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Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike
- rayiner 4mo agoNobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective.
- andriy_koval 4mo ago> Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy this function is outdated since u-boat appearance, and now cruise missiles and drones. More important modern function of navy is projecting power.
- baq 4mo agoSubmarines can be hunted (and are) and drones and cruise missiles can be shot down. These things are what navies are supposed to do nowadays. US Navy in particular has not read the memo for about 20 years.
- andriy_koval 4mo agothe question how efficiently they can be hunted, if ROI is that high.
- baq 4mo agomy best guess is any information on the topic is... classified
- andriy_koval 4mo agoMost powerful navy "failed its mission", as well as Russian navy received heavy casualties, so we have enough public information that modern drones and missiles are highly effective.
- nradov 4mo agoThe basic information about surface warship specifications isn't classified. We know how many interceptor missiles they can carry. Standard doctrine is to fire at least two interceptors at each incoming threat in order to increase the probability of a kill. And empirically these defensive systems work very well, but ships in action empty their magazines quickly and then are out of action until they can return to a friendly base to rearm. At some point there just aren't enough hulls and missiles to sustain the effort.
- fc417fc802 4mo agoThey've actually been pretty open about the expense and difficulty for a long time. At least since the Iraq war if not earlier. Japan made public that one of the motivations for continuing rail gun research is defending naval vessels against saturation attacks.
- ajmurmann 4mo agoIt's pretty much impossible for a navy to secure a narrow strait like this. You need to control the land as well. Sorry, it's a video but it does a fabulous job explaining this: https://youtu.be/khtWPycU-PA https://youtu.be/khtWPycU-PA It was never gonna work, but not because of the navy being weak.
- pohl 4mo agoPart of that traditional naval success has come from having presidents not stepping on their own dicks.
- spiderfarmer 4mo agoThe US will never recover from the reputation damage they sustained by voting in a mindbogglingly stupid buffoon. Twice.
- derwiki 4mo agoMemories are short. Neither Andrew Jackson nor Nixon improved the reputation of the US.
- hammock 4mo agoIn fact, their positive legacies are improving with time
- scheme271 4mo agoAndrew Jackson was around 150+ years ago. Nixon was fairly competent diplomatically even if he was horrible domestically. Trump is a whole different breed that seems to switch his actions based on whim and who he spoke with last.
- mixmastamyk 4mo agoI remember having to listen to a lot of shit about Dubya and Co. during my backpacking trips overseas not too long ago.
- bulbar 4mo agoIt's not only about reputation. Trump has been so obvious in his doing that the western world has started to define a new world order without the US in its center.
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- mdp2021 4mo ago> unable to achieve How much of it would you attribute to bad planning? (The full plan of which the Navy will be part.)
- dragontamer 4mo agoEhhhhh, not quite. No matter how much military we put into the strait, Iran was just going to blow up UAE and Qatari refineries. And despite all the madman theory of our current President, there's just too many bribes in those countries who have the attention of the President. So Total War is unacceptable to USA leaders. ------- That being said: I'm still amused that the ship we needed in this fight was the long cancelled Littoral Combat Ship
- nradov 4mo agoCancelling the LCS construction program was the right move. There are still a number of hulls in commission and they have some utility as minesweepers, but can really only operate when the air threat has been neutralized. They have only limited defenses against drones and cruise missiles, and none at all against ballistic missiles. They're simply no longer survivable.
- dragontamer 4mo agoI don't think Iran has homing ballistic missiles. Only maybe China has those. As such, the best defense vs ballistic threats is simply moving around, if they can't home then who cares? I mean, buildings and hardened targets do care. But ships can just move and the missile will miss. But yes, defenses vs Drones and Cruise missiles is more than sufficient vs Iran. And navigating narrow waters with higher degrees of mobility is better than our other ships.
