Confessions on TV?????

[Stulz]

I have no idea whether any of you here have served in the military, but I have just completed some 22 years service, and in that time I have served in "trouble spots" and "conflicts" all over this globe we call home. I will not go into details, so don't ask, but needless to say I am somewhat surprised, and increasingly annoyed by these "confessions" we are seeing on our TV screens.

Firstly I am annoyed that the Iranians would do such a thing, although far from surprised considering their past record on such matters, however I am confused, frustrated and deeply concerned that some of our personnel, who do not "appear" to have been maltreated would comply with such instructions so easily. Obviously I have no more idea of the pressure brought to bear on them than anyone else does, and I would not be surprised had they shown signs of maltreatment, but there is no outward sign of such behavior by the Iranians, so it is a little disconcerting that serving personnel would behave in such a manner so readily.

My first reaction was to prefer charges against them upon their return, however without knowing all the facts such a move would be premature, immoral and certainly presumptious.

Persoanlly I find the behaviour unfathomable, fortunately I was never taken prisoner in any of the conflicts I was involved in, although I do know several chaps who were, and I have spoken to them about this in the last few weeks, and all, to a man, stated that they would never comply with such a demand by a captor.

I can sort of understand that the Naval personnel are not as highly trained as the Marines, but to see two Marine Officers comply with this demand is rather concerning, in my day, nothing of this nature would be entertained..

I am curious as to how the members here feel about it, as I find it difficult to articulate my emotions on this subject without getting angry at the Iranians and those they have captured..which is somewhat disconcerting and frustrating

What are YOUR thoughts?

 

[JohnD]

I was wondering if it could be true... the boats were over the border?

Or it might be Stockholm syndrome

How will we ever know? By believing what one of the governments say?

Maybe the captain's log will go missing if it contains anything embarrassing (like the Conqueror's did)

 

[rommy]

What I want to know where was the back up?Why was there not a armed ship protecting their backs?
I think if these guys were caught on a covert operation,it would just be name and rank no more.I think these guys just want to get home,so they are co-operating with the Iranians as much as they can.They are caught up in politics.

 

[Richardp]

Those sailors are standing in front of armed men with mustaches! otherwise they would say nothing. where as the army are coming home and from the security of their arm chairs are complaining about everything from the quality of their bullets to the state of their barracks,and asking for compensation for not getting the right brand of crisps and providing films and photo's to prove it, in my day you'd be keel hauled for putting too much baccy in your roll ups.

 

[Richardp]

What I want to know where was the back up?Why was there not a armed ship protecting their backs?
I think if these guys were caught on a covert operation,it would just be name and rank no more.I think these guys just want to get home,so they are co-operating with the Iranians as much as they can.They are caught up in politics.

this suprises me also, hms Cornwall must have seen them coming on her radar and I'd have thought she'd have positioned herself between them.

 

[namsag]

I know under the UN stupid rules you can only fire your weapon if fired upon but all of the Brits had side arms at least. Well i for one seeing a load of Iranians coming for me would have said yep that was a gun shot i heard and opened fire and took up a defensive position untill reinforced that is if the iranians didn`t run away

 

[Stulz]

Well lets clear a few things up shall we.

HMS Cornwall, the mother ship, was on routine patrol checking merchant vessels at the time of the "incident". The crew of the two boats in question were dispatched by HMS Cornwall to investigate a merchant ship some 5 miles from the ship. As is standard practice, the boats were covered by a Lynx Helicopter.

Whilst the crew were checking the merchantman, the Lynx developed a fault in the engine bay which required it to return to HMS Cornwall, the backup helicopter was being prepped for launch at the time. Further, HMS Cornwall had drifted away from the Atlantics as it was investigating a second merchant vessel in the opposite direction.

The 2nd Helicopter was launched, the first landed. By the time the Helicopter got to the expected position of the Atlantics, it could not find them. It undertook a surface Radar sweep of the area and found a flotilla of small craft, craft that are too small to be seen on the Radar systems of HMS Cornwall. Apparently the crew requested permission to pursue and engage as they identified the FoF signal from the Atlantics in the middle of the Flotilla. Due to the position of this Flotilla now being firmly inside Iranian territory the Captain of HMS Cornwall ordered a Stand-down and return to Ship. This incident was then reported to the Higher Powers in the Admiralty via the usual chain of command.

