The us is pretty fvcked in terms of controlling the strait of Hormuz.

Escalating the war there isn't going to convince commercial tankers its safe to go through, and it would be prohibitively expensive to escort every ship. The only way it'll work in the near term is if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard agrees to stop attacking ships there, and right now they are demanding enormous concessions that will essentially guarantee their survival for decades.

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PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

And oil market experts are saying we haven't even seen the impact yet. They are predicting the worst shortage ever.

And Iran is winning. They dictate the terms.

And escorts would not just be costly it is suicidal.

You would see. US Navy ships burning alongside the tankers.

The straits are so narrow they would even be targetable by standard field artillery on the mainland and with drones anti ship missiles and ballistic missiles it would be a turkey shoot.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I measured the Strait from an atlas: barely 10 miles at narrowest, between Iran and a peninsula bordered as a very small exclave of Oman surrounded by the United Arab Emirates.

That 10 miles of course does not account for any navigation hazards such as reefs or shoals on the UAE side of the channel.

The USA's Services personnel are courageous and highly trained, but sending them into that area reminds me of the 19C, dreadful British army error subsequently commemorated as 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. The main tactical difference is that the fire would come from one coast, not both. (The Light Brigade was shot from high on both sides of a valley.)

The flottila would almost certainly be under attack well before trying to enter the Persian Gulf, since as Sir Francis Drake observed in the 16C, you can't hide approaching ships and you can calculate their progress - while now Russia is able to tell Iran where the US forces are even before they heave into view.