- nradov 4mo agoWrong on all points. Iran has already used anti-ship ballistic missiles. They might not be as advanced as China's but they appear to work, and in confined areas the targeting can be done using mobile shore-based radars. https://warontherocks.com/irans-anti-access-and-area-denial-strategy-is-cruder-than-chinas-but-still-dangerous/ https://warontherocks.com/irans-anti-access-and-area-denial-... Even setting the ballistic missile threat aside, LCS can't defend itself against regular drones and cruise missiles. It's severely limited in terms of sensors, fire control, and magazine depth. In order to operate in that area with reasonable survivability it would have to be escorted by a more capable surface warship with area air defense.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo agoUS leadership wasn't willing to pay the cost of opening the strait. I dont blame the navy.
- echelon 4mo agoDrone warfare is new. Now you can use a drone that costs a few thousand dollars to take out a hundred million dollar ship. It's a pricing issue. Whereas before, you had to use expensive guided missiles or your own naval or air force assets, now you can send a bunch of cheap drones. Everything we know about war is going to change.
- fragmede 4mo ago> Everything we know about war ~~is going to~~ has changed. FTFY
- dragontamer 4mo agoNot new. These drones were in production in Iran since 2016 after the capture of the downed Reaper Drone in 2011. What is new is Irans willingness to use them. Which skyrocketed after a few missiles assassinated their supreme leader.
- ozim 4mo agoThe part where you are wrong is not that reaper or other highly sophisticated drones were available in 2011. In 2026 we have swarms of cheap drones that are fire and forget and they are cheap for mass production. That’s totally different game.
- yogthos 4mo agoI expect this will be a far more consequential loss than Vietnam for the US in the long run. This has been a spectacular defeat and likely means the US will be forced to exit from the region because everybody can see now that American bases cannot be defended and they put countries hosting them at risk. This is a major geopolitical upheaval.
- energy123 4mo agoBecause it's not true. CENTCOM can reopen the strait whenever they want, but doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it. It's still a strategic defeat, but for different reasons than what you are saying. Recommend studying the public comments of General MacKenzie who was the previous CENTCOM commander, comments from Admiral Cooper before he was appointed to current CENTCOM commander, or previous Joint Chiefs of Staff. They've all given public interviews about Hormuz during the current war or before it over the last decade saying the same thing about what's required and whether it can be done.
- petilon 4mo ago> doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it So the US Navy is unable to achieve the objective in a reasonable timeframe and cost. That's the same as failure.
- Levitz 4mo agoYou can call it a failure, it's just not a military one. Hell there's an argument to be made that the US should downsize its military because there's no universe in which exercising its full capability is not either the end of the world as we know it or absolute political suicide.
- petilon 4mo ago> You can call it a failure, it's just not a military one. Would that work in corporate America? Try telling your boss, "I didn't actually fail because had you given me an unreasonable amount of time and resources I would have succeeded." Every project has an expectation of time and cost, and if you can't meet that expectation then you failed.
- fc417fc802 4mo agoIf your boss sets patently unreasonable expectations then that's arguably his failure as opposed to yours though obviously he will attempt to shift the blame to you.
- msabalau 4mo agoThis is fundamentally a failure of political leadership. You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear. There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarrassingly incompetent as this.
- hammock 4mo agoYou’re making an orthogonal point. His point was that regardless of political decision making, the US Navy has demonstrated an incapacity of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, which is bad
- fc417fc802 4mo agoNo, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion. There are many things that we know the US (or UK or Chinese or etc) military can't do and that isn't a bad thing per se. The US navy was unable to keep hormuz secure for civilian traffic but was able to blockade it themselves. I think that's exactly the outcome you'd expect in this scenario.
- rayiner 4mo ago> No, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion. No, not at all. As I said, controlling straits and keeping them open for shipping is a fundamental function of a navy going back to Roman times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy (“By far, the navy's most vital task was to ensure Roman grain imports were shipped and delivered to the capital unimpeded across the Mediterranean.”). The inability to keep the strait clear shouldn’t have been expected. It’s a purely military objective that’s squarely within what our ridiculously overspecced Navy should be able to do.
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- CerebralCerb 4mo agoIf the US wants to abdicate their position as a global hegemon of every waterway and trade route this seems like a good way to do it. The US is much less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz than its competitors. Ten years down the line it may be the case that India will sail up and enforce toll-free waterways instead. That will never happen as long as the US puts up the resources for it. The American taxpayer will be better off if the burden of global free trade is borne more equitably.
