The Navy went through with plans to pull the ships from service despite ongoing tensions with Iran

As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s purpose-built minesweepers are sitting stateside thousands of miles away with no plans to put them to use while the war rages on. As gas prices in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, Trump on Tuesday took to Truth Social to demand that Tehran “immediately” remove any mines placed in the vital seaway and to do so “forthwith” lest the Iranian military suffer “consequences … at a level never seen before.” That warning came after multiple news outlets reported Iran had begun mining the strait, a narrow waterway that is the only passage from the Persian Gulf into open ocean. He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait” and boasted of having done so against 10 Iranian “inactive mine-laying boats” in a separate post several minutes later.

  • wuffah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    121·
    25 days ago

    Some context from the end of the article:

    But Matthew Buckley, a former U.S. Naval aviator who spent considerable time serving in the Middle East region in the 1990s, told The Independent that the U.S. air campaign against Iran is likely executing long-held plans that would negate the need for the minesweepers by eliminating Iran’s ability to lay mines.

    “When I was flying combat sorties off to Abraham Lincoln in the mid 90s, you know, we were doing operation Southern Watch no fly zone missions over Iraq. And guess what we were doing during our downtime? We were strike planning Iran … and one of my big strikes that I had planned was against an Iranian mine facility deep in the middle of Iran,” he said.

    He added that the Avenger-class ships would not necessarily be readily available to clear any mines that might be laid because they’re “not built for a dynamic environment.”

    “Obviously the LCS does have its issues, but it does have a lot of weapons on board, and it is more designed for actual combat and littoral … mine sweeping,” he said.

    The mine sweepers in question are four decommissioned wood and fiberglass vessels from the Desert Storm era whose capabilities are being replaced by littoral (giggity) combat ships.

    It’s hard for me to believe that this operation wouldn’t include priority strikes on sea mine facilities. Just the specter of mines in the strait is enough to make shipping insurance infeasible. If Iran is successfully mining, what happened? Was this war so hastily planned that this was overlooked? If the strait is so vital to shipping, you’d think they would want every minesweeper available.

    If the US military (who are acutely aware of Trump’s openly hostile disrespect towards service members by the way) are actually listening to Trump’s logistical advice, he’s going to run them into the ground faster than his Vegas casinos.