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From: mlfisher@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USN CVs wont fit in Arabian Gulf?
Message-ID: <1990Aug16.030249.15026@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 16 Aug 90 03:02:49 GMT
References: <1990Aug11.015042.19542@cbnews.att.com> <1990Aug12.214526.2752@cbnews.att.com>
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From: mlfisher@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
> I'm sure that with all the oil rigs, wind constraints and the like,
> the Persian gulf is not all the suitable for flight ops.
> 

I spent four months in 1983 in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf aboard a destroyer,
USS DEYO DD989.  If I remember correctly, the average depth in the Gulf is
something like 150 feet, so that draft is not a problem.  The Gulf is
approximately 350 x 100 miles in size.  Vestfjord in Norway is rougly 1/3 this
size and surrounded by high cliffs on three sides.  Yet current US strategy for
Norwegian Sea Ops against the Soviet Union plan to put up to three carriers in
Vestfjord to limit the threat axes.  It would seem that size is not a problem
either.

I tend to believe the real reason for not putting carriers in the Gulf is one
of "Risk Strategy".  Why expose the carriers to unnecessary risks, Iraqi and
Iranian ASMs and SSMs, when they are more than capable of projecting power
ashore from comparative safety from OUTSIDE the Gulf?  We just can't afford to
let some third world dictator put egg on our face by damaging or sinking one of
our carriers.

Mike