Need help from USN Small Boat Vet

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by thomm225

I think Tommy Hilfiger is coming out with a line of new berkas acually this year. Some folks like them......

It is religious attire that for me as a women is demeaning and a sign of being subjugated by men. To FORCE a western women to wear a demeaning religious headscarf is beyond the pale. And humiliation of captured soldiers and not allowing them to wear their uniforms is against the Geneva Conventions. Forcing a United States serviceman to wear this attire being not apart of her uniform is outrageous. Demeaning her with being forced into submission to wear a symbol of their uncivilized and hateful religion is doubly outrageous.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by MCOS

I served in the USN '65-71. Served as an Assault Boat Coxswain LCVP and LCM boats as well as a SAR Sea Air Rescue Coxswain. Even at that ancient and ancient time, boat operators were trained in navigation apart from relying on electronic navigational aids. I am confident that today's Navy equips small boats with GPS as well as Radar and backs up the electronic systems with adequate dead reckoning and celestial navigation skills taught to the boat operators. Beyond what is available on board to navigate, the movement of the small craft would be monitored by the fleet and if the group had mechanical trouble, the crew could have radioed for assistance.

I strongly believe that what has been reported is a fabrication. I also strongly believe that the boat crews would not have been allowed to engage except to return fire if fired upon.

One last comment, I find the snarky comment regarding the Navy being a place for subjects not qualified for the Army to be out of line and offensive. All men and woman who serve this country should be equally offended by this remark. I am proud to have served and proud to have been in the greatest Navy to ever sail. I am equally proud of my fellow veterans, Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

Enough said?

. Thank you for your service.

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

Never mind "Obama wouldn't let them" I can see where this is going to go. Of Course if Rafael was president we'd be bombing Tehran right now over it over the damn head scarf.

There is maybe 15-25% of the US population interested in a war with Iran. I personally am wondering why the F*** these guys were anywhere near Iranian waters in there "small boats" anyway

Nailed it Boatguy 30. I hate the ''Swiftboaters''. They make me sick. These people are always ready to go to war over nothing. Of course they aren't going to war, they are going to send someone else's kid to war.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

It is religious attire that for me as a women is demeaning and a sign of being subjugated by men. To FORCE a western women to wear a demeaning religious headscarf is beyond the pale. And humiliation of captured soldiers and not allowing them to wear their uniforms is against the Geneva Conventions. Forcing a United States serviceman to wear this attire being not apart of her uniform is outrageous. Demeaning her with being forced into submission to wear a symbol of their uncivilized and hateful religion is doubly outrageous.

Tommy Hilfiger is marketing them because people what them. Get it?

They are a business. Capitalists.

They are selling them because there is money to be made.

'merica!

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by MCOS

I served in the USN '65-71. Served as an Assault Boat Coxswain LCVP and LCM boats as well as a SAR Sea Air Rescue Coxswain. Even at that ancient and ancient time, boat operators were trained in navigation apart from relying on electronic navigational aids. I am confident that today's Navy equips small boats with GPS as well as Radar and backs up the electronic systems with adequate dead reckoning and celestial navigation skills taught to the boat operators. Beyond what is available on board to navigate, the movement of the small craft would be monitored by the fleet and if the group had mechanical trouble, the crew could have radioed for assistance.

I strongly believe that what has been reported is a fabrication. I also strongly believe that the boat crews would not have been allowed to engage except to return fire if fired upon.

One last comment, I find the snarky comment regarding the Navy being a place for subjects not qualified for the Army to be out of line and offensive. All men and woman who serve this country should be equally offended by this remark. I am proud to have served and proud to have been in the greatest Navy to ever sail. I am equally proud of my fellow veterans, Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

Enough said?

Then you should know it's SOP for an army guy to insult the navy.

You getting low T these days?

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by captlloyd

Nailed it Boatguy 30. I hate the ''Swiftboaters''. They make me sick. These people are always ready to go to war over nothing. Of course they aren't going to war, they are going to send someone else's kid to war.

'Merica!

[Sailshabby]

Originally Posted by powsmias

What a former Navy SEAL had to say about it.

Matt Bracken's thoughts: "I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat's icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bull$‪#‎it‬.

For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP.

This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face.

Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.

The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other." - Matt Bracken

Let me dust off my submariner's dolphins and surface warfare pins: I'm sure what the SEAL meant to say was "I wasn't there." The fact that anyone would suggest or the infer our guys were told to wander into territorial waters is pretty much horse crap. Let's get back to sailing stuff and leave the politics to others.

[Pendragon35]

Originally Posted by Sailshabby

Let me dust off my submariner's dolphins and surface warfare pins: I'm sure what the SEAL meant to say was "I wasn't there." The fact that anyone would suggest or the infer our guys were told to wander into territorial waters is pretty much horse crap. Let's get back to sailing stuff and leave the politics to others.

