Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy/Air Force versus World War Two Battleship Flotilla

[Husky_Khan]

The Battlefield is the Straight of Hormuz. The Axis have to transit the Straights of Hormuz to secure their Oil Supplies (stop laughing) or something and have a powerful flotilla of warships through the Straights to get to that succulent oil.

HOWEVER the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Naval and Aerial Assets have been mobilized to stop them at any cost! For reasons they cannot use shore based weapons like Silkworms or whatever, they can only use their fleet of ships and planes to intercept the Axis Flotilla and stop them from getting all of that juicy Middle Eastern Oil. Likewise the Axis can't proactively attack the Iranians in Port for the same bullshit reasons. They have to wait for them to leave port and enter open water. Just the way it is...

Axis Fleet:

German Contingent
Gneisenau
Scharnhorst
Tirpitz
Bismarck

Japanese Contingent
Yamato
Musashi
Yamashiro
Fuso

Italian Contingent
Littorio
Vittorio Veneto
Roma
Impero

IRGC Fleet and Air Force:

55 Missile Boats Peykaap III Class (armed with two single Kowsar antiship missile launchers and two heavy machine guns)
35 Fast Patrol Boats Kashdom Class (armed with a multiple rocket launcher system, a 23mm automatic cannon and a heavy machine gun)
20 Patrol Boats Ghaem Class (armed with one 23mm automatic cannon and two medium machine guns)
15 Torpedo Boats Peykaap I Class (armed with two 324mm Torpedo Tube Launchers and a heavy machine gun)
3000 Boghammers style Patrol Boats (sub ten ton speedboats equipped with two heavy machine guns, a 106mm recoilless rifle and some guy with an RPG-7 and a five hundred pound explosive charge in the bow for old fashioned suicide ramming)
67 IAIO Toufan Attack Helicopters (equipped with a 20mm Autocannon and two 19 tube 70mm rocket pods)

The Axis Forces are on alert despite the mandated ROE's as they transit through the Straights of Hormuz. Once they reach Kuwaiti/Iraqi Waters they'll be safe.

What happens?

 

[PsihoKekec]

Missile boats can damage superstructure of the battleships, making it easier for torpedo boats to come closer and score hits on battleships, damage hopefully slowing them down, so that torpedo boats can run back to the port to reload and strike again.
Secondaries and tertiaries of the battleships will inflict considerable casualties on the patrol boats and speed boats, but recoilless rifles and RPGs will do a number on the superstructures, starting numerous fires. I wonder how effective the suicide ramming would be, battleships had considerable armor at the waterline, I reckon the charges would be more effective if they could be detached and set to detonate at the depth of ten meters.

Anyway, while Iranians could batter the battleships, I think most would reach their destination.

 

[bintananth]

None of the Axis battleships are reaching their destination or getting out of the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian torpedoes, which I'm assuming are modern ones, can be set to detonate under a battleship's keel and break it ... completely bypassing their armour and torpedo defense systems.

The other Iranian ships would just be distractions meant to draw the battleships' secondary fire away from the torpedo boats while they lined up their shots.

Remember: Battleships rarely went anywhere without a destroyer screen because their main battery, while powerful at long-range, was absolutely worthless against fast-moving and highly maneuverable targets at close range.

 

[Buba]

@bintananth IMO has the gist of it - even if puny by WWII standards (533/609mm) the modern torpedos, with modern explosives, will be the real killers.
Ramming? The blast will dissipate against the armoured belt and sear the paint.
Missiles are a mixed bag ...
If they manage to get in range the RPG/106mm recoiless rifles might cause some superstructure fires.
All attacks have to be made at night, as besides the 100mm tertiary/AA battery there are 25/37mm AA - even if the KM had the worst light AA and the IJN the 2nd worst in the war, but still ...


And, as mentioned by @bintananth, battleships very rarely show up without friends.
German raiding battleships were freaks!

 

[Husky_Khan]

None of the Axis battleships are reaching their destination or getting out of the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian torpedoes, which I'm assuming are modern ones, can be set to detonate under a battleship's keel and break it ... completely bypassing their armour and torpedo defense systems.

The other Iranian ships would just be distractions meant to draw the battleships' secondary fire away from the torpedo boats while they lined up their shots.

Remember: Battleships rarely went anywhere without a destroyer screen because their main battery, while powerful at long-range, was absolutely worthless against fast-moving and highly maneuverable targets at close range.

Well worse comes to worse (tee hee!) we can replace the modern torpedoes with World War Two era Torpedoes and Launchers, for maximum bloodletting.

And yeah, I was aware of having a small ship screen, but for this scenario, had to go with min-maxing as a narrative choice. If this thread gets more traction/discussion and a passage of time, maybe I'll set up an equally ridiculous thread with a more proper battlegroup.

 

[bintananth]

German raiding battleships were freaks!

They were also very fast and had enough range that the Allies had to spend a huge amount of effort to contain them and/or be rid of them.