According to the logs of the Lynx crew, the position claimed by the Iranians closely matched the position that the Lynx discovered the flotilla on Radar, and some suspect this is why the Iranians have chose this position.

Namsag

The Iranian boats are equipped with 0.5" Calibre and 14mm Heavy Machine guns and the smaller vessels with 0.3" Calibre Medium Machine Guns. They only move about in groups of five, usually one Command and Control boat, equipped with two 0.5" Calibre and one 14mm Machine guns, then there is the Heavy Attack craft, which is a fast boat equipped with a 20mm self loading Canon, a 14mm HMG and a 71mm recoilless rifle, then there are three fast patrol boats all equipped with 1 0.5" Calibre HMG and two 0.3" calibre MMG's. And this does not include the AK47's carried by the 7 crew in each boat.

In this instance there can be no critisism of the crew's decision to capitulate, engagement of the enemy would have been fast and suicidal, and only 7 of the total of 15 had any first hand combat training, the rest are Naval personnel who are not necessarily trained for such engagements.

Even if the boats had heavier weapons, then the outcome of a gunfight would still be in the Iranians favour. Our Guys are good, but they are not Gods.

 

[rommy]

Thanks for the info Stulz.This is a dangerous stretch of water and with the situation at the time with Iran,HMS cornwall should have been there, not 5 miles away.In these waters there can't be any cock ups.I would of thought that the top brass would of learnt this from the last lot of of marines that was taken by the Iranians.

 

[namsag]

So slightly out gunned then. They are probably still in that similar out gunned position being forced to give interviews with a gun being held at a friends head or to thier head off camera

 

[OllieN]

I heard / saw an article that claimed that the current training the men receive is to comply with the capturers requests nothing more, nothing less so that it can be deduced what the caputeres are asking the hostages to do.

I inferred from this that the captives would not go on TV describing the location at which they were captured unless the Iranians specifically asked them to do so and say they were captured at that location, and that to resist would both be likely to result in worse treatment and result in less information about what the Iranians are claiming being available in the public domain for our analysts to pour over.

 

[rommy]

It's all about politics OllieN.They want to see our government humbled,to say we are very sorry for allowing our navy to go into your waters.
The Iranian government is loving it.Well we haven't got Margaret Thatcher but we have Ms Margaret Becket to sort it out

 

[namsag]

Yeah she has a face that has launched a few battle ships

 

[rommy]

Lmao,it could be worst namsag,we could have prescott to sort it out.He looks like he's chewing a wasp.Sort out?He couldn't sort out a bag of liquorice allsorts.And being a deputy Prime Minister,more like deputy dog.
Run the country?I would not trust him to run a bath

 

[Stulz]

Thanks for the info Stulz.This is a dangerous stretch of water and with the situation at the time with Iran,HMS cornwall should have been there, not 5 miles away.In these waters there can't be any cock ups.I would of thought that the top brass would of learnt this from the last lot of of marines that was taken by the Iranians.

Rommy, Usually the Helicopter is watching overhead, and you do not want a warship too close as it requires maneuverability and reaction time should a SLASM be launched at it from the vessel under investigation. Less than 5 miles and the Vessels defensive systems would not have time to lock on, arm, fire and/or launch countermeasures.

To the laymen 5 miles seems a huge gulf, but a missile travelling at 600mph plus will cover that distance in less than a minute, and a large artillery shell in a few seconds.

My personal thoughts on this are simple, Why do the Admiralty not arm the Atlantics with a few 50 calibre HMG's to give them some firepower to make aggressors think twice. Further, perhaps they will stop this cutback nonsense and support the crews with two helicopters instead of one in future so this cannot happen again.

 

[rommy]

Yes I do agree with you Stulz,5 miles is no distance when traveling 600mph.But these troops were exposed.These were not harden combat troops.As I have said when you are in these waters you got to have your backs protected at all times.