Just as Iran claims that it is reverse-engineering their Bladerunner 51 and transforming it to carry missiles and torpedoes, BBC’s File on 4 put the transcript of my discussion of the Bladerunner threat online. Previous commentary here and the transcript is here. Unless Iranians are stuffing their re-makes full of explosive, I really don’t see Iran arming the Bradstone Challenger variant of the Bladerunner 51 without compromising the highly engineered platform’s ability to offer a stable, smooth ride. A Bladerunner 51 with torpedo tubes? Gimme a break.
And then, just as Gates alerts everybody that he’s cutting a few admirals, Navy Times put their June 28 print-only article on rank inflation on line. It’s where I rant about rank inflation–and that never gets old. Previous commentary on that article can be found over here.
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All this boat needs to devastate a Carrier Battle Group is attack in swarms a couple-dozen-strong, and each launch a single 1500lb MM.40 Exocet missile.
It only takes one hit to completely blow-apart ANY ships in the “Tinfoil Navy” (they have hull no armor, despite the massive global proliferation of anti-ship missiles), so that would do it.
Besides, it’s not as if we *don’t know* this will happen — remember the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise?