"Filipino Monkey" may be behind radio threat, not Iranians (1 Viewer)

We do have defenses against speed boats, but the type of "swarming" attack by multiple high-speed boats described in the article is still going to be difficult to fend off. You have to realize as well that the US Navy is still primarily a "Blue-Water" force meant to fight on the open seas. We're starting to "diversify" the fleet to meet these new, post-Cold War threats with the development of platforms such as the Littoral Combat Ship.

The exercises dapperdan referenced, after a little checking, did include an all out attack on a concentration of U.S. ships in which speed boats were combined with anti-ship missile barrages from land and air.

That is in deed a threat.

Everybody handled it correctly.

I doubt the Iranians will take the risk just to take out a couple of cruisers when the response will be devastating. If they do it, it is going to be as in the context of the exercises --- an all out attack -- and as a response to an attack on their nuclear facilities.

So, my point is that this is being used again to bang the drum.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080113/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_mideast

This is a symptom of the tension and the threats from both sides. The thing that apparently sets this off from other similar incidents, where warning shots were already fired is the radio transmission and that is now suspected of being from a hoaxer by the Navy itself.

It's a dangerous situation reminiscent of the Spanish American war. The Maine blows up in Havana amidst war tension, sabotage is automatically assumed and off to war it is. Nobody today believes the Spanish had anything to do with the explosion of the Maine.

By the Way, this is going to happen in some form every time we send ships into the Gulf, or it should. I think the entrance to the straits is only 6 miles wide. The Iranians are going to document every movement of our ships in or out of the Gulf for their own intel purposes. That might include getting their video cameras as close as possible for positive identification of each ship. It's just going to be down to the distance they keep going forward..

The fact the that the crews are wearing life jackets would suggest that they are not eager to meet their virgins just yet.
 
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The fact the that the crews are wearing life jackets would suggest that they are not eager to meet their virgins just yet.

Maybe they realize that there is a chance that their "virgins" are a bunch of 600lb dudes who sit around reading comic books and playing with their computers in their Mommy's basement.
 
It reminds me of some of the footage I saw in the early days of the Iraq war. With all this ominous talk about the threat Iraq posed I saw what looked like some late 1970s Datsun pickups with guys in the back with shotguns fighting the U.S., I mean coalition, forces.


Yeah....it was fun.:mwink: That being said. One of them did get lucky enough to fire a RPG and take out my battery commanders hum vee. So the threat was definatly there.
 
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The exercises dapperdan referenced, after a little checking, did include an all out attack on a concentration of U.S. ships in which speed boats were combined with anti-ship missile barrages from land and air.

That is in deed a threat.

Everybody handled it correctly.

I doubt the Iranians will take the risk just to take out a couple of cruisers when the response will be devastating. If they do it, it is going to be as in the context of the exercises --- an all out attack -- and as a response to an attack on their nuclear facilities.
I see what you're saying here, and, yes, I agree that an all out attack is going to consist of more than just five or so speedboats. However, a military commander cannot afford to give the enemy (general, not Iran in particular) the benefit of the doubt just because an attack would be suicide or the political climate doesn't warrant it. Whose to say some rogue Revolutionary Guard unit isn't going to take matters into its own hands, damn the response. They got away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist when they kidnapped those Brit Sailors and Marines against the superior firepower of Her Majesty's Navy.

By the Way, this is going to happen in some form every time we send ships into the Gulf, or it should. I think the entrance to the straits is only 6 miles wide. The Iranians are going to document every movement of our ships in or out of the Gulf for their own intel purposes. That might include getting their video cameras as close as possible for positive identification of each ship. It's just going to be down to the distance they keep going forward...
This is why I don't buy the Iranian response that these are normal operations. Navy ships have been transiting the Strait of Hormuz going in and out of the Gulf for decades, and incidents such as these are few and far between. I transited the Straits twice aboard the USS BATAAN going to the UAE on my last deployment in '01, and there was no Iranian speedboat welcoming committee or even the hint of one either time.

Yeah....it was fun.:mwink: That being said. One of them did get lucky enough to fire a RPG and take out my battery commanders hum vee. So the threat was definatly there.
My point exactly. The second you underestimate an adversary because of the way they look is the second you are eating a rocket shot to the ship's bridge.
 
I see two distinct issues here.

The "rogue" radio transmissions. Radio triangulation has been around since radio transmissions. Why hasn't the "Filipino Monkey" been shut down?

The "greeting" of the Iranian speedboats. That wasn't for identification. They could easily identify each of the US warships from much further distances. That was a classic probe. I agree the Iranians aren't going to play the "swarm" card on a three ship formation. They'll save that for an entire carrier group. But how better to make a few practice runs?
 
I see two distinct issues here.

The "rogue" radio transmissions. Radio triangulation has been around since radio transmissions. Why hasn't the "Filipino Monkey" been shut down?

The "greeting" of the Iranian speedboats. That wasn't for identification. They could easily identify each of the US warships from much further distances. That was a classic probe. I agree the Iranians aren't going to play the "swarm" card on a three ship formation. They'll save that for an entire carrier group. But how better to make a few practice runs?

Deep background on the "Filipino Monkey"...L.A. Times article on this guy from 1987:

http://editor-at-large.blogspot.com/2008/01/filipino-monkey-is-back.html

Los Angeles Times
November 12, 1987

MESSAGES FROM ROGUE RADIO OPERATOR COULD PROVOKE ATTACK;
FILIPINO MONKEY: ON BACKS OF MANY IN TENSE GULF

A cargo ship was sailing through the Strait of Hormuz recently when it was challenged by an Iranian warship demanding to know what it carried.
Iranian gunboats in these waters frequently attack vessels they suspect of carrying war materials to Iraq, and for the crew of the cargo ship, it was a tense moment.

"What is your cargo? What is your cargo?" the voice of an Iranian officer crackled over the radio.

Before the ship's captain could respond, a third voice came on the air: "I am carrying machine guns and hand grenades to Iraq . . . and the atom bomb."

The Filipino Monkey had struck again.

Sailors in this part of the world are by now well-acquainted with the rogue radio operator who calls himself "The Filipino Monkey." He has been interjecting jokes and taunts into radio conversations between ships at the southern end of the Persian Gulf for at least three years.

But as the Iran-Iraq War escalates and tensions rise, with the warships of several nations patrolling the gulf on a hair-trigger state of alert, the Filipino Monkey has become more than just an occasionally amusing annoyance.

"He's dangerous," one gulf-based shipping source said. "He gets on the radio when ships are being challenged, and some of the things he tells the Iranians could provoke an attack."

Most of what he tells the Iranians is unprintable.
 
Interesting...and amazing. I can see where the quick hit transmissions aren't tracked. But the reported night-long rants...you'd really think they would have shut him down by now.
 

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