15 Royal Navy Personnel taken prisoner

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glojo

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Just heard on the local news that fifteen Royal Navy personnel including a number of Royal Marines have been detained by the Iranian Navy whilst boarding a merchant ship off hte coast ofIraq.

These men are at present serving onboard HMS Cornwall the flagship and it also has a Flag Officer onboard.

John
 
It appears somebody is asking for a slap. What will the Sun make of it?!
 
I cannot understand why we are operating there without close-at-hand naval support to stop this sort of thing?
Les
 
Just blow them to peices why do we tolerate this?

20 years ago the SAS would already be prparing for a mission to free them.

That Ahmedinejad is a real sh1t stirrer and will only lead this world to more conflict watch this space...
 
20 years ago the SAS would already be prparing for a mission to free them.

Or the SBS even :rolleyes:

I'm sure once they've pinched all the pasties they'll give the boat back :D
 
Just blow them to peices why do we tolerate this?

20 years ago the SAS would already be prparing for a mission to free them.

That Ahmedinejad is a real sh1t stirrer and will only lead this world to more conflict watch this space...

If they're not freed within 36 hours, they'll be warming up the choppers at Stirling Lines. :rolleyes:
 
I cannot understand why we are operating there without close-at-hand naval support to stop this sort of thing?
Les
All the news reports state these men are part of the crew of HMS Cornwall, this is the senior British warship off Iraq. Are you suggesting they were not operating from this ship?

Regards,
John the curious
 
All the news reports state these men are part of the crew of HMS Cornwall, this is the senior British warship off Iraq. Are you suggesting they were not operating from this ship?

Regards,
John the curious

Well, not that I've read alot about this but if we had a destroyer next to the merchant ship, what was it doing whilst all this was going on? I'm curious too.

Les
 
Well, not that I've read alot about this but if we had a destroyer next to the merchant ship, what was it doing whilst all this was going on? I'm curious too.

Les

The naval personnel from HMS Cornwall performing merchant ship inspections, navigate the Shatt-al-Arab waterway using motorised dinghies, not necessarily in the vicinity of the destroyer.
 
Well, not that I've read alot about this but if we had a destroyer next to the merchant ship, what was it doing whilst all this was going on? I'm curious too.

Les
The Commodore has been interviewed and stated the men had inspected a merchant ship, and had just got back to their boats when they were arrested. At the time of the incident the ship's helicopter was giving these men 'top cover' (his words :))

I wasn't there, but I would be very surprised if this incident happened out of sight of this FRIGATE :) We are talking about very small fibre glass boats or even gemini rubber dinghys which are used to carry boarding parties from the warship to its destination. For safety reasons I would guess the warship would lay off to a safe distance, no sense getting a huge asset (for us:eek: ) damaged.

Please don't think I'm arguing with you but HMS Cornwall is not a destroyer.

I note that oil has already gone up a $1 a barrel purely because of this incident.

I wonder if in this day of excellent communications the Commodore had to get in touch with Whitehall before taking hostile action? The Iranian vessels MUST surely have been detected on radar? (question)

At sea there is an international channel for communications, would the British warship have warned these Iranian warships away?

In the days before this very clever satellite communications I would like to think this very senior British Royal Navy Officer would have been allowed to act on his own initiative?

If we are to believe the Royal Navy personnel were captured in International waters, then is this an act of war? What would happen if these men refused to comply with the orders of the Iranian warships?

Oh no!! :D :D :eek: Who is watching Horsey Beckett (her voice was very hoarse:eek: :eek:, not that she looks like a horse;) )

I'm sure she did not realise the camera was live. Three attempts to make one 'live' broadcast :) :)

John the very curious
 
Or the SBS even :rolleyes:

I'm sure once they've pinched all the pasties they'll give the boat back :D
Ivor Dewdney's no doubt? :D

I bet Cap'n Jasper aint supplying free Whitehouse Wonders to our roughie tuffy fighting machines that are out there :devil: :devil: :)

Take care
John the cheeky
 
Just blow them to peices why do we tolerate this?

20 years ago the SAS would already be prparing for a mission to free them.

That Ahmedinejad is a real sh1t stirrer and will only lead this world to more conflict watch this space...

I can think of others who have probably done far worse... Can Mr Bush and Blair also be accused of the same? Just out of interest?

