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The U.S. Navy doesnโt understand how resilient oil tankers are, according to comments from former CENTCOM commander in this TWZ interview.
Itโs surprising and not. USN rarely deals with commercial shipping issues. But could be why weโre still talking about naval escorts rather than air power to reopen Hormuz.
Hereโs Votelโs comments:
โBut the mines, I think, are a really, really hard issue. And when we think about one of these big tankers, so they are just really vulnerable, theyโre thin-hulled, getting into this very narrow traffic scheme thatโs there โ two miles wide, right in the middle of the Strait and then hitting a mine and being disabled on the spot. Not only will we have a mine problem, we have a disabled ship problem and an ecological disaster, and a whole bunch of other things there. So in my view, I think the worst case situation kind of looks like a deliberate mining effort by the Iranians.โ
Wrong info:
โOil tankers today have double hulls, neither thin nor vulnerable. But even when tankers had single hulls during the Iran-Iraq war, they were so resilient to mines that U.S. navy destroyers sailed BEHIND the tankers for protection. *The tankers protected the destroyers from mines.*
โThe narrowest navigable passage is 20 miles, not 2 miles. The traffic lanes are 2 miles wide to reduce accidents in a congested waterway, but itโs not a physical barrier. Itโs like the difference between the physical width of a whole highway vs. the lanes painted for cars. Tankers can sail outside the lines for 20 miles. Multiple disabled tankers couldnโt block the strait. To be fair, Votel called it a traffic scheme but I think this point is easily misunderstood.
โSpilling oil isnโt ecologically good, obvs, but oil cargoes in VLCCs are stored in 15-17 different cells (depending on ship design) and if you rupture one, you only spill its contents โ maybe ~120,000 barrels โ on a total cargo of 2 million barrels. Still not good but not total emptying.
โEven ruptured tankers, even incinerated tankers, usually stay afloat and can often be repaired so they can sail away under their own power. That happened with the MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen in 2002. It was struck by a suicide boat, lost 50k barres of oil and burned for 2 days. On day 3 it was repaired and sailed away on its own power. It was subsequently renamed the Maritime Jewel and was in service until at least 2009.
Any mission to open the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian fire would be costly and risky. But itโs shocking to me that the USN @USNavy @CENTCOM doesnโt know the basics of oil
shipping when theyโve been preparing this contingency for years.
They need to talk with industry, stat.
The Coast Guard @USCG might have this knowledge because they DO deal with commercial shipping issues but theyโre so far down the bureaucratic prestige chain Iโm not sure people would listen (sorry USCG, you rock and Iโm a big fan).
This lack of understanding might be why the USN and U.S. policymakers keep talking about using naval escorts rather than air power, as if this was still WWII.
@defpriorities @haltman
twz.com/news-features/โฆ
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