This is just people sharing ignorance. I'm with you sailshabby!


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[powsmias]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

For speaking the truth about an unjust and unwinnable war over 40 years ago?

for meeting with the enemy and denigrating an entire generation of vets for political gain

[powsmias]

Originally Posted by Going Walkabout

Is that the same Kerry who gave aid and comfort to the enemy when he returned home to the USA? Is it the same Kerry that disrespected the Armed Services by throwing his medals away? Is it the same Kerry that gave false reports while under oath to the US Congress?

bingo we have a winner..thanx

[hellosailor]

Eh, snore, you remember tale we all heard about a USN minesweeper running aground on a reef or atoll in the Philippines in a nature preserve area, maybe three years ago? So firmly aground and so well damaged that it had to be cut apart and taken away in pieces?


Or maybe, you heard about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which LBJ used as justification to start bombing North Vietnam? When an NV gunboat supposedly attacked a larger USN ship in international waters? Which, oddly enough, we learned many years later had been a totally faked incident?


And of course there was the USS Pueblo, the USN denied it was an intelligence spy ship for years.

Sadly, this is politics, not navigation nor sailing. We know nothing about what actually happened. Nor why it happened. Nor what the men on those boats knew, or were told to do, or were actually doing.


Come back in twenty or forty years, and maybe someone will have written a memoir claiming to tell the truth about it. As for now? Really?


Perhaps if you waterboarded the SecDef, and the President, and the Secretary of State, one of them might tell you what little they really knew about this.


There's a long, very long, and very well documented history of "incidents" that were either fabricated or concealed by the US government over the last hundred-plus years. All very well documented, and not at all unique to the US.


Like Gary Powers being on a meteorological mission...and eventually, the admission that the US flew deeply into Soviet airspace at least 50 times during the cold war. And lied about it for decades afterwards.

[carstenb]

I realize that this incident is subject to many political interpretations. Let's keep the conversation civilized please.

[IdoraKeeper]

+1 HelloSailor....All the way back to "Remember the Maine!". Bully!

[hellosailor]

Idora-
I think there is still debate over exactly what happened wrt The Maine. As there is still extensive debate over what happened at Pearl Harbor. (For those who want to read a scholarly 1000 page abridged version of some 33 volumes of scholarly research, "At Dawn We Slept" is a very revealing and interesting book that any library can lend you even if it can only be read in small bites. It pretty much also could be called the greatest attempt to explore a mutli-nation all-service cluster*k that has ever occurred, perhaps second only to Gallipoli. Which was conveniently deleted from all WW1 histories taught during the cold war.


The thing is, we just don't know what happened. And that may be exactly what is PROPER from the government. There are many cases where "incorrect" or obsolete technology was intentionally allowed to be captured by potential and real enemies. Let's supposed those state of the art small boats are capable of going 60 knots, and substantially armored against 50 caliber incoming fire. So, you build a couple that are only armored against 30 caliber, and only capable of running at 40 knots, and let them get captured. Now your enemy "knows" how to repel and defeat them.
Except, they're going to get a surprise because they got scammed.


Same thing if look at the official performance figures in Jane's, either for ships or planes or armor. You'll see warships rated for a maximum of 40 knots, when observers have clocked them doing closer to 60. Range, speed, armor, weapons loads...that's all classified, as it should be, and any information that is released in often "disinformation" as the Soviets put it.


Two boats were captured. OK, maybe that was considered a reasonable risk because two SEALs with rebreathers and other equipment were hanging under each boat, and needed a tow to get within swimming range of shore.


Or maybe, the USN just wanted to find out what ranks and numbers of officers were on Iranian patrol boats, so they were told "get captured, then count heads."


We de-acquisitioned two boats, and temporarily inconvenienced two dozen (?) warriors. Hell, the Marines lost more on the nighttime helicopter training mission off Hawaii. And that was also just routine.


Not that we should be unconcerned, not that we should not take notes, but that we have to remember, this is not NFL sport reporting from a stadium game. There are good reasons for all parties to be disinforming us.


Even if it is as simple as cutting your own tow cable [the Caine Mutiny].

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by powsmias

What a former Navy SEAL had to say about it.

Matt Bracken's thoughts: "I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat's icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bull$‪#‎it‬.

For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP.

This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face.

Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.

The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other." - Matt Bracken

A quick perusal of terrorism thiller author Matt Braken's facebook page reveals him to be a racist consipracy theorist. Ex-service personnel have political views like the rest of us, and like the rest of us, some of them are going to be wack jobs. Unfortunately, those with military experience will sometimes use it (even if that experience was 30 years ago, as in Braken's case) to make their readers believe that their wacked-out theories carry weight. And the more noise they make, the more books they sell.