BRITS REACT to America Obliterates Half Of Iran's Navy In 8 Hours! - Operation Praying Mantis

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:04]Hello. Hello. To Brits American tour where we do all things American from us Brits seeing the world of America, what you're up to, what have you been up to, and what you might be getting up to.

[00:00:17]We're getting up to quite a lot at the moment, but yeah, we're giving our brick perspective on all things American, not just Fat Electrician, but places, information, anything Americana, we'll pop it on this channel, but we know our good friend here, the Fat Electrician, and we've done some great ones on BPR channel, aren't we? So uh We have indeed. And one out on this channel. So today we're reacting to America obliterates half of a rain Iran's navy in 8 hours. Operation Praying Mantis. This was done 2 years ago, and obviously this year we know what's happened between the US, Israel, and and Iran.

[00:00:57]So yeah, this will be an interesting one. And we're not doing it because we're re-running a bit of history. We've done this before with Fat Electrician. We're doing it because the lovely Becky headed over to buy me a coffee.com {forward slash} Brew Pops Reacts and said, "Guys, don't care what channel you put it on, but check this one out." So that's exactly what we're going to do.

[00:01:17]All right. Yeah, let's dive back into Fat Electrician, and he's got a great delivery style, so looking forward to this. He does. Ah, yes, the time that the US Navy got upset and destroyed half of Iran's entire naval fleet in a single 8-hour work day.

[00:01:33]Today we're talking about Operation Praying Mantis. But real quick, this video is sponsored by Zidax Custom Gaming PCs. They're all built right here in America with American-based tech support >> Holy straight into his and the one that I use, and the one that I would recommend. I'll have them linked down below if you want to check them out. Let's get to this video. All right, important background info. 1980, Iraq decided to invade Iran.

[00:01:53]Why? Don't really care, not pertinent to the story. However, at the end of that war, Iran decides, "Hey, we're going to pull a page out of the old Art of War by Sun Tzu. We're going to cut off the enemy supply lines, deprive the enemy of nice things. It's going to work out great. Iraq's got a weak navy, we're going to wipe out their navy, and then every time they send out an oil tanker through the Persian Gulf, we're going to blow that up so they can't sell any liquid dinosaur, they can't make any money, they go broke, we win the war, hooray. It's a solid plan." So they do exactly that. Then Kuwait comes out of left field, and they're like, "Hey, we've been financially backing Iraq through this entire war for the past 7 years. We need to make sure they win so we can get our money back. So we're going to go ahead and let Iraq use our oil tankers to export oil." So Iran is like, "Well, that's an easy problem to solve. I'll just blow up all the Kuwaiti oil tankers as well," which is exactly what they do. But here's the catch.

[00:02:39]Kuwait at this point in time is like the one major exporter of oil that wasn't really part of OPEC, meaning that they were selling oil on the global market significantly cheaper than everybody else, driving down the entire oil market. And now that their oil tankers are getting blown up as well, it means that Kuwait can no longer sell oil on the cheap cheap, meaning that Iran has now inadvertently committed the cardinal sin of the late 20th century, raising gas prices. Now the entire western world looks over at the Persian Gulf like, "The fuck?"

[00:03:06]A bit like now, isn't it? The ghost of Sun Tzu is sitting there shaking his head like, "That's that's the one exception. I wouldn't have messed with any supply line except for that one, because we all know what happens next."

[00:03:16]Yep.

[00:03:19]And how funny is this? It's 3 years ago, and yet Yeah.

[00:03:23]>> then decides to assemble the largest naval convoy operation since World War II, send them into the Persian Gulf to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers. It is at this moment that Iran should have been like, "Well, that's unfortunate. Time to figure out plan B, because this obviously is not going to work out."

[00:03:38]However, they decide that they're going to double down. What they're going to do is they're going to take a bunch of magnetic underwater mines, and they're just going to spread them out all over the Persian Gulf in international waters, and Which is what they just done.

[00:03:49]>> consequences.

[00:03:50]>> Yeah, let's try it again. So fast forward, April 14th, 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a guided missile frigate, which is basically brand new at this point. This is like its first big operation, is out there escorting a Kuwaiti oil tanker, and it runs into a minefield, hits a mine, blows up the keel of the ship. The keel is this bottom part right here. It like supports and stabilizes the structure of the entire ship, and it gets blown completely in half. At this point, the only thing holding this boat together is the actual deck. One second, everything's fine, the next second, there's a 15-ft wide hole in the bottom of your ship, everything's on fire, and water is rushing in. The USS Samuel B.

[00:04:28]Roberts took on half of its weight in water in the first minute. This is a catastrophic amount of damage that would sink 99% of ships. But as fate would have it, the crew of the USS Samuel B.

[00:04:38]Roberts had already been winning competitions for having the best damage control crew in the navy. So the entire crew gets to work. They're putting out fires, they're plugging holes, they're literally cinching the hole together with steel cables trying to stabilize it because the only thing holding it together is the deck at this point. Over the course of the next 5 hours, the entire crew fights their ass off and somehow manages to get the situation under control and limp the ship all the way back to Dubai where they can get it to a port. And the most incredible part of all of it, not a single American was killed, only 10 men were injured during the fire and the initial explosions. So the crew survived, the boat's basically completely destroyed. Then America sends in an underwater crew, figure out what happened. They find the remnants of the mine, they check out the other mines.

[00:05:21]Yep, they're Iranian. At this point, now somebody has to inform the president because this is a big deal. And the president at this point in time is, let me check my notes, [ __ ] Ronald Reagan. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

[00:05:32]>> So they go ahead and they brief Ronald Reagan on everything that happened. He's super happy that everybody survived, and he's like, "Okay, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to issue a proportional response." And what the US Navy heard was I thought so. All right, so here's the plan. Iran currently has three oil rigs in the Persian Gulf that are not being used for drilling oil, but as military bases for their naval operations. So the US Navy is going to go ahead and take out all three of those. Now, I don't really know what the guided missile frigate to oil rig exchange ratio is, but we're going to go ahead and err on the side of caution and say that it's not quite proportional enough yet. No.

[00:06:07]He's done it on the BPR.

[00:06:08]>> So Iran also really only has like two modern naval vessels. That's the Iranian frigate Sahand and the Iranian frigate Sabalan. They're going to go ahead and take out at least one of those, maybe both. We'll see how proportional they want to get. And then by the time they get all that done, that should be a nice 8-hour work day. It'll be time to clock out and go get some ice cream. So in order to get all this done by quitting time, they're going to go ahead and establish three different surface attack groups. Each group is going to have two destroyers and one bonus ship. That bonus ship is either going to be an amphibious landing ship or a frigate.

[00:06:36]Either way, they're all going to be identified as Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.

[00:06:40]Bravo group is tasked with taking out two oil rigs. Charlie group is tasked with taking out the one remaining oil rig. And Delta's mission is to go hunt down those two frigates and take them out. And then just for insurance purposes, we're also going to have the USS Enterprise parked right outside the Persian Gulf to provide air support, you know, in case we need it. So April 18th, 1988, Nice. 4 days after the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, Operation Praying Mantis goes into full swing, and Bravo group shows up at their oil rig first. At which point they radio over to the oil rig and inform them that they will be blowing it up in 5 minutes, and that they should [laughter] all leave.

[00:07:12]So a bunch of people start leaving. They hop in tugboats and take off. Bravo group, seeing that they're making an honest effort to actually evacuate, agrees to give them 15 more minutes. So fast forward 20 minutes later, they send out another radio message, "Hey, time's up." They then fire the 5-in guns right over the top of the oil rig with the rounds set to air burst, hopefully scaring off any stragglers. And it is at this point that some Iranian military member decides that he is going to audition to be the main character of this story because he hops on a 23-mm anti-aircraft gun and opens fire on Bravo group. And without skipping a beat, one of the 5-in guns on one of the destroyers just goes boom, and just [ __ ] direct hit smokes this dude. Barely touches the rest of the oil rig. This guy, definitely not the main character, but the silver lining, he at least made it into the credits as baloney missile club number one. Now obviously I'm paraphrasing here, but at this point, Bravo group radios over to the oil rig one last time, something along the lines of, "Hey, does anybody else need to find out what it's like to chew 5 gum? Are you [ __ ] ready to quit?" The oil rig finally radios back and is like, "Yeah, yeah, please cease fire. We're going to leave." So all the Iranian military members leave. Bravo group decides to open up on it for a little bit with the 5-in guns before sending over a couple Hueys full of Marines. The Marines hop out, place some demo charges, hop back on the helicopters, take off. The entire oil rig blows up, and already things are getting more proportional.

[00:08:36]And while all that was happening, Charlie group made it to their first oil rig as well, and pretty much the exact same thing played out. The only differences were Charlie group didn't have Marines to place the demo charges, they had Navy SEALs. And when the Iranians opened up with the 23-mm anti-aircraft guns, they just decided to keep firing 5-in shells at the oil platform until it burst into flames and burnt the entire thing to the ground. At which point, the commander of the destroyer kind of looks over at the Navy SEALs and is like, "Sorry, I guess you guys get to sit this one out." Oh, mission got canceled?

[00:09:06]Good. And while all that's going down, Bravo group's already making their way over to the third oil rig. At which point they pick up something on radar, and it's definitely another enemy ship headed right towards them. And at this point, you have to remember, this is the late 1980s. None of the American sailors have seen naval warfare on this scale.

[00:09:22]The pucker factor is on. They are getting Harpoon missiles ready, and they are about to get in like one of the biggest naval fights since World War II.

[00:09:29]At which point, whoever's in charge of Bravo group decides to take a deep breath, and they're like, "Okay, let's just let's send up a helicopter real quick just to verify that it's actually an enemy ship." So a helicopter goes up, radios back to Bravo group, "It's definitely a warship, but it's a Soviet destroyer." At which point, everybody's like, "What? What is happening right now?" So they radio over to this Russian destroyer, and they're like, "What are your intentions?" And the Russian commander radios back in broken English. I swear to God, this is a real quote.