- bulbar 4mo agoIt's not like the US did massive world wide power projection (capabilities) out of altruism. It's a necessity to project their political and economic demands. If the US citizen think being a super power is to expensive, that's fine for the world. No empire lasts forever. The US can become an important regional power, having its destiny more influenced by the upcoming super powers that fill the vacuum.
- giardini 4mo agoThe USA has never been an empire. And there are no "upcoming super powers" that are remotely able to "fill the vacuum".
- bulbar 4mo agoPower vacuums get filled, obviously. Why even maintain such a vast navy to consume money in international waters? Just protect your immediate coast line, why would you care what's going on in the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic, that's just costing money.
- giardini 3mo agobulbar sez "Why even maintain such a vast navy to consume money in international waters?" Perhaps your citizenry want to buy or sell something from overseas?
- vkou 4mo ago> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. The military objective can be achieved, it would just require the 'No New Wars' party to implode from having 272 seats to having ~150 seats after the midterms.
- bulbar 4mo agoIt's ironic that Vance and Co were bragging about "no more stupid rules of engagement" but then they effectively do the very same thing by not allowing boots on the ground for political reason.
- vkou 4mo agoSince you're kvetching about stupid political reasons I'm assuming you're volunteering to go first as drone cannon fodder? That 'political reason' is that US is war-weary, and the electorate will flip their shit when their kids get sent into the meatgrinder of a pointless war that none of them wanted, ran by TV stars, where the stated objective changes every 30 minutes.
- bulbar 4mo agoI volunteer to keep voting for parties that do not start a war that effectively can only be won with boots on the grounds, as I have always been, from Europe, as a citizen of a Europe country. > That 'political reason' is that US is war-weary, and the electorate will flip their shit when their kids get sent into the meatgrinder of a pointless war that none of them wanted, ran by TV stars, where the stated objective changes every 30 minutes. I totally agree. It's just that they were bragging regarding restrictions for political reasons and that they wouldn't do that, just 'effective' warfare. It somehow seems like there were good reasons that the US never went to war against Iran before. Maybe there were reasons for a lot of other stuff as well that people just not fully understand and the US now voted a man into power that doesn't understand it either. That's also why some people celebrate Trump as a genius. "Finally, a man with the same line of thought as me!" might possibly not be the same as being a genius.
- drnick1 4mo ago> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."
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- C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 4mo ago> HN sometimes poses really difficult questions. The person who posted that question is Israeli.
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- stymaar 4mo ago> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. It has long been clear for any analyst that securing the straight without boots on the ground would be materially impossible. Air power isn't enough to stop the very modest force of the Houthis from closing the Bab-el-mandeb straight, it was clear from the beginning that it wouldn't work better against a much more capable Iran. Trump launched a war without any plan, and absolutely no willingness to launch an full-scale invasion of Iran (rightly so, because it would have been unlikely to work well with regards to the polical goals), so it's not exactly surprising that it didn't work. Starting a war is always a bad idea, even when you have bipartisan support for it at home, but starting a war you don't want to fight is absolutely dumb.
- mannanj 4mo agoIf the goal was to extract more tax dollars and drop them into the laps of rich socialites and their bourgeoise friends, then it succeeded.
- 40four 4mo agoControlling the straight was never one of their objectives. Decapitating the regime and degrading their military capabilities was the primary objective. As others have said, the US can “reopen” the straight at any time they want. It’s not an issue of capabilities. But it’s very resource intensive and very expensive. The logistics of escorting ships in and out of the straight isn’t trivial. I forget the name of the operation, but they did implement it for a few days before shutting it down. Politically, I imagine it’s pretty hard to justify the cost /benefit On the Iranian side it takes a very small amount of resources and logistics. All they have to do is project power, whether they have it or not, and the shipping & insurance industries have to respect it. Drones are really cheap, and that’s about all it takes for Iran to leverage their influence over the straight. Which is kind of crazy when you think about it. But it’s about the only bargaining chip they have left and they aren’t going let go of it easily.
