DoD photo
operation PRIME CHANCE
ABOVE: A U.S. Navy Special Boat Unit Mark III patrol boat pulls alongside a raft from the Iranian mine-laying ship Iran Ajr. LEFT: The crane aboard the barge Hercules prepares to lift a Mark III patrol boat into the water for a patrol. The 65-foot aluminum patrol boats worked in pairs to monitor small boat activity in the Gulf. A specially equipped 160th SOAR UH-60
DoD photo by Senior Chief Photographer’s Mate Terry Mitchell
Black Hawk helicopter is parked on the helicopter pad.
was not so much to sink as to inflict as much damage as possible on the ship and crew. Prime Chance was a joint special operations and conventional force operation utilizing personnel from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) – the 160th SOAR, or “Night Stalkers” – SEALs, Special Boat Units, Marines, and the Navy. Prime Chance began with missions launched from Bernsen’s flagship, the command ship USS La Salle (AGF 3), and frigates USS Jarrett (FFG 33) and Klakring
(FFG 42). Additional missions were planned to be staged from two large oil platform construction barges – the Hercules and the Wimbrown VII – located in Bahrain that were being converted into mobile sea bases (MSBs). Once operational, they would then be deployed in international waters near Iran’s Farsi Island in the northern Gulf. The conversion of the barges, and especially their deployed location, sparked a bureaucratic firestorm among traditionalists in the Pentagon opposed to the mobile sea base concept. Joint Chiefs of Staff critics of the plan claimed the MSBs would be irresistible targets dangerously vulnerable to air attack. With memories of the 1983 truck bomb attack on Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, still fresh, some went so far as to call the barges “Beirut Barracks.” Every operational aspect of the barges – from arms and ordnance storage and types, numbers, and placement of patrol craft and helicopters to pilot flight certifications, Navy health inspections of the barges’ food service areas, and more – was examined and argued by the Joint Chiefs. Bernsen countered that Iranian air capability against the barges was a non-issue – Iran had only 20 operable F-4 Phantoms and few Harpoons. U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. George B. Crist, USMC, threw in an additional challenge: “Would you rather risk losing two oil barges or a billion-dollar ship?” This was a stinging www.defensemedianetwork.com
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