[jambutty]

The captain of HMS Cornwall should be court martialled for dereliction of duty.

All warships have navigation radar, which will track just about anything a few yards from the ship to around 25 miles away. In my day in the fifties and sixties the navigation radar could track a man walking along the dockside and radar will not have got worse but better since then.

On HMS Alamein out in Cyprus waters we did exactly the same as HMS Cornwall. We sent out boarding parties to inspect shipping in the area for contraband and our battle class destroyer stood by less than one quarter of a mile away. The watch on deck would keep a visual eye on the boarding party plus a radar watch at all times until they were safely back on board. And we did much of our boarding at night. The Cornwall incident happened in broad daylight.

I would expect that Cornwall’s Standing Orders for boarding ships would include at least keeping a radar watch on their boarding party and the surrounding area with an emphases on the surrounding area. The radar would have displayed the oncoming Iranian craft long before they were in a position to surround the boarding party. So how come no one spotted them and challenged them? A six inch shell whistling over their heads would certainly have gained their attention and made them think twice about proceeding further.

I feel that it will be more than a few days before the 15 sailors and marines are released.