- the_snooze 4mo ago>Decapitating the regime and degrading their military capabilities was the primary objective. Those are tactical objectives, not strategic aims. The US is very good at winning tactically, but losing strategically. This is yet another example.
- 40four 4mo agoYeah that’s a good point. I don’t disagree with that. I just think the US administration’s strategy is something totally different than anyone is talking about. I don’t think it’s a coincidence US aggression towards Venezuela, Cuba & Iran are all happening at the same time. These things are all connected and nobody’s really talking about it. I don’t think regime change was the strategy, I think they were happy with just a “reset” of the top leaders, same as in Venezuela. If they did get full regime change it would have just been a side effect. They were hoping the Iranians would seize the opportunity and rise up, but that didn’t happen. And I don’t blame them, that’s a big ask when they are getting gunned down in the streets or executed for dissent on a daily basis. They were probably also riding off the “high” of how shockingly easy Venezuela went. But Iran is much more complex obviously
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- giardini 4mo agoThis isn't a failure by the US Navy. It was a political decision to stop short. The US could open the strait and eliminate all opponents but we don't have the political stomach for it. It would be a longer and more destructive process than people are prepared for right now. Nonetheless, what occurs next will enlighten us as to how to proceed. Time will tell.
- rayiner 4mo ago> This isn't a failure by the US Navy. It was a political decision to stop short. The US could open the strait and eliminate all opponents but we don't have the political stomach for it. Stop short of what? A land invasion? I think it’s highly unlikely that was ever on the table. Much more likely, the plan was to attack key Iranian targets with air power while the Navy kept the strait of hormuz clear.
- cmxch 4mo agoBy whose measure and what priors do they hold of the US?
- SilverElfin 4mo agoI think this is really because ship crews are abused and have no choice. The companies don’t have executives on ships. It’s some maritime crew, often from India, that’s told to just take the risk with their own lives. And if they want to keep their jobs they have to comply.
- Swizec 4mo ago> And if they want to keep their jobs they have to comply. Worse still, many mariners are effectively prisoners and can become trapped if corporate decides to cut them loose without also providing passage off the vessel Stranded sailor allowed to leave abandoned ship after four years https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56842506 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56842506 Stuck at sea for years, a sailor’s plight highlights a surge in shipowner abandonment https://apnews.com/article/abandoned-seafarers-labor-unpaid-wages-oceans-83ad0a42debbaf67c18373393fcea753 https://apnews.com/article/abandoned-seafarers-labor-unpaid-...
- phildenhoff 4mo agoWhat would have happened, in that first story, if he had left the ship and swam to a passing boat? Or swam to shore? He was apparently able to leave as later in his imprisonment, the boat drift closer to shore and he swam from there. Why not just leave?
- nradov 4mo agoAbandoned crew members often remain on the ship in the hope of eventually getting paid their overdue wages after the legal issues are sorted out. If they leave the vessel then that weakens their negotiating position.
- creato 4mo agoI would think that the shipping executives are less willing to take the risk to run the strait than the crews are. Being stuck for months with very little freedom, uncertain future, uncertain supplies, missiles and drones flying overhead, it sounds like hell.
- zug_zug 4mo agoInteresting https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/ https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/ says we're at 8% of normal traffic. Curious as to the discrepancy.
- e9 4mo agoProbably because they turn off transponders while crossing that area. "Traffic is generally picking up in the strait, with several laden tankers seen exiting into the Gulf of Oman over the weekend, though some of them turned off their transponders. The latest was a Greek-flagged tanker carrying Iraqi crude to Singapore." https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/iranian-crude-oil-exports-surge-via-hormuz-as-more-ships-transit https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/iranian-crude-oil...
- Bender 4mo ago"Maintained by an individual developer." They state, Maritime Intelligence — AI-powered analysis of current strait conditions, insurance markets, and diplomatic developments using real-time web data. Energy Market Feeds — Live Brent crude oil pricing from financial data providers. AIS Vessel Tracking — Automatic Identification System data for real-time vessel positions. TradingView — Interactive historical oil price charts with full technical analysis capabilities. News Aggregation — Curated news from major international outlets covering the Hormuz crisis. though they do not say what the actual data sources are.
