Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackie S
I wonder, if by some quirk in navigation, one of our Air Craft Carriers accidentally strayed one mile into Iran's territorial waters, would they seize it and all 3000 sailors aboard?
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they could try but it would be futile. the Iranian Navy really does not have much ability to counter a ship like an Aircraft Carrier. a carrier task group is a formidable force. yeah the Iranians have subs but a carrier task force always has an attack sub to counter that threat. Iranian subs i would have to think are not advanced enough to challenge a state of the art US attack sub. not to mention the surface ships are also equipped to defend against subs. lastly, the surface fleet by design forms a screen around the carrier to deter torpedo attacks.
Air power by the Iranian air force? an Aircraft Carrier IS air power. the Iranians would have to launch a huge force, hundreds of planes to have any chance by sheer numbers to overwhelm the air wing of a carrier. and hundreds of older planes in the Iranian air force would be shot out of the air 10 to 1 easily by state of the art US planes.
certainly, the Iranians would have some chance to damage a carrier, mainly by launching huge numbers of missiles and hoping that the US force could not counter them all.
their best chance probably would be a kamikaze type attack, again presuming they could through the defensive screen of the task force.
at best they might be able to disable a carrier but i don't see any real possibility to actually destroy it. but they'd have to take out the rest of the force ships which are many to have an opportunity to capture a carrier. very unlikely.
in short, a fully operational carrier task force is too big a fish for the Iranians to tackle with much chance of success.
