I wonder, if by some quirk in navigation, one of our Air Craft Carriers accidentally strayed one mile into Iran's territorial waters, would they seize it and all 3000 sailors aboard?
Originally Posted by Jackie S
they could try but it would be futile. the Iranian Navy really does not have much ability to counter a ship like an Aircraft Carrier. a carrier task group is a formidable force. yeah the Iranians have subs but a carrier task force always has an attack sub to counter that threat. Iranian subs i would have to think are not advanced enough to challenge a state of the art US attack sub. not to mention the surface ships are also equipped to defend against subs. lastly, the surface fleet by design forms a screen around the carrier to deter torpedo attacks.
Air power by the Iranian air force? an Aircraft Carrier IS air power. the Iranians would have to launch a huge force, hundreds of planes to have any chance by sheer numbers to overwhelm the air wing of a carrier. and hundreds of older planes in the Iranian air force would be shot out of the air 10 to 1 easily by state of the art US planes.
certainly, the Iranians would have some chance to damage a carrier, mainly by launching huge numbers of missiles and hoping that the US force could not counter them all.
their best chance probably would be a kamikaze type attack, again presuming they could through the defensive screen of the task force.
at best they might be able to disable a carrier but i don't see any real possibility to actually destroy it. but they'd have to take out the rest of the force ships which are many to have an opportunity to capture a carrier. very unlikely.
in short, a fully operational carrier task force is too big a fish for the Iranians to tackle with much chance of success.