The narrowness of the Strait of Hormuz makes the danger of sea mines more acute, as ships have less room to maneuver and greater odds of striking one of the weapons.
  • Paragone@lemmy.world
    2·
    18 hours ago

    There’s a problem with that, IF the Iranians are intelligent on this ( which they may not be: mistakes happen )

    IF they mine the straight to block it, THEN they cannot allow their-allies’ ships through.

    That is significant.

    Apparently they’ve allowed Chinese ship(s) through.

    So, if they mine it, & then no matter how much they want to, they can’t guarantee the safe-passage of their-ally’s ship, then that hurts them.

    Unless they’re only mining the far side, so they can force tankers to get close to their weapons, as a means of enforcing that only Iran decides who gets through…

    They’d be mining other-country’s territorial-waters, then, though.

    Anyways, something seems unright about it,

    & I don’t know whether they have clearly understood that they need to be able to allow some through, & if they prevent that, then they borked their own leverage-with-allies.

    Just a bit of perspective, is all.

    _ /\ _

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
      9·
      18 hours ago

      When you lay mines you also build a map of where you laid the mines. Likewise, they’ll almost assuredly mine in such a way as to strategically block the passage in such a way so that it favors their ability to control the passage. So yeah. They’ll almost assuredly only be mining the far side of the passage.

      If the oil keeps flowing to China and SEA, I don’t see how Iran loses. The US is currently announcing they’ll be escorting ships through the straight, but exactly how, is very unclear.

      You might check this out: https://lemmy.world/post/44184651, its from the “whats going on with shipping” channel.