The Falklands War proved how vulnerable ships are to missile attacks.
It proved how vulnerable ships with inadequate air cover and minimal anti-missile defenses where. If the British had a Nimitz class carrier or two and a decent number of Ticonderogas or Burkes (or Type 45 destroyers if you want to consider a more modern British ship class rather than an American one) escorting the fleet its unlikely that a single ship would have been sunk or severely damaged by the Exocets. The warship that was sunk had an outmoded radar (by the standards of the time, not just compared to today's systems), much less capable missiles, and apparently faulty fire suppression ( see en.wikipedia.org )
Also the damage from the missiles was modest by standards of previous wars. Losses where only significant compared to the more recent expectation that a modern force can fight a war (at least a war that isn't a guerrilla war on land against a highly motivated enemy with local support) with almost no losses.
A greater vulnerability is to submarines, and also to an extent mines. But even with those issue the idea that our naval ships would be sitting ducks just doesn't adequately reflect reality.
Years ago some guys outta Yemen just about sank our destroyer with some crappy little boat.
When it was in port, its defenses down, expecting no attack, and having no significant protection/security measures in place.
In the War Games they've done that consider WHAT would happen if we got into a conflict with Iran they ALWAYS seem to see Iran attacking Oil Fields and Oil Infrastructure in Saudi Arabia TOO.
They can lob inaccurate missiles in Saudi's direction, but they would likely do little to oil fields and would only take out major infrastructure if they where lucky (but they could get lucky so this is still a real concern). They could try sending fighter bombers who could attack with more accuracy, but Iran's air force is at a disadvantage against either American naval aviation, or the Saudi air force. Essentially they will likely rapidly lose anything they send out to attack.
The problem for the US is not that we would lose thousands in a naval and air war, we probably wouldn't loses scores much less thousands, the problem is that even after their air force an navy where largely destroyed they could continue to create problems with occasional mine drops and mobile anti-ship missile launches, extra effort to arm our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, increased support of terrorist groups, and sending their own agents out on terrorist attacks.
We could keep imposing higher costs on them than they could on us, but if they are willing to pay the costs and take the damage, we couldn't outright stop them without an invasion an occupation that would make Iraq look small, simple, and non-controversial. I think the invasion idea is a non-starter, so essentially we couldn't force them to stop causing problems, we could only make them pay a price for it. |
