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via USNI news.
In a rare concurrence of events, a carrier strike group and all three ships of a Navy Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) are in the Persian Gulf, for a total of nine U.S. Navy ships in region, defense officials told USNI News on Tuesday.I wanted to cover this earlier in the week but got sidetracked.
USS Bataan (LHD-5), embarked with about 1,000 Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday joining ships of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group (CSG).
The two other ships in the Bataan ARG — USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44) and USS Mesa Verde(LPD-19) — entered the region earlier this month.
Some ships in gulf are part of a presence mission in reaction to the Iraq and Syria Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) insurgency and some are in the gulf for earlier scheduled operations, a navy official told USNI News.
Something is brewing in the Gulf. Why do I say that? Because you have a full Amphibious Ready Group, and a Carrier Battle Group all operating there now.
Old skool Marines and Sailors would call this type of assembly a Naval Task Force.
Add into the mix the abomination known as SPMAGTF-CR stationed nearby (two of them) and we're looking at a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (-) in the region ready for operation.
Ger your eyeballs on Iraq.
It kinda looks like some type of US action is being prepped.
At least there are flattops to evacuate our embassy people to via helo. Visions of Vietnam anyone?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking Panzer Lied more than Puff the magic dragon.
DeleteThere are Panzers on the march.
A few planners in Tampa and Stuttgart are smiling. This will be a great HBO of History channel special.
ReplyDeletePosturing, or evacuation
ReplyDeleteThe Persian Gulf to the nearest ISIS territory is a very long way, 600km.
I think MEBs are fantastic, if you want to hit a coastal target, but what are they going to do so far in land?
The Second battle of Fallujah took 13,000 troops with a lot more to support them.
A MEB isnt going to retake Mosul now
They could provide support to the Iraqi army, but any sort of deep integration will lead to a lot of friendly fires as disloyal IA shoot marines in the back.
MAYBE, they could reinforce the embassy.
Or, a an outside possibility, they might be there to smash any ISIS move in to Saudi
Establish a beach head, and, or, take a port.
DeleteWhat are the Airborne, Airmobile and Ranger's doing right now?
Sure, if three armoured divisions are being loaded on to fast transports as we speak, then maybe a ground incursion is on the cards, and as you say, that may be the case, but the naval force alone cant do much beyond secure the port to land the heavies.
DeleteMaybe the Marines think they can pull off an embassy evac that deep...? They were planning to launch one from the Red Sea into Sudan in 2012.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of heavy equipment being shipped past our little town via rail.
ReplyDeleteArmy, and the stuff is set up for deploying.
Going away from any Armor training centers.
Something is up, either for show of force or for an just in case scenario.
I do know that TCM was showing war movies the other night, One was, "Paths of Glory" Kirk Douglas and "All Quiet on the western front" both anti war movies may just be a coincidence.