Getting hot in the Gulf

[Undried Plum]

The one to watch is Silvia 1. She switched off her AIS yesterday at noon. At that time she was a coupla hundred miles SSE of AD1's present position, heading in a NNW direction at about 10kts.

Switching off AIS merely draws attention to herself. She can't hide from The Empire.

[4mastacker]

Could become "interesting" if a sub accidentally fired off a live torpedo in that area.

[Rwy in Sight]

Could become "interesting" if a sub accidentally fired off a live torpedo in that area.

I 'd rather have something that would eliminate the flow of oil as well.

[Undried Plum]

It looks like Adrian Darya 1 is making a break for Freedom.

By doing so, she's sticking two fingers up to the face of the fascist Empire. They're mocking the size and shape of Caligula's willy. He's not going to like that, and he's flat-out crazy.

[John Hill]

I wonder who will do the christian thing and give sanctuary to the fugitive?

[Undried Plum]

She's now about 30 miles East of Aya Napa, Southbound at what must surely be minimum idle speed for the donk as her G/S is only a couple of knots. In the second half of the hours of darkness last night she was doing barely a knot.

Her fellow ship, Silvia 1, is still 'dark' on AIS. They do that when they are playing silly buggers to get around the Imperial 'sanctions'.

I wonder if a ship-to-ship transfer is taking place?

[Rwy in Sight]

Her fellow ship, Silvia 1, is still 'dark' on AIS. They do that when they are playing silly buggers to get around the Imperial 'sanctions'.

I wonder if a ship-to-ship transfer is taking place?

Why they bother switching off the AIS. Those with interest to know have the assets to do so!

[Undried Plum]

I wonder about that too, but that's what they do when they're pissing about with cargoes to circumvent the diktat of The Empire.

Grace 1 did that last year. She had a cargo, then switched off AIS for a fortnight or so, then magically popped up somewhere else at minimum draft.

They must surely know that The Empire has 24x7 global oceanic surveillance and that the Yehudis have a similar capability in certain zones, most particularly the Eastern Med.

Perhaps they do so as a way of sticking two fingers up at the evil Empire by deliberately drawing attention to themselves with going dark on AIS which they know the world and his brother can access via websites such as MarineTraffic.

[Undried Plum]

Now Adrian Darya has switched off her AIS too. She did so yesterday evening, about 35 miles off the coast of Lebanon.

As there are no operational refineries in that country, something very odd is going on.

I note that there's a small tanker nearby, doing less than a knot. She's nominally on passage from Libya to Malta, but that makes no sense at that speed and location.

I suspect that there's a complicated ship-to-ship transfer going on.

Word in the juice bars around that fugly building in Lime Street suggests that all the underwriters are saying "not with a barge-pole"!

[Alisoncc]

Events in Saudi Arabia seem to have warmed up the area significantly. Probably should consider moving "Drones" from "Hobbies and Interests" into the mainstream.

Surely the Septics didn't really think they were the only ones who could deploy drones. How many Reaper lookalikes can you get for the price of an F-35?

[Undried Plum]

These things that the Houthis build and use are more like Tomahawk cruise missiles than "drones" such as Reaper.

In the perverse world of Imperial America it's alright for Saudi to bomb thousands of men, women and children and to starve them to death in Yemen but it's not alright for the Yemenis to bomb industrial targets like Aqbqaiq, Khurais and the Tapline.

I suspect that behind the scenes the House of Saud is wanting to know what they've got in return in terms of air defence for the hundreds of thousand of Billions of Dollars they've spent with US and UK arms manufacturers. The Houthis appear to be able to deliver what the Septics call a "surgical strike" any time they want and are able to do so quite accurately. Zero human casualties in this attack, apparently.

[Sisemen]

The kit that they bought is not the issue - it’s the indigenous locals that man their defence systems that’s the downfall. Ask any expat that has had dealings with them.

[Pontius Navigator]

Siseman, exactly.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

+2, I did sim instruction for the RSAF crews when they came to Coningsby. A few were fine; as for the rest, I could have wept.*

From my weapons employment course knowledge, such as I can recall, the damage shown in this and other photos looks like a professionally planned job.

Furthermore, it's a perfectly legitimate target for the Houthis to hit under the Geneva Conventions.

Though not, of course, for the Iranians to hit, should it have been them.


*I did the decent thing and resorted to heavy drinking instead; or as we used to call it, drinking. According to the batting ladies, so did they.

[Boac]

That's some really sharp shooting.

"Saudi Arabia "affirms that it has the capability and resolve to defend its land and people,"- er, not?

[John Hill]

Perhaps they have GPS with photo recognition for the terminal phase?

I think even I could make something like that.

[Boac]

Clever imaging - it was a night attack.

[TheGreenGoblin]

An ex-colleague of mine is currently in Saudi Arabia teaching basic mathematics and physics to would be entrant RSAF pilots as part of a contract with a well known British Defense company. His opinion of the standard of the candidates is low.

I think that the Saudis know that if they went to war with Iran without the USA taking the bulk of the heat across the battlefield they would lose on all fronts. In some ways Trump has been quite clever in putting the Saudis into the driving seat on a decision to go to war, as they surely wouldn't relish a conflict, despite the huge spending on all arms of their military services, given the relative ineffectiveness of their men.

The Houthis are a ragtag outfit but with Iranian support they have fought the well equipped and US and British supported Saudi proxy forces to a standstill in Yemen. The use of sophisticated drones brings an aerial edge to asymmetric and unconventional warfare that will be hard to defend against, even by relatively advanced militarily nations.

[4mastacker]

To my unqualified eye, those impact marks appear to be in identical positions on those vessels - that is a high degree of precision.......or did someone climb up to the top of those vessels to plant the charges before hand?

Also it would appear from that photo that the "attacking missiles" arrived from the north-west.

Would one of our more informed members care to comment?

As an aside, when the Saudis initially arrived at TTTE, the first wave were generally OK and westernised although they kept their wives out of sight in their enclave on the OMQ patch. However, the subsequent followers-on were a different kettle of fish and brought their bad habits with them, including setting up a brothel in their wing of the Sgts Mess. The station's chief plod discovered it when he followed a Saudi, who was carrying a tray full of food taken from the dining room, back to their accommodation. His knock on the door where the Saudi had taken the food was answered by one of the females ensconced within.

[AtomKraft]

Nice bit of shooting that, whoever did it.