in the Straits of Hormuz.
I've seen these little SOBs. They are about 11m or 12m boats with one heavy machine gun and two big outboards. They sit in the Straits and occasionally harass ships. Normally 3 or 4 men. I've seen boats with only two men.
Funny thing is most of the traffic scheme in the Straits is in Oman waters.
Problem with many of our ships is they do not have any weapons against these type of craft, until they are inside range of the .50 cals.
Realistically, unless these boats are suicide bombers, there is very little they could do physically. Yes .50 can penetrate the hull and superstructure of modern navy ships. But they'd be highly inaccurate compared to the US ships because of US ships size makes them a stable platform, whereas the Iranians would be bouncing all over the place.
Just what is the purpose of these harassment runs? Do they want an escalation?
Iranian Naval Harassment - (
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hahaha.....wouldn't that be awesome
I assume the US military knows what is best to do/not do.
hahaha.....wouldn't that be awesome
You're not sniping a moving boat bouncing along. But lighting them up with a .50 would be nice. But this is probably what the Iranians want.
Maybe. It's also possible that the Iranian military is still very unhappy about the nuclear deal and this is their way of lashing out, showing the political and religious powers that the military remains an important constituency.
Either way, it's a low level stunt.
Our Navy has been working to retrofit our ships with close-defense weapons to combat this threat. One option would be similar to the Phalanx system, except geared and positioned toward destroying small water craft rather than incoming missiles. Other options include lasers and Hellfire missiles.
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With that in mind, an amphibious ships usually have Marines providing overwatch whenever they traverse these waters. And while I agree that a .50 cal isn't the best weapon system, when you have a Marine sniper team with a .50 cal SASR using Raufoss rounds, they can reach out and hit a target at a decent distance with good accuracy with rounds that can actually do pretty good damage to even a gunboat.
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With that in mind, an amphibious ships usually have Marines providing overwatch whenever they traverse these waters. And while I agree that a .50 cal isn't the best weapon system, when you have a Marine sniper team with a .50 cal SASR using Raufoss rounds, they can reach out and hit a target at a decent distance with good accuracy with rounds that can actually do pretty good damage to even a gunboat. Link - ( New Window )
Was down to Fleet Week with AFJROTC kids and the Cole was there. They had a newish looking weapon mounted on deck just fwd of midship that looked bigger than a .50, maybe a 20mm, with what also looked like a heavy duty recoil suppression system. I was on the Bataan with my group so I couldn't ask about it. I thought that it might have something to do with a small craft, close in weapon retrofit since the Iranian harassment exposed that vulnerability..
RC, I think the .50 cal sniper rifle would be hard to use on a 30 kt+ attack craft. Hard to gauge distance over water. My self defense former NSW guys liked to practice walking the rounds toward their target (yeah M4s or .308s). I think a regular M2 would be quicker and easier to range in an approaching target.
Not meaning to disparage the sniper teams. A .50 call would take out these craft in a few rounds. It's the rate of closure that would make it difficult with a semi-auto, whereas a full auto .50 M2 can walk the rounds right onto the craft, but you know this already.
hahaha.....wouldn't that be awesome
"Andre, you've lost ANOTHER submarine?"
Ideal situation is to have something like a Phalanx system as mentioned above or even a naval version of a Javelin missile system that is fire and forget.
Mk-19 would work if the targets weren't moving. Greg think about trying to hit a truck moving 35-40 mph with a Mk-19. Not sure you could do it with consistency.
Ideal situation is to have something like a Phalanx system as mentioned above or even a naval version of a Javelin missile system that is fire and forget.
The beauty of auto fire is get close and walk the splashes into the boat. Maybe optics for initial range, but just fire in the general direction and walk the splashes into to boat. Now I just did a quick read and the Raufoss is an exploding round? That would be ideal mixed in with regular AP to use as "tracer."
Of course Phalanx would be effective too and you could use .50 cal to save on cost. No need for 20mm depleted uranium for a fiberglass boat.
Maybe we can do a fly-by? ...Inverted??
How are you liking season 2? I am mad they got rid of Rachel.
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I hear you on it being extremely difficult to hit a moving target with a sniper rifle. With that being stated, the issue with a M2 system isn't the range as much as the optics and range of target identifications and acquisition. The best of both world is to complement the M2 with an observer team and equip the M2 with the Raufoss rounds.
Ideal situation is to have something like a Phalanx system as mentioned above or even a naval version of a Javelin missile system that is fire and forget.
The beauty of auto fire is get close and walk the splashes into the boat. Maybe optics for initial range, but just fire in the general direction and walk the splashes into to boat. Now I just did a quick read and the Raufoss is an exploding round? That would be ideal mixed in with regular AP to use as "tracer."
Of course Phalanx would be effective too and you could use .50 cal to save on cost. No need for 20mm depleted uranium for a fiberglass boat.
I love it when you two talk shop.
I love it when you two talk shop.
Better than the 4 threads on Josh Brown...........
Yeah, I've been there and have seen these assholes in action; like the flies in the middle east - always there and always annoying.
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How are you liking season 2? I am mad they got rid of Rachel.
Yeah, you and everybody else, lol, but I'm still loving this season.
"I don't care about a tiger. I brought a Wolf."
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I love it when you two talk shop.
Better than the 4 threads on Josh Brown...........
Yeah, I've been there and have seen these assholes in action; like the flies in the middle east - always there and always annoying.
I can always start a call out thread asking for people to vote one of us off the island. That seems to go over well.
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In comment 13087912 njm said:
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I love it when you two talk shop.
Better than the 4 threads on Josh Brown...........
Yeah, I've been there and have seen these assholes in action; like the flies in the middle east - always there and always annoying.
I can always start a call out thread asking for people to vote one of us off the island. That seems to go over well.
Ah come on, you'd win. How about M4's at 400m? Shit, I'd likely lose that on too.
Let's ignore the bastids....
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Thanks Section, Ronnie and Jim