46y old USS Ponce now cruising in strait of hormuz as a dartboard for Iranian marine

Fully loaded with tons of diesel the Ponce will be the perfect "torch of freedom" picture source in the Persian Gulf for CNN et al.

"WASHINGTON — One of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran."

www.nytimes.com...

don't mean to detract from your post, it's an interesting development, but is it really called USS ponce? that is ridiculous.

Originally posted by theGreatunhosed
don't mean to detract from your post, it's an interesting development, but is it really called USS ponce? that is ridiculous.

In the uk a PONCE is a gay man!!
Maybe its true what they say about sailors

I wonder if they are going to sacrifice their ship and then blame it on Iran as a pretext to stop their "nuclear bomb building".

Originally posted by theGreatunhosed
don't mean to detract from your post, it's an interesting development, but is it really called USS ponce? that is ridiculous.

It is named after Ponce, Puerto Rico, the second largest city there, which itself is named after the explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon, or perhaps his great grandson, depending on the source you use. You might remember him from your history books. All 12 of these Austin-class ships are named for cities. It was originally an Amphibious Transport Dock, but has been converted to what the navy calls an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Whatever you want to call it, it has plenty of room to land helicopters on its deck. It is to be used as a center of operations for Mine Counter Measures. It will "host" Sea Dragon Helicopters carrying submersibles designed to take out mines. It is a mothership, if you will, for anti mine operations.

The US recently doubled its MCM fleet from 4 to 8 ships in response to Iranian threats to "close" the Strait of Hormuz. British minesweepers are also in the area, though I do not know how many. Although much has been said about the Iranian "swarm" capability, there are counter measures available for that eventuality, too. A Phalanx gatling gun can put a lot of holes into inflatables.

Of course, just like for the Enterprise, this ship will now be the basis of "false flag sacrifice" rumors.

reply to post by schuyler


We currently have 4 minesweepers in the Gulf, according to the RN...

As for the OP, its quite impressive the USN have refurbished such an old ship and made it capable in multiple roles. It looks quite a bit like the old HMS Fearless, which was paid off in 2002.

So the latest ATS trend is declare whatever ship happens to be headed into the Gulf as going to be sunk to start a war. A war that the US could start whenever they wanted to anyway if they wanted to.

from your article what i found to be the most telling was this quote

Allies and friends are important, but they can veto American missions initiated from bases on their territory. The Ponce operates from international waters. Surprise and speed are critical to military success; the Ponce can sail close to areas of conflict. And having the ability to carry out different missions for different branches of the armed services is more valuable than having a weapons platform that does just one thing for one branch of the military.

so this could be an escalation of sorts in the sense that from the articles point of view we are hedging our bets in case we cant get allied support to use their territory we will just go in from international waters and advertising it as a way to get around potential vetoes

Originally posted by greyhat
Fully loaded with tons of diesel the Ponce will be the perfect "torch of freedom" picture source in the Persian Gulf for CNN et al.

"WASHINGTON — One of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran."

www.nytimes.com...

Also there's a 'Sizzling start to the year' caption below a picture of a house on fire.

Its common to use old ships for mine sweep support ships. during Operation End Sweep off north Vietnam we had a WW2 LST

They use old ships for mine sweep support because they have to be close in to support the mine sweep operations and are targets for mines that may be in the area and a enemy that might be trying to disrupt the sweep operations.(expendable)

U.S.S Ponce? oooooooooh, HELLO SAILOR!

But in all seriousness, do we have to keep saying "x ship is in the straight of Hormuz, IT'S DUH SACRIFICIAL LAMB, FALSE FLAG, FALSE FLAG". It's a little Alex Jones'esque.

Apparently people are tired of the "Oh my god! There are (insert number here) carriers in the Gulf! It's war!" so now they're moving on to other ships that are in the area. There are a bunch of escorts for the carriers, and the mine sweepers, so we're probably in for a lot of sacrificial lamb posts.

**NEWS JUST IN** A rubber duck manufactured in Texas that drifted into the straight of Hormuz was blown up in suspicious circumstances. FALSE FLAG!

Originally posted by schuyler
Of course, just like for the Enterprise, this ship will now be the basis of "false flag sacrifice" rumors.

That Enterprise fish was to big so they sent some smaller piece of rusty scrap metal...