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.
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Thursday, April 1, 2021
9 comments:
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Helicopters ...
ReplyDeleteNot unlike the Iranian, should they choose, command of the straits.
Helicopters can be spotted and allowed for. High-altitude drones, not so much.
ReplyDeleteI 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...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this has all been gamed out, that our boys (and girls) in mufti are on top of it?
ReplyDeleteSinking a ship in the Canal would be a mess. Imagine trying to unload, repair and float a large containership in a narrow canal.
ReplyDeleteIn the end that its doable is not the problem, getting taken off
ReplyDeletethe 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!
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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
ReplyDeleteTod, 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.
ReplyDelete