Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Operation Praying Mantis. Know Your History!

Marines inspect a ZU-23 23mm automatic anti-aircraft gun on the Iranian Sassan oil platform.

Do you remember or have knowledge of Operation Praying Mantis?

No?

Well you definitely should.  Name a naval engagement where....
*  Marines and Navy SEALs boarded Oil Platforms
*  Destroyers engaged ZSU-23's aboard Oil Platforms.
*  F-4 Phantoms made attack runs at a surface group.
*  Speed boats to attack various targets throughout the Gulf...including US flagged vessels.
*  Surface to air missiles were fired at a surface ship

via Wikipedia....
Action continued to escalate. The Joshan, an Iranian Combattante II Kaman-class fast attack craft, challenged USS Wainwright (CG-28) and Surface Action Group Charlie. The commanding officer of USS Wainwright directed a final warning (of a series of warnings) stating that the Joshan was to "stop your engines, abandon ship, I intend to sink you". Joshanresponded by firing a Harpoon missile at them.[5] The USS Simpson (FFG-56) responded to the challenge by firing two Standard missiles, while Wainwright followed with one Standard missile.[5] The attacks destroyed the Iranian ship's superstructure but did not immediately sink it, so USS Bagley (FF-1069) fired a Harpoon of its own; the missile did not find the target. SAG Charlie closed on the Joshan, with Simpson, then Bagley and Wainwright firing guns to sink the crippled Iranian ship.[5]
Two Iranian F-4 Phantom fighters then approached the Wainwright. One fighter left the area soon after the cruiser placed its 55B Fire Control Radar in search mode. The second fighter made a low-altitude approach towards the warship, which responded by firing two SM-2 missiles at the fighter. One hit the Iranian aircraft, blowing off part of its wing and peppering the fuselage with shrapnel. The Iranian pilot managed to land his damaged airplane at Bandar Abbas.[5]
You can read more here.  A few of the systems involved but definitely not all follows...

 Standard missiles

Iranian Combattante II Kaman-class fast attack 

 Boghammar speedboats
USS Merrill DD-976

4 comments :

  1. Don't worry, Everything will be Ok in the future ... with LCS !

    ReplyDelete
  2. much better than wiki is "Tanker War" by Allen Zatarain.

    OR read about both PM ad Earnest Will here:

    http://www.warboats.org/persiangulf.htm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Holy crap, LCS crews are so screwed, how many life boat does it carry?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. too many. aluminum melts and burns and throws off toxic smoke. they won't need the life boats...if bodies are recovered maybe bags...but there are alot of sharks in the pacific.

      Delete

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