Taiwan Straits

[j.sabourn]

#18 If you asked an elderly real Australian , think they would put more faith in American assistance than anyone else ,all they have to do is look at the history of the last war and how Australia had to pull troops back to Australia to assist the yanks in protection of their own lands. Cheers JS

[Graham Shaw]

Was that code named the Amillia patrol John? Did the same thing many times and as you say they would let a foreign flag vessel tag on, yes we got war bonus. As you say some never shutup when they were told to. One such ship that was attacked with several casualties was the World Knight. He never shut up think it was around midnight he got hit. I was on the UASC ship Ibn Al-Haitham at the time. I think that was in 1984?

WORLD KNIGHT

Japanese built turbo-electric tanker of 258,437 tonnes dwt,built 1975 for Liberian Argo Transports Inc.Liberian flag.


[Extract from a Lloyds publication]
'On October 8th,1984 while bound for Kharg Island in ballast to load a consignment of Iranian crude oil the steam tanker World Knight was struck in the engine room by an Exocet missile fired by an Iraqi warplane at about 11.15 am local time,when she was about 40 miles south of her destination in lat.28-30N.long.50-25E.
A huge fire erupted in the accommodation area following the explosion ,resulting in the eventual deaths of 9 of her crew,these being 2 Britons,1 Indian and 6 Hong Kong- Chinese,with another 6 suffering burns injuries to varying degrees.The surviving crew members were all taken off the blazing vessel,which was towed to Dubai after the fire had been extinguished by salvage tugs.Insured for GB£ 6.8m,the World Knight was declared a War Constructive Total Loss due to the extent of the damage sustained and was sold to Taiwanese shipbreakers ,arriving at Kaohsiung in tow on Jan.31st 1985,demolition actually commencing some five weeks later'.

[Doc Vernon]

Think if I lived in Australia I would be very worried about the building agression and threat of China attacking Taiwan.

Yes James if all this keeps growing as it looks so, then we here should be worried, but my thoughts at this time is no panacking for quite sme time yet! Think it wont happen in my time anyway??
But any threat of Wat anywhere in the World is always a worry, and especiallt here now, with what Forces and capabiliteis Australia has at hand, is far too little to withstand any mass War!
I see that our Government has committed a lot of Funds to increse the Armaments etc here, but even with that we would still need a lot more!
In a way i think that Australia relies a lot on the USA for assistance in the time of a real crises , but as they are so far way, would it be feasable to think that they reallt could do much???
Oh well as the World is going Bonkers all over, i guess we will just have to live with al this and see what happens ! LOL
cHEERS

[James Curry]

https://www.aukevisser.nl/supertanke...20W-Z/id21.htm. During the Iran Iraq war the convoy would start moving up the gulf with the plan being to to get clear of the Straits of Hormuz during the hours of darkness.

[j.sabourn]

I don’t think any of us know the different levels of sophisticated weaponry that exists today unless one is involved in that particular department of that particular segment of the military . Whatever any of us think we know is always going to be extremely dated .The last time I was on the fringes of the military was 40 years ago and even then the little that I saw the man in the street would be unaware of. Today night and day mean little night time visuality was nearly as good as daytime even then, and there will be 40 years of improvement there by now. Any world war with the main powers today would be suicide for all, and feel sure this must be played out continually in a mock scenario and will have to be a complete nation of idiots to start one.Although Putin is considered close to lunacy even he will know the consequences and if he doesn’t there are plenty of other members of his party who
do. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Most nations now are in a state of muscle flexing, trying to look more powerful than the rest.
Yes we know there are some very sophisticated weapons out there, but who is game to use them?

One problem is that no country knows exactly what another has.
Yet there are some such as USA, UK, France, and China building and supplying arms to any one who is willing to pay the price.

Who will be game enough to fire the first shot?
Because who ever does will be the one to bring the earth as we know to an end.
It is all very well for Biden and a few others to give support to Ukraine from afar, but what if Russia or some other rouge nation decides on an approach of attack to one of the UN nations?

Is sleepy Joe going to sit and just look?

There is no knowing of where the world will go from here in the next few years but it does not look promising.

[j.sabourn]

John apart from marching soldiers and waving banners the outward appearance of representing war. There is also the secret war on going of attacking unsuspecting countries by the B out of the ABC warfare , the B represents the biological war ,the other two Atomic and Chemical. I certainly hope the recent waves of Covid and Monkey Pox and any other strange allurgy to appear on the landscape comes up under the title of military suspicion and is kept under suspicion until cleared. Those who did the courses in 1960 on Merchant Navy Defence would or should remember them. Cheers JS
PS Cappy reckons he had to wear rubber gloves when peeling the tatties .JS

[Johnny Kieran]

I think todays tensions is a reminder of the early 60s during the Cuba thing, but just bigger, more world wide.

[j.sabourn]

#28. Exactly Johnny, for those who remember the Cuban Crisis and I certainly can. It was a replica of what has happened in the Ukraine , and could of had similar repercussions. Started very similar as in Europe where NATO was deploying missiles close to the Russian border , and in response Krushev with Castro’s agreement tried to do similar to America by deploying similar in Cuba.It then became a stalemate and a face off. Krushev appeared to back down. And withdrew his missiles from Cuba. I rather think although it was never printed as news ,that Krushev got concessions by having missiles removed from his borders. Putin probably was well aware of his own Russian history and is a different man and proposition. Cheers JS

[Johnny Kieran]

The tensions carried on for some years after it was sorted. I remember on occasions being buzzed by US fighters and bombers while sailing to the Caribbean. Mind you, there were other times and places when MiGs would fly full speed at mast-top height. I remember looking at the approaching hole of the MiGs, scary stuff at the time.
Once we were painting the deck green, and one twat wrote "Go home yanks" on the deck. The US bomber and fighter stayed with us for about half an hour, and the skipper, or mate, was bawling at us from the bridge to paint it out. All seems funny now, but as someone pointed out in another thread, people wouldn't believe it these days.