<insert vacuous comment>
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/middleeast/a-ship-being-built-in-iran-looks-awfully-familiar-to-the-us.html?_r=0
QuoteWASHINGTON — Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.
Intelligence analysts studying satellite photos of Iranian military installations first noticed the vessel rising from the Gachin shipyard, near Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, last summer. The ship has the same distinctive shape and style of the Navy's Nimitz-class carriers, as well as the Nimitz's number 68 neatly painted in white near the bow. Mock aircraft can be seen on the flight deck.
The Iranian mock-up, which American officials described as more like a barge than a warship, has no nuclear propulsion system and is only about two-thirds the length of a typical 1,100-foot-long Navy carrier. Intelligence officials do not believe that Iran is capable of building an actual aircraft carrier.
"Based on our observations, this is not a functioning aircraft carrier; it's a large barge built to look like an aircraft carrier," said Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran. "We're not sure what Iran hopes to gain by building this. If it is a big propaganda piece, to what end?"
Whatever the purpose, American officials acknowledged on Thursday that they wanted to reveal the existence of the vessel to get out ahead of the Iranians.
Navy and other American intelligence analysts surmise that the vessel, which Fifth Fleet wags have nicknamed the Target Barge, is something that Iran could tow to sea, anchor and blow up — while filming the whole thing to make a propaganda point, if, say, the talks with the Western powers over Iran's nuclear program go south.
Iran has previously used barges as targets for missile firings during training exercises, filmed the episodes and then televised them on the state-run news media, Navy officials said.
"It is not surprising that Iranian military forces might use a variety of tactics — including military deception tactics — to strategically communicate and possibly demonstrate their resolve in the region," said an American official who has closely followed the construction of the mock-up.
But while Iran has tried to conceal its underground nuclear-related sites, the Iranian Navy has taken no steps to cloak from prying Western satellites what it is building pierside at the busy shipyard. "The system is often too opaque to understand who hatched this idea, and whether it was endorsed at the highest levels," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Iran has sought to exploit captured or pirated American military technology in the past. Last year, Iran's political and military elite boasted that their forces had shot down an American intelligence-gathering drone, a remotely piloted Navy vehicle called ScanEagle that they quickly put on display for the Iranian news media.
Navy officials responded that no drones had been shot down by enemy fire, although the Pentagon acknowledged at the time that it had lost a small number of ScanEagles, likely to engine malfunction.
Iranian Navy officials could not be immediately reached for comment as the country prepared to celebrate its New Year festivities on Friday. American intelligence officials cited a photograph taken on Feb. 22 in Bandar Abbas and a brief description in Persian of the vessel on a website for Iran's Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade.
For now, Navy analysts and American intelligence officials say they are not unduly concerned about the mock ship. But the fact that the Iranians are building it, presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes, contrasts with the fact that the Iranians stepped back from their typically heavy anti-American posture during a recent naval exercise in the gulf.
Until recently, Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships, and the government in Tehran has deployed remotely piloted aircraft that carry surveillance pods and that may someday carry rockets.
With Iran's multiple political bases of power, the government's purposes can be hard to decipher. After the temporary nuclear agreement was reached in November between the world powers and the moderate government of Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, it was unclear to American officials whether Iran's hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps might try to provoke a conflict with the United States Navy to undercut the accord.
The navy of the Revolutionary Guards consists of fast-attack speedboats with high-powered machine guns and torpedoes, and crews that in the past employed guerrilla tactics, including swarming perilously close to American warships.
When the mock-up will take its maiden voyage — if it ever does — is anyone's guess, analysts said. The vessel is nearing completion, they said, and will presumably be shipped by rail on tracks that run through the shipyard, to its destiny in the Persian Gulf just a few hundred yards away.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 22, 2014, 07:04:16 PM
<insert vacuous comment>
.....
It's the world's biggest drone, superbly camouflaged as a theme-park attraction?
Doesn't look that much like a Nimitz class carrier to me.
And the idea that the Iranians couldn't build a real carrier if they wanted to is silly. I'm not sure they could build a nuclear-powered carrier, but a conventionally powered one isn't that hard to build. If you have the shipbuilding capacity to build large ships--and Iran clearly does--the main obstacle to just building a carrier is the cost.
Being able to master flight operations, though, is a different story.
This seems stupid.
I really don't get the fuss about this. This news is being reported all over the interwebs.
The us is country most likely to attack Iran, US carriers are key to this, it is absolutely prudent of the Iranian military to want to train for such a possibility. Or for Iranian film makers to make a story about it.
