Iranian Revolutionary Guards engrave emblem on U.S. warship

Surprise, Surprise!!!

Iran Revolutionary Guards: Unit engraved emblem on U.S. ship

A commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that a commando unit has engraved the military organization's emblem into the side panel of an American warship stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Nur Ali Shushkari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, told Iranian pro-government news agencies that the symbol was etched onto the ship by the crew of a submarine that had managed to reach the U.S. vessel without detection by radar.

he went on to say:

Shushkari warned the United States that if a confrontation arises, all American forces in the gulf as well as targets inside the U.S. itself would be targets for attack.

I want to see some proof. hell, if this is true, I would have loved to see american sailors in a warship with an IRGC emblem on it. it's the surprise of the year.

but, well we won't see any, anytime soon. does anyone remember the thread about the iranian drone that managed to buzz the us carrier. noone believed it until iranians released the vid.

you never know they might release a pic or 2.

Cheers
Keep It Real

[edit on 15-2-2007 by proprog]

if this is true then...good for them!!!! Embarrassment for America is always a good thing...lets hope it makes them think twice about attacking...

Wow, if this is true, then that's a pretty telling thing. Pretty scary actually, not only did a sub get so close to an American warship, but they stayed there long enough to "engrave" a logo into a highly reinforced steel plate. How would you do that? Use a Ginsu knife? How close was this sub? Were the sneaky Iranians able to just lean out the hatch and engrave away, or did they send some Iranian daredevil with a wetsuit swimming a mile or two, so that he could use a gigantic suction cup to adhere himself to the side?

"Hey Akmed, I bet you can't swim over to that big ship and write on it with this permanent Sharpie Magic marker!"

"Ah, but I believe I can Raheem!"

"OK then Akmed, I dare you to write Bush loves BinLaden, with a big heart around it!"

"OK Raheem, I will do just that praise Allah. I will even put those XOXO under it!"

Now that would be impressive!

But on the other hand, if it's the USS StinkyTuna which has been sitting in drydock for the last 15 years, or one of those dingys that's teather came loose - then it's not quite as fearsome.

Originally posted by lombozo
Wow, if this is true, then that's a pretty telling thing. Pretty scary actually, not only did a sub get so close to an American warship, but they stayed there long enough to "engrave" a logo into a highly reinforced steel plate. How would you do that? Use a Ginsu knife? How close was this sub? Were the sneaky Iranians able to just lean out the hatch and engrave away, or did they send some Iranian daredevil with a wetsuit swimming a mile or two, so that he could use a gigantic suction cup to adhere himself to the side?

"Hey Akmed, I bet you can't swim over to that big ship and write on it with this permanent Sharpie Magic marker!"

"Ah, but I believe I can Raheem!"

"OK then Akmed, I dare you to write Bush loves BinLaden, with a big heart around it!"

"OK Raheem, I will do just that praise Allah. I will even put those XOXO under it!"

Now that would be impressive!

But on the other hand, if it's the USS StinkyTuna which has been sitting in drydock for the last 15 years, or one of those dingys that's teather came loose - then it's not quite as fearsome.

lol his name had to be Akmed didn't it!

I don't understand why iran keeps making these strange claims, but then doesn't have pictures to prove it. They claimed that they overflew a us carrier group a few months ago, and I think that for that they did release pics, but even so they didn't release the pics until much later. Then they claimed that they shot down a UAV, but never provided pics. Now they claim that they got a sub right up to a ship, but have no photographic proof.

I presume that the engraving is on the underside of the ship, or below the water line? BUt why wouldn't they still be able to take a picture?

Do they want the US to have to present the picture?

Do they want us to start searching our own ships? On the one hand, thats even better than showing that they did it, it'd mean, yeah we did it, and you didn't even know until you searched all the ships.

On the other hand, are they just trying to 'probe' the ships defenses and the crew's reactions?

Well if this is true, then it explains the past couple of days' articles saying Bush tones down the Iran war scenario. This would have to have happened awhile ago as news like this doesn't travel to fast through Iranian channels.

I think a nice subtle message like this is much better than the barb throwing war chanting that has been going on. But one has to ask why would Iran ever expose this ability to the world if it is the truth.

Anyway very interesting, I found an old article from 2000 on Iran's first submarine here:

Iran launches its first submarine
The Iranian state news agency, IRNA, said the Al-Sabehat-15 submarine was designed to plant mines and carry out reconnaissance missions.

Until that time this was the army's sub force....

(simulated satirical image mine)

If Iran is able to get that close to our ships.....

-Then we are not guarding them very well (asking for a pretext for war? *see Pearl Harbor*)

or

- Iran is ninja.....


or


- The Navy is pretty pathetic.

I think that in this case, Iran had to announce that they did it, or else, we'd never even realize that they had done it (assuming, of course, that they did do it, for which nothing along the lines of proof has been given).

I mean, in other cases, the military knew that they flew over the carrier group, or that they shot down the UAV (if the UAV incident happened), but this, the military itself wouldnt' even know.

I think a nice subtle message like this is much better than the barb throwing war chanting that has been going on

Indeed. It should be remembered, the Persians invented chess. They're going to be pretty darned subtle and crafty.

