Right now as I’m writing this, Israel is under a missile attack launched from Iran. Simultaneously, there was a terrorist gunmen attack in the city of Jaffa, Israel with many injuries.
One story that has gotten very little coverage is that a US Naval ship, USNS Big Horn, either ran aground or hit a submerged object, incapacitating the ship. Pictures, have shown major flooding in the lower portions of the ship. What little I’ve found in reporting is that the Big Horn will need to be towed into port for repairs.
The Big Horn is what is known as an “oiler” supplying petroleum products to other Navy ships. She supplies FUEL to the TWO aircraft carriers Strike Groups that are deployed in the Middle East. The FUEL that she replenishes is used to gas up the aircraft on the carriers. Without the “oiler” eventually the carriers run out of aviation gas and all the aircraft become grounded. My guess is that as the FUEL supplies run low the flying missions become limited to protecting the nuclear powered carriers and they stop flying missions to intercept drones and missiles fired by Iran and their proxy nations. The aircraft can no longer execute air strikes on enemy targets. There are no other “oilers” in the region, therefore the immediate problem is that the FUEL limited carrier groups are hobbled.
The previous missile attach on Israel from Iran utilized a combination of aircraft from the Brits and the Jordanians, but the majority of air interceptor assets were most likely carrier based US aircraft. With FUEL hobbled carrier groups, would there be a better time to launch a missile attach on Israel?
How important is FUEL? Let’s revisit some World War II history. In December 1944, Hitler launched his last great offensive, which is known as the “Battle of The Bulge“. What happened during this German attack? From the website military.mil, “German vehicles, particularly their armor, began running out of fuel, as many of the Allied fuel dumps that they had hoped to capture intact were destroyed by the fleeing Americans. … Hitler’s last gamble in the West had ended in failure.“