Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru
But wouldn't deploying a few hundreds of naval mine and their Kilo submarines in the straits a good and almost passive way to block it and to make the tast to re-open it a hellish one?
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Kilo submarines? Here is the depth chart of the Persian gulf:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St...ormuz_full.jpg
Deploying submarines in such shallow waters without air superiority is pretty much suicidal. I highly doubt they are going to do that unless they are really desperate.
As for mines, how are they going to deploy them? They don't have any advantage in the air, on the surface or below. They might have some success once or twice, but that leads to a situation in which their ships or planes are never going to enter the gulf again.
They actually have an easier alternative, which are anti-ship cruise missiles. The oil tankers are massive targets without any defense. If they have mobile launch vehicles then such attacks are hard to prevent.