I guess it's kind of funny they're going to such efforts in the look of the thing, but that's not the way it is generally being reported.
Sometimes you say the darndest things Squeeze. :D
It would make as much sense to "practice" attacking a floating log as it would this barge.
And why in the world would it be prudent to film this "practice?"
The US must counter by building a mock-up of Tehran.
Close the mock-up gap!
I wonder if it's going to be a prop for a commercial film. That at least makes some sense. I don't think anyone is "making a fuss" over this, nobody is really concerned. Just bemused.
They are going to pour model glue all over it and set it on fire in their backyard.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2014, 12:17:38 AM
Sometimes you say the darndest things Squeeze. :D
It would make as much sense to "practice" attacking a floating log as it would this barge.
And why in the world would it be prudent to film this "practice?"
:huh:
Western militaries train on mockups of middle eastern villages all the time.
It being a film is a different possibility. such a film would have a broad appeal in Iran I guess.
Quote from: Tyr on March 23, 2014, 05:21:21 AM
:huh:
Western militaries train on mockups of middle eastern villages all the time.
It being a film is a different possibility. such a film would have a broad appeal in Iran I guess.
:huh:
How are the Iranians going to "train on" this mockup of a carrier? What training are they going to get in doing so? Western militaries train in mockups of middle eastern villages because they are going to be in middle eastern villages and want their troops to have something like that experience before hand. Do the Iranians (or you) really believe they will be boarding Nimitz class carriers?
It being filmed is silly; you can do the same thing in CGI for a whole lot less, and it will be just as realistic.
You think they're going to be boarding carriers? That's... Well... Ok then.... If you think so.....
What is more likely in such a war however is they would want to attack it with fast attack boats.
If you've a better theory then let's hear it. Movie set or military training are the only logical ones that come to mind for me.
Quote from: Tyr on March 23, 2014, 05:41:09 AM
You think they're going to be boarding carriers? That's... Well... Ok then.... If you think so.....
I knew you'd back off your silly "middle eastern villages" analogy as soon as its silliness was challenged! :lol:
QuoteWhat is more likely in such a war however is they would want to attack it with fast attack boats.
If you've a better theory then let's hear it. Movie set or military training are the only logical ones that come to mind for me.
The Iranians know perfectly well that they are not going to be attacking carriers with fast attack boats. Those won't survive minutes within visual range of a US task force or its aircraft. They will be attacking the carriers with land-launched Silkworm or follow-on missiles.
I think that it isn't a mock-up for military training at all. I think it is being built for some PR purpose that has no military applications at all. Given the dozens of chefs that stir the Iranian military pot, it isn't surprising that some of them manage to get silly ideas executed.
Are they 100% certain that this is a mockup? Is there any chance this is a real, functioning aircraft carrier? The Iranians can't be this stupid, I would assume :blink:
Quote from: Monoriu on March 23, 2014, 06:03:30 AM
Are they 100% certain that this is a mockup? Is there any chance this is a real, functioning aircraft carrier? The Iranians can't be this stupid, I would assume :blink:
No, it couldn't be a real, functioning carrier because such a thing would be too heavy to move out of the slip they are building it in using the facilities they have.
And don't underestimate the stupidity of organizations; look up the story of the b-58 Hustler some time; it was the most expensive US military aircraft purchase of all time (total cost per aircraft, in constant dollars) and served for less than ten years.
I, defer to grumbler on this, but isn't the most important feature of the nimitz carrier not it's nature of being a floating air strip but rather it's ability to sail upwind at 30 knots while launching and retrieving aircraft allowing it to launch two engined super sonic fighters rather than small single person cessnas.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 23, 2014, 04:09:05 AM
I wonder if it's going to be a prop for a commercial film. That at least makes some sense. I don't think anyone is "making a fuss" over this, nobody is really concerned. Just bemused.
Argo fuck yourself.
Quote from: grumbler on March 23, 2014, 05:51:43 AM
Quote from: Tyr on March 23, 2014, 05:41:09 AM
You think they're going to be boarding carriers? That's... Well... Ok then.... If you think so.....
I knew you'd back off your silly "middle eastern villages" analogy as soon as its silliness was challenged! :lol:
:bleeding:
Quote from: grumbler on March 23, 2014, 05:39:33 AM
It being filmed is silly; you can do the same thing in CGI for a whole lot less, and it will be just as realistic.
Did you see the CGI in that film about the drone that destroyed Israel and the US? It looked like Tron, man.
Quote from: Neil on March 23, 2014, 10:19:18 AM
Did you see the CGI in that film about the drone that destroyed Israel and the US? It looked like Tron, man.
