front where quick successes might be had may be good political strategy.

There's a lot of tail wagging the dog here. I'm not saying I like it, just what's going on.
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Reminds me of the quote. "What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution....."

Which leads to the further observation "The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions"
 
Last night I looked at when the Moon set in Yemen. It was about 7:30pm. I went in the house and told her I thought the strikes would be between 3am and 4am Yemen time. At 4:20pm PST here I first saw that they had been attacked. I went into the house and told her it had started. She said to me, you nailed it. If I could figure it out I would think so could the Houthi. I have been watching the news on You Tube for a couple of hours now. The number of strikes keep going up. Things are going to get real interesting now.
 
"Iran has seized an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and is transferring it to an Iranian port in retaliation for the United States confiscating the same vessel and its oil last year, Tasnim News Agency reported Thursday."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/business/oil-tanker-boarded-armed-people-iran/index.html
oman tanker map

At least four armed people boarded a vessel in the Gulf of Oman, according to Britain's Royal Navy.
 
teepot said:
Last night I looked at when the Moon set in Yemen. It was about 7:30pm. I went in the house and told her I thought the strikes would be between 3am and 4am Yemen time. At 4:20pm PST here I first saw that they had been attacked. I went into the house and told her it had started. She said to me, you nailed it. If I could figure it out I would think so could the Houthi. I have been watching the news on You Tube for a couple of hours now. The number of strikes keep going up. Things are going to get real interesting now.
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Some dozen sites were bombed by the Americans and Brits. We had held back for a while to try not to upset the truce in Yemen, but eventually we had to respond. That said, I don't think that this (or really anything in the Middle East) is going to trigger WWIII. There have been spot wars all over the area for 75+ years and none of the major powers have started shooting wars with each other over them. Heck, in Syria a few years ago, US forces absolutely wrecked a Russian unit that was attacking them, and it didn't go any further.
 
boatgeek said:
Some dozen sites were bombed by the Americans and Brits. We had held back for a while to try not to upset the truce in Yemen, but eventually we had to respond. That said, I don't think that this (or really anything in the Middle East) is going to trigger WWIII. There have been spot wars all over the area for 75+ years and none of the major powers have started shooting wars with each other over them. Heck, in Syria a few years ago, US forces absolutely wrecked a Russian unit that was attacking them, and it didn't go any further.
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I think you’re right- its not a WWIII flash point. We’ve sent a message to the Houthis and their Iranian backers. I’m interested to see the Houthis response, not just the inevitable belligerent press releases but whether they continue to attack shipping. UK can easily increase the air assets in Cyprus if they want to make a fight of it. I expect that Egypt allowed overflight for the RAF as their canal fees have reduced. They have a vested interest in seeing the Houthi threat neutralised.
 
I wonder the Houthi's were warned of what targets would be hit to minimize human casualties. My $10 against anyone's $1 on yes.
 
jderimig said:
I wonder the Houthi's were warned of what targets would be hit to minimize human casualties. My $10 against anyone's $1 on yes.
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Several outlets have reported today that we've been basically advertising the strike through channels for a week......and that's why the death tool is reportedly only 5 terrorists.
 
I stand corrected on my time of the attack starting. Turns out it was 2am and not 3am. I find it laughable that the Houthi say that only 5 were killed and 6 injured. 60 sites were hit. How were only 5 killed. Does everyone go home and leave their radar and air defense without anybody watching. I especially liked the secondaries going off near Sana'a. A lot of their weapons went bang. I also liked the UK releasing the video of their aircraft hitting their targets. The rhetoric coming out of Russia is very funny. Calling the US and UK aggressors. What do they think they are in Ukraine. The Chinees want to attack Taiwan and they agree with Russia. The Houthi say they will strike back. And then they will get hit again. Some talking heads are saying that Iran should be hit too because of their support for the Houthi, Hamas, Hezbollah and their proxies in Iraq and Syria. Not very likely. I wonder how long it will be before the Houthi start attacking ships again.
 
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