This wouldn't suprise me in the least.About 5 year's ago me and a friend were riding dirtbike's around the New Boston,New Hampshire Airforce Base for hour's.We literally got close enough to see the golf ball like structure's that are part of N.O.R.A.D.....Here's a Google Earth picture of it.

img.photobucket.com...

We both have been in there about 4 time's,there was one occasion where we came across a platoon of mountain climber's that were training on a cliff right at a main entrance to the base that was gated off with no tresspasing sign's.They all saw us so we stopped and talked to them,they told us there were some nice trail's further in and let us pass.

The last time we went in there we made it to a camping site with a small lake,this time someone told us to leave because they just called the military police and they were on there way.We took off and didn't get caught and havn't been there since.

[edit on 15-2-2007 by Samblack]

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Mod Edit: Image Size – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 15/2/2007 by Mirthful Me]

I'd have to say hat's off to the team that did that operation should it be true. But I bet US intellgence would never boast about that cook that pisses in Ayatolahs soup every day.....

The lack of photos and other sources reporting this story indicate that the story is nothing more then internal propaganda that has found its way round the world via the internet.

Assuming that Iran has the capability to place commando teams against US warships they would hardly advertise this fact by painting logos on the hull of US warships.

LOL, How ridiculous. Of course they have no proof. Iran seems to have the mentality of a shool kid in the playground.

How impressive is that?

It's the mother of all military exploits.

It's really great to see that Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf is still gainfully employed.

I have a hard time believing this because in order this for to be true it would mean:

1. Iran has capabilities beyond what we give them credit for and I highly doubt that.

2. those guys in the navy were asleep at the wheel.

yes, photographs would be nice. Also, I think those photographs that iran released earlier of the spy drone buzzing the american carrier were proven hoaxes as the carrier had aircraft on them that are no longer in service.

Iran has capabilities beyond what we give them credit for and I highly doubt that.

So, we're under-estimating our adversaries already eh?

What is that, knight takes queen, something along those lines?

samblack
This wouldn't suprise me in the least.About 5 year's ago me and a friend were riding dirtbike's around the New Boston,New Hampshire Airforce Base for hour's.We literally got close enough to see the golf ball like structure's that are part of N.O.R.A.D...

Um, thats a fictional story that you posted here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Stop posting false information and lying on the boards.

[edit on 15-2-2007 by Nygdan]

It's possible it could have happened, but not particularly meaningful except in one way.

It's pretty clear that the vessel being tagged, must be stationary, and in port and docked.

First, the sub couldn't possibly have been close enough to 'open one hatch' and have some guy in a wetsuit reach out.

And a frogman wouldn't be able to keep up while swimming (or maybe even with the "James Bond" style underwater propulsors) and in a stable enough way to do it while the ship was chugging along.

In a more hostile situation, it's first likely that the ships would be not sitting in port, and second, using more active sonar, and looking for and chasing any matches.

It does mean though that there is some authentic vulnerability in ports to saboteurs who could plant explosives if the situation were not under alert.

It would conceivably be a good "one time off" tactic for a surprise first attack by the Iranians in ships in port. But then, like the attack on Pearl Harbor, the question would be "what happens next?"

And the Iranians telegraphing this capability makes it less effective.

But protection of docked ships against frogmen has been a big deal since WW2 of course. Nets, with alarms to detect cutting, are the obvious low-tech solution.

Nowadays, the remote sensing capability is better too.

Here is some interesting information.

en.wikipedia.org...

Another, timely link:

en.wikipedia.org...

if what is said was true, some company may now be winning a nice contract:

Being prior Navy I can tell you that not every ship has sonar. Though unless it was at night and the sub was still submerged, I don't think this event happened. I've seen Iranian P3's fly over the ship I was on. Nothing so hard about that. But I also saw how fast they flew by because of the 6 COBRA attack helicopters sitting on our flight deck. Now I don't doubt they can get some intel and whatnot, but this does sound a bit far fetched. one if they engraved a symbol on the side of the ship, despite how thick the hull might be it would reverb. Probably be pretty loud too. Althought ships are pretty huge and a person isn't always going to be present in every part of the ship I still tend to think that a grinding noise would alert most anyone. The one kicker is how are you going to hide a submarine that is surfaced next to a ship? I've only been on one sub but I can tell you above water its not hard to miss one.

-Aza

There are no pictures of it..If my secret special guard managed to sneak up to the world best trained miliary and engrave an image on that warship, I would take a picture. Speaking as someone will at least a little knowledge of standing watch on a ship, I think its cr@p.

But just for fun, when the US does invade Iran. There will be some US engravings all over Iran, I hope they do a nice big one as the Marine Core raises the flag over its newest Territory.

To use the digg phrase: "pics or it didn't happen"

That aside it would be insanely stupid for Iran to pull such a stunt, being that close to a warship of an enemy nation is just begging to start a fight, and it sure seems like thats what they are trying to do. Would anybody fault sailors on watch from opening fire on any unannounced vessel near their ship after what happened to the USS Cole?