Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Suez Canal

It probably hasn't escaped the notice of various state and non-state actors that the recent grounding of the M/V Ever Given has made it starkly clear that even a short-term blockage of the Canal can cause all manner of havoc on the global trade system.

I've been through the Canal, twice, but not since the Egyptians began constructing parallel segments to the Canal. From looking at satellite imagry on Google Earth, it would appear that there are two single-canal segments north of the Great Bitter Lake, each roughly twenty miles in length. The sixteen-mile segment between the Great Bitter Lake and the Red Sea is single-lane. That's close to sixty miles of canal that, if a single ship breaks down, the entire Canal is closed.

It's no small project to attack a ship and smack it hard enough to disable it, let alone sink it. Besides getting in there with the necessary gear, they have to either have a plan for self-extraction or go in as a suicide mission. It would not be easy to arrange and stage such an attack.

But, on the other hand, the Egyptians have to secure a little under 120 miles of canal-bank. If they're not running medium to hig altitude drones over the Canal, I'll be somewhat surprised.

9 comments:

Ten Bears said...

Helicopters ...

Not unlike the Iranian, should they choose, command of the straits.

Comrade Misfit said...

Helicopters can be spotted and allowed for. High-altitude drones, not so much.

Jimmy T said...

I read somewhere that the shutdown cost $400,000,000 a day. Imagine the cost of a months long shut down after a terrorist attack. I'm fairly certain that some group is working the details. We'll see...

Ten Bears said...

I'm sure this has all been gamed out, that our boys (and girls) in mufti are on top of it?

Comrade Misfit said...

Sinking a ship in the Canal would be a mess. Imagine trying to unload, repair and float a large containership in a narrow canal.

Eck! said...

In the end that its doable is not the problem, getting taken off
the face of the earth in reprisal is the problem for the attackers
and their kin.

The blow back would likely be on the scale of response to an attack,
war. Either it would be a total nuts act or self inflicted genocide
imposed on a lot of people.



Eck!

Tod Germanica said...

It must be hard to attack canals successfully because the Axis had many plans to attack Suez and Panama during WWII and none were ever tried. With the brilliant Houthi and other Iranian proxy's drone attacks, the obvious plan would be to target a ship's bridge and try for another out of control canal ramming. Not as easy as damaging Saudi oil facilities but seemingly possible.

0_0 said...

The canal was closed for almost a decade at the start of the Six Day War, right? Complete with ships stranded in the canal. It's not a new concept.

Comrade Misfit said...

Tod, pulling off an air attack against the Panama Canal was an impossibility for the Germans and a practical impossibility for the Japanese. But the IJN was working the problem when the war ended.