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Comment by 0xffff2 | Hacker News Reader

I basically believe you're right, but I can't wrap my head around this: How is it that they still have any control at all of the strait after all of this? Is their significantly depleted missile force enough of a threat as long as they have any credible capability whatsoever left?

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Iran "controls" the strait by shooting missiles at any ship that passes through without paying them a protection fee. This includes ships that pass through Omani waters, which it has no legal control of. It's terrorism, and also an act of war.

Iran built thousands of fast-attack speedboats which patrol the strait, get up close, fire a few missiles, and quickly return. This video gives a good explanation of their strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJHaODzP-0

This can be mitigated by the US/Gulf Countries, with a large number of airplanes / drones patrolling the Iranian shore, and preventing these boats from launching.

But we've been bombing them for a month... They hide the boats in caves or something? (I'm really trying to learn here, not trying to argue)

Yes, Iran built underground caves specifically to store their attack speedboat fleet. The US and Israel bombed the entrance to one on Qeshm Island multiple times, and it's unknown how many boats are still functional.

More information here https://news.sky.com/story/iran-unveils-underground-naval-ba...

Hard to believe the video when they use all AI generated clips.

The straight is narrow enough that they could use artillery to hit the ships in it.

And for US and/or Israel to prevent it, they would have to occupy the correspondingly wide strip of Iranian coast. At which point we're talking about a massive ground invasion (and of course then the same artillery would be firing at those troops, so you can't really just stop there either).

Or, you know, counter-battery systems and hundreds of patrolling drones.

During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.

Desert Storm involved half a million troops on the ground. Iran is about 4x the size of Iraq and has more than 3x the population. The part of Iraq involved was flat desert terrain. Most of Iran is mountainous.

> During Desert Storm, US batteries returned fire before enemy rounds even hit apogee.

That's something ground-based. And to avoid counter-battery fire, tanks move after every shot.

The Arleigh Burke class of destroyers[0] might have similar capacity since each one holds 90 missiles in the vertical launch system[1] (so they might be loaded with anything: anti-ship, anti-sub, anti-satellite, anti-aircraft, ground attack or maybe anti-missile missiles). However, to reload those missiles involves several days in port. There are only 75 Arleigh Burke destroyers at this time. Not all are near the Gulf. It wouldn't be too hard for Iranian forces to fire $10k drones that require $1M missiles to stop.

Notes:

0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_41_vertical_launching_sys...

1. There is only a narrow passage through the strait which is "navigable" (meaning deep enough for supertankers - many are too big for the Suez Canal). This passage is within artillery range of the coastal mountains along the strait.

2. Now that the region is a "war zone", no insurance company will cover ships entering/transiting the strait. This was an issue during the Iran-Iraq war only solved by US Naval vessels escorting tankers. At that time, hitting a US ship would have started a war. This time, the US is an active participant in this war and every ship escorted by US ships would be a valid/legitimate military target. Shipping companies work on razor thin margins and cannot afford the risk themselves. Losing one ship (or it being out of service for months due to missile strikes) is an existential threat to the smaller shipping companies.

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