- throwrioawfo 4mo agoNot sure I would put much faith in the stats of this clearly vibecoded slopsite
- tedd4u 4mo agoTry this WTO site instead. It breaks out oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and agricultural products with 7-day average and prior-year 7-day average. https://datalab.wto.org/Strait-of-Hormuz-Trade-Tracker https://datalab.wto.org/Strait-of-Hormuz-Trade-Tracker
- wartywhoa23 4mo agoCaptain Blood surely couldn't imagine that corsairs of the future will use rocket-propelled, remotely controlled cannonballs that can fly from a location beyond the horizon.
- einpoklum 4mo agoSo, Trump claimed the closure and the attack "was a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire". However - that is not the case. The first and foremost item of the Iran-US MOU is the following: 1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. But Israel has continued to attack intensively in Lebanon, killing dozens (if not over 100 since the MOU was signed, not sure), and continues to have a sizeable invasion force in Lebanese territory. Lebanon was explicitly and specifically mentioned to stress its significance - it is the country suffering the most right now, with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced due to threats from the Israeli forces against the civilian population of the south. With that being the case since day 1, the MOU cannot be said to have even gone into effect. Certainly, the closure of the straights should be seen in this light, rather than a violation.
- timmg 4mo agoAs I understand it, this has nothing to do with Lebanon. It has to do with ships moving through the Oman side of the strait. Iran is unhappy with that, because the want to control all the movement through it.
- microgpt 4mo agowhat are you talking about? Iran destroys errant ships on both sides of the strait. Otherwise the strait would've been "open" this whole time.
- thisislife2 4mo ago@timming is right. This particular incident was triggered because Oman announced a parallel route in Strait, and some ships were lead to believe that you don't need to talk / coordinate with Iran to use this new route. See this thread for more details - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48692620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48692620
- JumpinJack_Cash 4mo agoIt's about time to have a serious talk with the Saudis and redirect all that money that is being stupidly spent on all those vanity projects such as NEOM and The Line towards pipelines running through the Desert , end point the port of Yunbu & Jeddah and make the Strait of Hormuz irrelevant . This is the quintessential American project, the U.S. has invented and developed the oil industry in Saudi. Saudi Aramco was originally the "California-Arabian Standard Oil Company". I don't know why this hasn't happened during the last 40 years where Iran has always been an enemy, Saudi Arabia has always been an ally and the U.S. has always had enormous amount of access to the Kingdom for the purpose of building oil infrastructure.
- logicchains 4mo agoDoesn't matter how many pipelines Saudi has when Iran could just bomb them and the refineries again. The best strategy would be for Saudi and the UAE to invest in mass drone production; drones are becoming like WMDs, and MAD will similarly apply. The IRGC is more dependent on oil revenue than Saudi and UAE, and relies on that money for funding the massive militia that allows them to stay in power, so they've got more to lose in an extended war of oil infrastructure destruction.
- JumpinJack_Cash 4mo agoOk let's say buried pipelines under the sand , it's the ideal insulant against the relatively low power of suicide drones. Haven't you seen the amount of sand they displaced for the foundations of "the Line" project? Let's say dig a hole in the desert build the pipeline and then cover it with 15ft of sand that you previously excavated , can't be that hard for a country that is boasting about building a 1mi tall skyscraper and a 100mi long 1000ft tall Line , or a floating NEOM city The exception is that this project would actually have positive ROI . I agree that the point of arrival of the pipelines would present a vulnerabily but look at the map , Jeddah is about 1000mi from Iran coast. That buys you a lot of time and a lot of opportunities to intercept the drones > > extended war of oil infrastructure destruction. My point was that ingenuity could be used to avoid oil infrastructure destruction , which is not desirable anyways. Your point is to get there via drone MAD. I don't think Saudi and Iran can be trusted with MAD
- throwrioawfo 4mo agoIt kinda makes sense, given the sheer magnitude of money on the line.