Commando

If Britain's navy personnel are not released by Iran soon. They have to act to set a precedent. If no military action or atleast a search and rescue mission evolves, then Britain would have underrated the importance of its own citizens and public servants to the world. This can have an enormous backlash.

I think Britain must do something, to show Britain the value of being British. Do you all agree?

JMH

The British Government is morally weak, passive, and indecisive and places no value on National Pride. The British people are happily committed to becoming a socialist welfare state and they could careless about their military.
The British people are more likely to blame the British Government and the US Government for Iranian piracy rather than demand and force the British Government to destroy Iran if necessary to secure the release of the captured British military personnel or punish Iran for their deaths if the Iranian Government decides to kill them. The British government will talk, threaten and protest, but in the end, will not do anything to damage Iran or rescue the British Naval personnel who have been captured by Iran. Of course, the Iranian Mullahs and the Iranian President know this, which is precisely why they chose to capture British Military personnel to use as pawns to humiliate the UK, similar to what happened to the US during the 444 day Iranian Hostage crisis.

The Royal Navy is weak and lacks the capability to wage a sustained naval war with Iran. If the UK sent it’s entire fleet of surface combat ships (3 Invincible class CV, 8 Type 42 DDG, 4 Type 22 FFG, 13 Type 23 FFG, 3 Patrol Craft) to the Persian Gulf to attack Iran, all of the Royal Navy ships would quickly be sunk or damaged. The only way the Royal Navy would be able to survive thousands of attacks by Iranian anti-ship missiles and high speed suicide boats would be either to sit hundreds of miles off of Iran's coast (where these ships would pose no threat to Iran), or to blockade and or attack the Iranian coast, ports and Iranian naval units with massive US Naval and Air support.

The Royal Air Force does not have any heavy bombers, stealth aircraft or ballistic missiles, consequently the Royal Air Force fighter-bombers would not be able to seriously hurt Iran. With only, 200 fighters and ground attack aircraft the Royal Air Force does not have a sufficient number of combat aircraft to sustain a long-term massive air campaign to destroy Iran. Also, the UK does not have any nuclear bombs, so the Iranians do not have much to fear from the Royal Air Force.

The British Army consists of less than 96,000 troops all together, and this small force is committed to a wide range of military operations, in Sierra Leone, in Kosovo, in Cyprus, in Iraq and in Afghanistan just to mention a few commitments. Consequently, there simply is not enough manpower available to the British Army to invade and occupy Iran. Also the British Army has less than 200 Main Battle Tanks and the British government is not willing to repair or replace damaged and destroyed vehicles, lost in current military operations, so how could a huge war in Iran be sustained by the British Army?

This leaves Royal Navy submarines, which do have enough firepower to utterly destroy Iran, should the weak British Government have the nerve to actually use them. British fast attack submarines could be used to secretly lay mines off Iranian ports to sink Iranian ships, to conduct cruise missile strikes against key Iranian economic targets, political, revolutionary guard leaders and religious figures (Iran's oil refinery, try to kill people with cruise missiles, such as the Iranian President, Mullahs and key defence officials). Also, fast attack submarines could be used to hunt for and sink Iranian submarines. If this fails to cause Iran to release the captured British military personnel and Iran chooses to kill those personnel than a British SSBN could launch a few Trident D-5 Submarine Launch Ballistic Missiles to utterly destroy Iran.

Since the British Government would never conduct these types of military operations against Iran, than the Iranian Mullahs and Iranian President have little to fear from the UK and they will play out their propaganda game with the captured British military personnel at the end of which they will either release the British personnel to the UK or some other country, place them in prison for an indefinite amount of time or execute them.

Elbmek

Now that these so called "marines" are home I think its time to start asking questions, and not the one about did the woman have the map?

I want to know where their support was? Apparently the nearest ship was HMS Cornwall, many miles distant.

Where was their air cover? Again, the Lynx from HMS Cornwall.

Why did the radar on board ships not detect the Iranian fast attack craft when it was within easy range of, yes, HMS Cornwall?

Why were they only carrying light arms into unknown situations?

Where are their uniforms which they were supposedly in when they were arrested? The arrived back in "clothes given to them by the Iranians"!

Where are their craft, weapons, comms etc? Did they have any cypher material such as frequencies etc?

What sort of deal was done by B Liar and his thugs?

Why were they "arrested" in waters that only Iran recognize as theirs? Apparently all other nations do not recognize the area as "Iranian".

These are supposedly ROYAL MARINES; why did they give up with a whimper?

An ex British Army soldier, who did "time" in the trouble spots of Ulster at the height of the troubles, stated live on tv that he was ashamed of them and wanted to know why they had the nerve to call themselves Marines!

Why did they so willingly cooperate with the Iranian authorities? They apparently did "everything" they were told to do by the Iranians.

Why did the female member of the team wear the muslim headgear?

The whole thing sucks, big style. Or are our Armed forces nowadays little more than a token of days long past?

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dave lukins

Mike, if you read some of the SOP on the WAB by our American/Canadian friends you will them in agreement. I could never imagine some of the "old Tankies" throwing the towel in..especially if they've been in the Bar!!
Question and more questions have to be asked over the way they were taken so easy

Commando

It has been revealed that the marines where blindfolded and forced to stand facing a war while guns were heard loading behind them. Also the female marine was told the other marines where allowed home and she was the only British personnel in the country.

Is this torture?

dave lukins

Depends who's standing by the wall

Elbmek

Compared with what I went through one night on escape & evasion trg these marines had a beautiful holiday!!!!

T_igger_cs_30

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