Where they really in Iraqi waters? and were they really just checking a vessel "claimed" to be a smugglers? What was the name of this vessel/boat just out of interest? Where have they gone now? Do we really believe what is being reported on news to be accurate? Why were they so far away from HMS Cornwall? Just playing devils advocate here..

This has happened before.. http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1140353,00.html

Any excuse is needed to inflate the price of oil and I bet there are many who are quite happy with this situation.

I cannot understand why we are operating there without close-at-hand naval support to stop this sort of thing?
Les

Wonder why too...

At sea there is an international channel for communications, would the British warship have warned these Iranian warships away?

s

Gets more interesting... maybe they were not acting in accordance to international diplomatic relations etc? who knows whats really going on?
 
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Frigate / Destroyer / Boat / Bathtub!!! - I'm not a naval expert - I just guessed - Les
 
Just to add.. It seems that the Iranians contacted the British advising that the vessel had strayed into Iranian waters???? and were warned? SKy news?

Also.. a presenter slipped by saying that the "marines" also use the kind of boat captured :rolleyes: immidialty moved onto something else as Francis Tusa stared at him!
 
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I have an interest in this situation and am monitoring numerous news channels. The merchant ship was believed to be smuggling cars into Iraq, it was searched, its papers were allegedly in order and the Royal Navy personnel were returning to there vessels.

The US Navy has joined in the debate and reported they picked up a radio conversation from the Iranians stating they had arrested the British personnel because they were in their territorial waters! The US Navy are absolutely emphatic as are the Royal Navy that the British vessels were all in Iraqi waters??

The one thing that is 100% certain is that there will be radar printouts of this incident which will record the EXACT location of ALL participants. What isn't being discussed is that this area is NOT a huge ocean with hundreds of miles seperating one nation from another. I can see this incident being a dispute over what is Iraqi territory and what is Iranian? The bottom line at the moment is Iran 15 Great Britain 0

If you are going to play the game, then you don't play to loose??Those fifteen service personnel thought they had the back-up and support of their mother ship\helicopter? I just hope this gets resolved sooner, rather than later and we do NOT have the humiliating picture of our service personnel being paraded in front of Iranian TV.

I somehow feel the United States are enjoying this incident.

John
 
Well , no doubt about it, if they aren't given back soon , we'll be in .....

As long as Tony and co don't try and pussyfoot around
 
I don't want to post all my thoughts on this situation onto the forum. There are a number of worrying possibilities that have crossed my mind. My fingers crossed for them but it might take much longer than 3 days.
Les
 
Why were they so far away from HMS Cornwall? Just playing devils advocate here..
Hi Mobe,
No one has answered your questions so here is a thought.

The warship is extremely vunerable when close to a vessel it suspects of illegal activiity, it is far safer to lower a boat into the water and let the crew board the vessel. The distances involved will depend on a whole host of conditions and we arm chair judges can only speculate. Regarding size of the boats being used? All I will say is any boat being used MUST be capable of being easily lifted and lowered into the water by the ship. This is a very large frigate, which is the size of the older destroyers :D :D That was why Dittrich was confused, but it does NOT have the deck space to carry boats of any great size. I would guess they were the ships own boats which are being seen on various news clips. Having said that it could be that there were a few larger craft attached to HMS Cornwall and not capable of being lifted onto the ship? So could be, might be, or even maybe.

Now HMS Cornwall is the flagship carrying the Commander of the task force, so there will no doubt be excellent communications between the ship and the UK. The Headquarters always used to be based here and that may well still be the case? :) The problem with good communications is you need someone to make a decision. That is dead easy for us armchair fighters to do but when it is for real, the 'Take a baseball bat and bash their heads in'. Might not be the answer. Nuke them I say!

The snag is that any use of violence is going to esculate the situation BIG TIME. Who here genuinely wants us to declare war on Iran? I should imagine the instant the Flag Officer got in communications with Northwood, everyone there took one step back and allolwed the senior duty officer to do the talking:) :) You can bet this person would then want to speak 'upwards' and by the time a decision was made...... The full time whistle had already been blown for this first leg. The next leg will be played by diplomats....

John
 
Just heard on the local news that fifteen Royal Navy personnel including a number of Royal Marines have been detained by the Iranian Navy whilst boarding a merchant ship off hte coast ofIraq.

These men are at present serving onboard HMS Cornwall the flagship and it also has a Flag Officer onboard.

John


Perhaps could be an Iranian "touche" for this......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6251167.stm
 

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