Britain will establish its
first permanent military base in the Persian Gulf since it formally withdrew
from the region in 1971. The base, at Mina Salman Port in Bahrain, will host
ships, including destroyer and aircraft carriers, BBC reported today.
Britain’s move represents
a “sustained presence east of Suez,” as the British Foreign Secretary Philip
Hammond said today. In 1971, Britain had decided to close bases east of Suez.
File photo: British Type 45 destroyer (BBC)
File photo: British Type 45 destroyer (BBC)
14 comments:
Such a stupid decision from a military perspective as these large ships will be considered excellent targets for Iran's various land to sea missiles of different kinds, not talking about the sea to sea and air to sea ones.
But I understand the rationale as the British has realized the petro-Arabs lack any defensive capabilities despite all the new modern toys sold to them so they have to come down to the area themselves and do the job :-)
Your two paragraphs are contradictory. If these ships are "excellent" targets for Iran and hence militarily non-usable in the Persian Gulf, how could they be used to defend "petro-Arabs"? :-)
I have received not-so-kind comments for my post and comments. The arguments are that the British ships are only good for touristic purposes; and that I had said on this blog that the Western ships are targets of Iranian missiles.
Two points: First, British Type 45 destroyer is no cruise ship for tourists!
Second, Iran can indeed target British and U.S. ships, successfully or not, but that fact does not make the British decision to open a naval base in Bahrain "stupid," as claimed in the original comment. That decision could be wrong for other reasons, but not for lack of detailed knowledge on part of the British about Iran's ballistic missile capabilities.
Why not post those comments then respond to them? The whole point of having discussion sections is the free flow of ideas. I posted the second comment. And if you read them carefully I wasnt saying its a tourist ship. I guess the sarcasm didnt come through in text.
I was saying a battle ship is for battle not tourism. I didnt say a destroyer is a battle ship! You should have picked that up
You are the Shah of Uskowistan, dont rule over it like a Pahlavi or an Ayatollah and censor the very people who visit. Especially when they arent calling names, or using profanity.
Your comments did not need any "censorship," as your original comments were published above, as was your most recent comments. The readers can see through these comments that you were not here to argue a case, but make slogans and allegations against this blog, under anonymous cover. What you need to do, if I may say so, is to engage in a serious conversation on the subject, here on the merits, or lack of, British decision to reopen its military base in the Persian Gulf. We will be more than happy to publish them, as we have always published different views, including those against the views of the authors of the posts, on this blog for the last 7-8 years of its existence.
@Nader, the original comment.
No what I said was not contradictory.
First I indicated they can be easy targets for Iran
Second I indicated this is the only choice the British has as petro-Arabs cannot do the work themselves.
Conclusion: The British has no other choice, this is their best available choice and sometimes the best available choice is not an optimal choice.
Iran's view is that the British want to mount pressure on Iran prior to the next round of the nuclear talks. They want to ensure Iran's leading edge in the PG is marginalized and show their commitment to defend their allies and interests in the region in case of any threats.
What the British don't know is that soon an armada of Russian and Chinese navy ships will start visiting different Iranian naval ports (Chah Bahar, Bandar Abbas and Bushehr). This will send a strong message to US and UK to not get involved in any regional conflict with Iran or face direct confrontation with them.
So this strategy is not even good from a "marketing" perspective. Instead of these shows of force the British and the US should engage in serious talks with Iran in order to decrease the tension in this important region and create stability for trading and business which would be mutually beneficial for all parties.
Pennant number: D32 see on side of the ship.
The ship is HMS Daring - an air-defence guided missile destroyer.
The Type 45 destroyers are primarily designed for anti-air warfare with the capability to defend against sophisticated targets such as fighter aircraft, drones as well as highly maneuverable sea skimming anti-ship missiles travelling at supersonic speeds. The Royal Navy describes the destroyers' mission as being "to shield the Fleet from air attack". The Type 45 destroyer is equipped with the sophisticated Sea Viper (PAAMS) air-defence system utilizing the SAMPSON active electronically scanned array multi-function radar and the S1850M long-range radar. The PAAMS system is able to track over 2,000 targets and simultaneously control and coordinate multiple missiles in the air at once, allowing a large number of tracks to be intercepted and destroyed at any given time. This makes the PAAMS system particularly difficult to swamp during a saturation attack, even against supersonic targets. The USNWC has suggested that the SAMPSON radar is capable of tracking 1,000 objects the size of a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound (Mach 3), emphasising the system's capabilities against high performance stealth targets. A core component of the PAAMS air-defence system is the Aster missile, composing of the Aster 15 and Aster 30. MBDA describe Aster as a "hit-to-kill" anti-missile missile capable of intercepting all types of high performance air threats at a maximum range of 120 km. The Aster missile is autonomously guided and equipped with an active RF seeker enabling it to cope with "saturated attacks" thanks to a "multiple engagement capability" and a "high rate of fire". Presently the Daring-class destroyers are equipped with a 48-cell A50 Sylver Vertical Launching System allowing for a mix of up-to 48 Aster 15 and 30 missiles.