That's one of the perks of state-run media: since they set the bar on graphics effects, they really get to set the distance of the uncanny valley.
No one said the Iranians have to be entirely rational about their training programs.
It's quite possible they'd throw huge sums of money at a white elephant of a training prop, that a near full-size CV mock-up would be.
As others have said, could be an elaborate film prop or the outcome of some daft thinking or corruption from within the regime?
Perhaps it is an 'aircraft carrier' or what they think would serve as one, however ill-considered the project may be?
Target practice for the hammer squadron?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iaf.org.il%2FSip_Storage%2FFILES%2F5%2F200X0%2F36425.jpg&hash=be3892ac1461e6e22954ac752d056afff8faa95b)
Maybe they will claim to have captured it.
perhaps it's a training device for boarding parties?
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 06:41:15 AM
I, defer to grumbler on this, but isn't the most important feature of the nimitz carrier not it's nature of being a floating air strip but rather it's ability to sail upwind at 30 knots while launching and retrieving aircraft allowing it to launch two engined super sonic fighters rather than small single person cessnas.
Plenty of carriers other than the
Nimitz class could do that; what it's most important feature is the ability to not need to be refueled for years.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 22, 2014, 07:04:16 PM
<insert vacuous comment>
Hell, the Royal Navy's been building fake aircraft carriers for decades. [sirandrewdiceclay] Ooooh! [/sirandrewdiceclay]
Maybe is a movie set for a Iranian reality TV show.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 23, 2014, 11:46:10 AM
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 06:41:15 AM
I, defer to grumbler on this, but isn't the most important feature of the nimitz carrier not it's nature of being a floating air strip but rather it's ability to sail upwind at 30 knots while launching and retrieving aircraft allowing it to launch two engined super sonic fighters rather than small single person cessnas.
Plenty of carriers other than the Nimitz class could do that; what it's most important feature is the ability to not need to be refueled for years.
100k tons at 30knts is a class only the Nimitzes and Fords can pull off.
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 12:50:10 PM
100k tons at 30knts is a class only the Nimitzes and Fords can pull off.
The Queen Mary 2 supposedly goes 30 knots and is roughly the size of USS Nimitz.
Quote from: Tyr on March 23, 2014, 05:41:09 AM
You think they're going to be boarding carriers? That's... Well... Ok then.... If you think so.....
What is more likely in such a war however is they would want to attack it with fast attack boats.
Boarding is the only one that makes the remotest sense as a training exercise. You want your troops to be familiar with the floor plan.
Anything else, such as fast attack boats, suicide motor boats, Silkworms, whatever, it would make more sense to aim at a big piece of paper than to aim at a barge dressed up to look like the Nimitz.
QuoteIf you've a better theory then let's hear it. Movie set or military training are the only logical ones that come to mind for me.
There's a reasonable theory in the article: propaganda film.
I guess you could train pilots and seamen to be able to identify such a carrier a long way off. The US dresses up tanks to look like Russian vehicles for it's OpFor excercise. I don't know if that would translate into naval or air actions.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2014, 01:38:04 PMThere's a reasonable theory in the article: propaganda film.
only other possibility i can think of is an expensive message to the US, and it could be both
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2014, 01:38:04 PM
Quote from: Tyr on March 23, 2014, 05:41:09 AM
You think they're going to be boarding carriers? That's... Well... Ok then.... If you think so.....
What is more likely in such a war however is they would want to attack it with fast attack boats.
Boarding is the only one that makes the remotest sense as a training exercise. You want your troops to be familiar with the floor plan.
Anything else, such as fast attack boats, suicide motor boats, Silkworms, whatever, it would make more sense to aim at a big piece of paper than to aim at a barge dressed up to look like the Nimitz.
QuoteIf you've a better theory then let's hear it. Movie set or military training are the only logical ones that come to mind for me.
There's a reasonable theory in the article: propaganda film.
Do the Iranians have access to the floor plan of a Nimitz carrier? :huh:
But yeah, I'll go with the propaganda film theory. There were a lot of noises in the Iranian film industry about a slew of propaganda stuff after Argo was released. It pissed their authorities mightily.
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 12:50:10 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 23, 2014, 11:46:10 AM
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 06:41:15 AM
I, defer to grumbler on this, but isn't the most important feature of the nimitz carrier not it's nature of being a floating air strip but rather it's ability to sail upwind at 30 knots while launching and retrieving aircraft allowing it to launch two engined super sonic fighters rather than small single person cessnas.
