The Sunburn Anti-Ship Missile is a Nasty Surprise Awaiting our Warmongers in the Gulf

By Stuart Littlewood

29 February 2012

Stuart Littlewood looks at the tinderbox that is waiting to explode in the Persian Gulf as the USA and Britain contemplate doing Israel’s bidding and attacking Iran, and suggests that if Britain’s Israel flag wavers love Israel so much, then they should “don uniform and flak-jacket” and go play in the tinderbox themselves.

The most important thing I’ve read these last few days is the excellent article “Armageddon Approaches” by Dr Lasha Darkmoon , a cautionary piece which points the reader towards some very scary background information.

The Gulf tinderboxFor example, according to Russ Winter of the Wall Street Examiner, Iran’s Sunburn missiles, acquired from Russia and China over the last 10 years, have the capability of creating “a world of hurt” for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

The Sunburn is perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world, designed to fly as low as nine feet above ground/water at more than 1,500 miles per hour (mach 2 plus). The missile uses a violent pop-up maneuver for its terminal approach to throw off Phalanx and other US anti-missile defence systems. Given their low cost, they’re perfectly suited for close quarter naval conflict in the bathtub-like Persian Gulf.

With its 90-mile range, the Sunburn can be fired from practically any platform, including a flat bed truck, and could hit a ship in the Strait of Hormuz in less than a minute.

Mark Gaffney adds this warning: “The US Navy has never faced anything in combat as formidable as the Sunburn missile.”

He mentions the even more-advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles, also Russian-made (speed: Mach 2.9; range: 180 miles) deployed by the Iranians along the Gulf’s northern shore.

Every US ship will be exposed and vulnerable. When the Iranians spring the trap, the entire lake will become a killing field…

In the Gulf’s shallow and confined waters evasive manoeuvres will be difficult, at best, and escape impossible. Even if US planes control the skies over the battlefield, the sailors caught in the net below will be hard-pressed to survive. The Gulf will run red with American blood.

As both writers point out, the Iranians will have mapped every firing angle along their Gulf coastline. And the rugged terrain will not make detection easy.

“Shooting fish in a barrel,” but who are the fish this time?

Britain recently announced the deployment of HMS Daring, a new Type 45 destroyer, to the Gulf in order to send a significant message to the Iranians because of the firepower and world-beating technology carried by this warship. A Daily Telegraph report says it has been fitted with new technology that will give it the ability to “shoot down any missile in Iran’s armoury. The GBP 1 billion destroyer … also carries the world’s most sophisticated naval radar, capable of tracking multiple incoming threats from missiles to fighter jets.” Her 48 Sea Vipers can shoot down fighters as well as sea-skimming missiles.

Apart from HMS Daring, Britain is believed to have at least three other vessels in the Persian Gulf, and more can be sent. Are they all equipped with the same world-beating technology?
Dr Darkmoon observes:

Both America and Israel are unfortunately just not ready to wage the type of warfare they prefer to wage and at which they so excel: shooting fish in a barrel. Unlike Iraq, which the warmonger neoconservatives told us would be a “cakewalk” – easily conquered in six weeks – Iran is unlikely to offer its American and Israeli antagonists easy opportunities to indulge in their fish-in-a-barrel fantasies.

The spectacle of the world’s school-yard bully, the United States, flanked by hooligan helpmates Britain, France and Canada all menacing Iran is building up to a chilling climax. If what I’m reading is correct, British ships in the bathtub of the Persian Gulf will be among the fish in the barrel on this occasion, with Iran doing the shooting. Britain’s chief hooligans, William Hague and David Cameron, could be courting disaster for the much-vaunted HMS Daring. Why are they getting us involved anyway? It’s obviously not for Britain, whose best interests are served by making friends and doing business with Iran.

No, they suffer the same delusions as their erstwhile partner in crime, the disgraced former defence secretary, Liam Fox, and the many others in our Parliamentary establishment who have swallowed the daft idea that Israel’s enemies are Britain’s enemies. How much sense can you expect from people who are signed-up Friends of Israel – in Hague’s case since the tender age of 15?
Diplomacy? What diplomacy?As the whole world surely knows by now the US-British track record in Iran doesn’t bear examination. And when they get on their high horse and spout about democracy everyone falls about laughing. Who overthrew Iran’s fledgling democracy in 1953? Who trashed Palestine’s democracy in 2006? Who keeps banging on about Israel being the “only democracy in the Middle East” when, actually, it’s a racist ethnocracy?…