Very impressive...if I remember correctly this destroyer project was tagged as one of the "most costly and poorly managed" projects in the Royal Navy's history. Each destroyer costs around 1 billion sterling and for that money you can do more magic today. So it is obvious the petro-Arabs have to pay dearly for this ship or to be correct for the proposed air protection it might provide for them, otherwise the total cost of ownership will not be fun to look at for the Royal Navy during a period when you experience budget costs.
It is interesting you are saying it can track targets in thousands but you never mention how many of those targets can be really engaged at a time and only say "multiple missiles in the air at once...". That "multiple" is the key to its ability to engage with those incoming missiles.
The computerized system can easily be overloaded with missiles having multiple warheads and decoys. Iran will most probably fire "hundred" different types of missiles against it at the same time (important) and that from land, sea and also air. Iran has also other interesting systems for saturating such a massive air defense system and confusing it, amongst others huge number of land, sea and air launched decoys with different control and flight simulation capabilities which can be quite confusing for the air defense system. As Iran has produced these decoys in thousands rather hundreds it will be in good position to use them against "high value targets" at sea with massive air defense capability. So by firing different versions and configurations of Kosar, Nasr, Noor, Qader, Raad and Persian Gulf missiles after a massive wave of decoys attack, it will achieve the necessary saturation of the system.
But Iran will most probably go for an asymmetric attack on the ship to finish it off by using mini-subs and small fast boats with torpedoes, amongst others upgraded Hoot torpedo, but also navy SEAL's type of attacks to take out key components of the ship and make it more vulnerable for other types of attacks. As Iran is most probably tracking the location of enemy ships almost on real-time by various sources, including visual observation, the low radar signature of the ship will be insignificant in the Persian Gulf.
Very impressive.... well if you think so but that warship is just one small part of the overall naval force that is within the region.
Within the region there is a large fleet of many warships plus many war planes all from many countries around the world. The reason - to make sure all the oil tanker ships from around the world travel freely through the region and that nothing happens to them.
Are you indicating that the patrol boats of GCC will be a threat to Iran? As I mentioned, the potential strategy outlined is for the "high value targets at sea" and Iran will not hesitate one second to launch such a bold attack in case its oil export is threatened by regional or their global masters. Iran showed that in 1980's and it will show it again.
Once again, any major conflict against Iran by global masters will be a direct threat to Russia's and China's interests and as such they feel they have the right to do the same thing in Ukraine and Taiwan. As US doesn't want that to happen, it will never involve in a direct massive attack on Iran but rather do some "small battles" to show power publicly. But those small battles will show to be a grave mistake. Time will show who is right on this point.
I don't see any threat to Iran but you appear to see some sort of threat. Over the years there has been threats to oil tanker ships and that is one of the reasons why so many warships from many nations are there in the region.
A Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) of 30 nations was formed in 2001 and based in Bahrain. The CMF’s main focus areas are defeating terrorism, preventing piracy, encouraging regional cooperation, and promoting a safe maritime environment.
My country is one of those nations and since 2001 has on a rotational basis deployed warships within that region which includes the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian/Persian Gulf. My country needs oil and wants to buy oil from friendly nations in the region, and wants to see that the oil tanker ships travel safely through the region to get to my country. I think that all of those other countries similarly wanted to do that.
Iran has no problem securing the waterway and ensuring a great flow of oil to the global customers. Iran is not against economic growth, commerce or trade. As a matter of fact Iran welcomes increasing ties with all nations around the world (except one) in aspects which will be mutually beneficial. Having said that Iran doesn't believe this security and stability should only be for one part and the other part only suffers. If a major military ship is coming to our territory with great air defense capability we understand that it is not targeting ISIS which hardly owns any flying bird. We are not dumb people as the media is trying to portray Iranians and we do understand the message and its implications. As such we will make sure the other side also understands we are capable of neutralizing anyone who in our own neighborhood is trying to marginalize us or our influence. That was the message of my comment.
AnonymousDecember 9, 2014 at 11:19 PM
When you have western governments threatening "all options are on the table",when you have western militaries overthrowing governments[libya] and threatening to attack others[syria] and you then have those same governments sending their most modern air defence destroyers to patrol against pirates[!!] or al qaidas/isis non existent air force,then iran would be very stupid not to feel threatened.If the west is so concerned about the free flow of oil through the straits then it would be far better served in that respect by not threatening iran or irans interests,that would do far more to guarantee the free flow of oil than this sort of ill considered gunboat diplomacy
The threats were there BEFORE the countries sent their warships to the region, for as I previously mentioned.
"Over the years there has been threats to oil tanker ships and that is one of the reasons why so many warships from many nations are there in the region."
As the threats were already there it appears that the countries within the region could NOT guarantee the safety of international ships traveling through the region. As to threats, maybe countries do have records of incidents such as in what ships and where have been threatened or even pirated.
Whilst those warships are there the countries feel that those warships can deal with any threat to the international ships, for if they felt insecure about that then they would send more warships.
Whilst any threat exist to international ships traveling through the region then the warships will remain to ensure the safe passage of the ships travelling through the region.
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