Hacker News Reader

Comment by comrade1234 | Hacker News Reader

It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships. So far theyve used speedboats to attack tankers in Iraqi waters and they used "unknown projectiles" to attack ships in the strait. The ships are on fire and crew have died with the remaining rescued by Oman's and Iraq's navies. I don't know what a us navy ship is going to do as an escort other than be a sponge for incoming projectiles.

View on HN

Ukraine sunk half of the Russian Black sea fleet, the other half is hiding in safe ports and still get hit occasionally. Remember when there were talks about grain corridors? There are no more such talks because Ukraine actually managed to deny Russia the control of the Black sea and the Bosphorus straits are held by the Turks anyway.

It's just a different world now. Large powerful ships aren't that useful anymore, USA and Israel destroyed some of the largest and the most advanced Iranian ships in the first day of the war they started and yet can't sail their own ships in the region either.

One of my peers sent me a discussion from the Council on Foreign Relations and it was a difficult listen. Within the first 5 minutes of the hour-long vid, one of the "experts" was opining that Iran had no ability to close the Strait because "all of their ships are destroyed". These DC swamp creatures are CLUELESS. As you said, I dunno how any national security professional can watch Ukraine bully the Russian Black Sea Fleet with Starlink-equipped kamikaze USVs and not understand the implications for other theatres of war. Especially involving an adversary that has rehearsed and even pioneered asymmetric capabilities for decades.

Who do you follow for news on the Ukraine-Russian war? I use to follow combat footage to see what was going on, but I had to stop after seeing too many minefield and drones bombing humans videos.

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/new/

This is considered the most "pro-Russian" sub-Reddit, so it balances the Anglosphere deluge of pro-Ukrainian material pretty well. The most important poster is u/HeyHeyHayden, who's content is so important another user built a site to archive it: https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1pfjpx...

Hayden mostly compiles battlefield progress from Suriyak Maps (reputable Russian mapper) and AMK_Mapping (reputable pro-Ukrainian mapper). I think you can find both of them on Twitter.

On Youtube, I recommend WillyOAM (Australian infantryman turned journalist), MarkTakacs (Hungarian infantry officer who makes tactical analysis vids), Daniel Davis Deep Dive (retired US Army LtColonel, Desert Storm vet), and HistoryLegends (meme-heavy but generally well-researched battlefield progress vids).

To add to that, I would also recommend Markus Reisner from Austrian Military Academy: https://youtu.be/L89HmVKewfg

From time to time he does situation reviews and analysis on Ukraine in English and he doesn’t hold back.

Here are two of the weapons mounted on U.S. ships that would fire upon small boats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf8RExzMdfg

Like the tracers bouncing off the water

There's at least missile, gun, laser and electromagnetic countermeasures for air threats. It has been a mainstream subject for long, for example against aircraft and missiles. But also lots of startups also in this space, especially against cheap drones or UAV:s.

> It seems like Iran has a lot of options for attacking ships.

I wonder if the recent USV shipping attacks came Iraqi militias. Maybe Iran set them up with some drone boats like how they send them missiles/drones to hit US bases with. Meanwhile the US was focused on surveilling the Iranian coast. I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq remains the hardest part of maintaining security in the region.

Are these speed boats manned ? Like with kamikaze pilots ?

Typically man-optional.

Best source on all this stuff is a classic proper OSINT blogger (who does awesome pics too): https://www.hisutton.com/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com