Plenty of carriers other than the Nimitz class could do that; what it's most important feature is the ability to not need to be refueled for years.
100k tons at 30knts is a class only the Nimitzes and Fords can pull off.
They were launching twin-engined supersonic fighters at 30 knots upwind since the days of the
Forrestal in the 1950's, Lord Nelson.
Quote from: celedhring on March 23, 2014, 02:03:29 PM
Do the Iranians have access to the floor plan of a Nimitz carrier? :huh:
Dude, I'm trying to show Squeeze how retarded he's being.
You guys are thinking too logically.
These are muslims, their decision making process does not work like yours, and they are capable of very, very, irrational thoughts.
From our point of view.
Question, were there camel caravans during roman and Carthaginian times proding the sahara?
I thought camels were a recent introduction, by the arabs.
Quote from: Siege on March 23, 2014, 03:03:04 PM
You guys are thinking too logically.
These are muslims, their decision making process does not work like yours, and they are capable of very, very, irrational thoughts.
From our point of view.
I sort of said that, but without the blanket statement about all muslims.
But indeed their reasons for doing this don't have to be rational/efficient to the outside world or observer.
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 12:50:10 PM
100k tons at 30knts is a class only the Nimitzes and Fords can pull off.
In addition to what my esteemed colleague from Baltimore stated, the shaft horsepower output of the powerplant on every US carrier built after WW2 has been about the same (260k - 280k SHP). Any ability of newer carriers to move more weight at 30+ knots is the product of hull form and other elements of hydrodynamic engineering, not the nuclear powerplant.
Quote from: celedhring on March 23, 2014, 02:03:29 PM
Do the Iranians have access to the floor plan of a Nimitz carrier? :huh:
They're doing it like the aliens from
Galaxy Quest did it: by watching repeats of
The Final Countdown and Learning Channel specials. Historical documents.
When we see mock-ups of Zeros on the deck, we know we are screwed.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 23, 2014, 04:15:33 PM
Quote from: celedhring on March 23, 2014, 02:03:29 PM
Do the Iranians have access to the floor plan of a Nimitz carrier? :huh:
They're doing it like the aliens from Galaxy Quest did it: by watching repeats of The Final Countdown and Learning Channel specials. Historical documents.
Europe. :wub:
It could be a device for smuggling oil to western oil refineries. :smarty:
Quote from: Siege on March 23, 2014, 03:03:04 PM
You guys are thinking too logically.
These are muslims, their decision making process does not work like yours, and they are capable of very, very, irrational thoughts.
From our point of view.
"Our point of view"? :yeahright:
Quote from: mongers on March 23, 2014, 04:55:38 PM
It could be a device for smuggling oil to western oil refineries. :smarty:
I like this idea; what we are seeing is a cover that fits over an Iranian oil tanker, which then sails through the Straits of Hormuz pretending to be the
Nimitz.
Please be standing clear of this vessel; we are carriers of aircraft and... IGNORE THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 12:50:10 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 23, 2014, 11:46:10 AM
Quote from: Viking on March 23, 2014, 06:41:15 AM
I, defer to grumbler on this, but isn't the most important feature of the nimitz carrier not it's nature of being a floating air strip but rather it's ability to sail upwind at 30 knots while launching and retrieving aircraft allowing it to launch two engined super sonic fighters rather than small single person cessnas.
Plenty of carriers other than the Nimitz class could do that; what it's most important feature is the ability to not need to be refueled for years.
100k tons at 30knts is a class only the Nimitzes and Fords can pull off.
I think what you're trying to get at is that most modern carriers don't have traditional catapults and arrestor gear, so they're limited to operating helicopters and V/STOL aircraft rather than conventional fixed-wing airplanes. But a ship doesn't have to be 100,000 tons to have catapults--outside the US fleet carriers, the French and Brazilian navies both have a carrier with catapults.
And the Iranians have announced it is indeed a movie set.
Quote from: Tyr on March 25, 2014, 08:38:15 AM
And the Iranians have announced it is indeed a movie set.
A big budget spectacular! How exciting.
I bet Teh Prophet saves the day, PBUH.
How will they make a Top Gun without homosexuals? :hmm:
They'll replace the volleyball scene with prayer time.
Stop! Prayer time.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2014, 10:20:53 AM
I bet Teh Prophet saves the day, PBUH.
No, the hidden 12th imam saves the day.
Good point, these are the heretics we're talking about.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2014, 10:31:08 AM
Good point, these are the heretics we're talking about.
Habibi, you can be my Jihad-buddy anyday.