U.S. Helicopters DESTROY an Iranian Spy Boat Shadowing Navy Warships | Mike Drop Newsroom

Iran parked a spy boat next to U.S. warships and American helicopters went ahead and lit it up.

U.S. forces destroy an Iranian spy boat watching Navy ships.

CENTCOM says U.S. forces destroyed an Iranian-linked DOW in the Gulf of Oman that was conducting surveillance on U.S. Navy ships.

Navy sailors pulled the crew off first, then two attack helicopters fired missiles and set the boat on fire.

This happened October 6th.

CENTCOM released it this week with a video.

Why does this matter? Well, Iran uses small boats as spotters to target U.S.

ships and the U.S. is now taking them out.

You know, I've done boarding and maritime ops in the region before.

I think the debate tends to be pulling the crew off first versus not.

Now, I have no doubt that there's a number of listeners out there and viewers that would prefer that we just take the boat out and wipe out the crew first and there's an argument to be made for that.

There's also a counterargument for pulling the crew off and gathering intelligence.

You know, it's kind of the same debate really with the bin Laden raid is, you know, we could have sent Tomahawk cruise missiles and just blown the whole thing up.

No way to get any real battle damage assessment off of something like that and there's, you know, a kind of in-your-face type of mentality of pulling the crew off or doing it in person first and then destroying it.

From an intelligence gathering standpoint, it's very clear-cut.

It's far more valuable to pull the crew off first, you know, interrogate or interview them, gather whatever you can from the boat, find out what technology they're using, what they've gathered.

You know, the treasure trove of intelligence for doing something like that far outweighs just blowing it up.

There is one caveat, though, and this is a tactic that has been used for a number of years, I mean decades really, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the suicide bomber component.

You know, if they do that and they have the entire boat rigged for explosives and you just have martyrs on board that either aren't collecting intelligence or they are, but the ultimate goal is to essentially clack themselves off the same way they did with the USS Cole, you know, as soon as the shipboarder sailors get on board, then, you know, that's obviously a pretty dicey proposition.

So, you know, it's a far more dangerous operation than I think is maybe represented in the headline because of the ability or the capacity, potentially the desire for them to do something like that.

But I do think it makes sense to board it, pull them off, gather whatever intel you can, find out what they're learning, see how they're listening, you know, and then take that target out.

But I would like to get your guys' opinion on that.

Do you think it makes sense to pull the crew off first? I do, but I'd love to hear what you guys think.