[00:10:00]I'm just here to take pictures >> [laughter] >> for history. Look, I know that I bash on the Soviet Union and communism every single chance I get, but this time around I got to give it to them. These guys know how to party. Just straight up rolling into the middle of the largest naval operation since World War II to eat popcorn and watch. It's incredible.

[00:10:17]At this point Iran finally figures out that there's something going on, but they don't really know what, so they just begin attacking any ship they can find and the first ship they found was a civilian cargo ship called the Willy Tide that they begin attacking with Boghammer-style speedboats. So, the Willy Tide radios for help. The USS Enterprise responds by sending up a bunch of A-6 Intruders as well as F-14 Tomcats. The A-6 Intruders show up, start dropping cluster bombs, they end up hitting one of the speedboats and scattering the rest. The civilian cargo ship is saved, hooray. Cutting back to Charlie Group, now there's an Iranian fast attack ship coming right at them.

[00:10:50]So, they radio over like, "Hey, yeah, we're kind of going around blowing up all your stuff, but also we've got a very [laughter] specific list, you're not on it. So, how about you just go away and we'll forget we saw you." The Iranian fast attack ship messages back, "Sounds good, we'll do that." And then they just keep driving right towards them. And then this Iranian fast attack ship gets within like 15 mi of Charlie Group, which is like point-blank range for a naval battle. Charlie Group radios again, "Dude, what are you doing?" To which they respond, "I'm following orders." And then they proceeded to lock their radar on Charlie Group, which Charlie Group can see. At which point Charlie Group immediately launches five missiles directly at the Iranian vessel.

[00:11:30]The Iranian vessel fires a Harpoon missile back at Charlie Group. Both groups now have missiles in the air screaming towards one another. The Americans launch countermeasures shooting up chaff rockets that end up catching the Harpoon missile detonating it midair. The Iranian vessel on the other hand did not have any countermeasures capable of stopping the newer technology behind the American missiles and it would end up getting sunk pretty much immediately. Then before anybody can really even fully digest what just happened, radar picks up three Iranian F-4s screaming towards Charlie Group. Charlie Group then turns, fires a bunch of surface-to-air missiles at the F-4s. The F-4s see them coming, they're like, "Oh shit." They pop a U-turn and try to outrun them. F-4s, while they are extremely fast, can't outrun missiles. So, one of the missiles ends up blowing a wing off one of the F-4s. Now America has taken out an entire naval vessel and an F-4 that they did not plan on taking out and it's throwing off all of our proportions. And because of that, American leadership orders Bravo Group to stand down, we're not going to go take out that third oil rig. And right as soon as that order gets given out, Delta Group chimes in and is like, "Hey, we found that frigate we were looking for." So, now nobody knows what to do because on one hand things are already getting out of control, but on the other hand, we really want to take out these frigates.

[00:12:39]So, American leadership decides, "Well, we might not even have to make a hard decision. Maybe that's not even the frigate and the radar's wrong. Why don't you go ahead and send a couple A-6 Intruders over, do a flyby, they can verify that it's actually this new modern frigate and if it is, we'll make a decision from there." Or so they thought because the A-6 pilots are about to decide that they are in fact the main characters of this story. You see, USS Enterprise and its aircraft aren't really supposed to be doing a whole lot, they're more or less just there for insurance. In fact, they're only allowed to engage the enemy under one of two conditions. One, the President of the United States signs off on it, which is actually what happened with the speedboats earlier, or two, they get fired upon first. So, they got told to go fly by this boat to verify that it is in fact the new modern frigate, but they didn't get told how to fly by the boat.

[00:13:25]So, they drop down 50 ft above the water and just gun it and they buzz the entire ship. So, the ship opens fire with its AA guns, but these planes are so low to the water, the AA guns can't actually aim down low enough, so all the anti-aircraft fire goes right over the top of them. They continue to stay low enough till they get out of anti-aircraft gun range and then they pull up. At which point the ship launches a bunch of surface-to-air missiles at them. They drop chaff as a countermeasure, takes care of those, no big deal. They then go around, do a U-turn, send radio message to this frigate, "I'm going to sink you now."

[00:13:59]Which they can now legally do because remember, the ship fired on them first.

[00:14:05]So, the A-6 fires an anti-ship Harpoon missile and the second they pull the trigger on that, the fire control team from the USS Enterprise is like, "What the [ __ ] are you doing? We're not supposed to be killing things yet." And the A-6s are like, "Look, they fired at us first, them's the rules." And the USS Enterprise is like, "Holy [ __ ] okay. I guess let them have it." Then the Harpoon missile finally makes impact, it's a bull's-eye. The A-6s do a U-turn, go drop another 500-lb laser-guided bomb right through the deck of this frigate, fly past it, do another U-turn, come back, drop a 1000-lb bomb on it. Then they radio over the Enterprise and are like, "Yeah, it's definitely going to sink, we're going to head back." So, the A-6s take off headed back to the Enterprise and like 5 minutes later, Delta Group shows up with their warships and begin firing on the already sinking frigate. They hit the magazine, the frigate explodes, rapidly sinks to the ocean floor. At this point naval leadership is like, "Okay, Jesus Christ, everybody stop killing things. We need to figure out what all happened. We got to keep this proportional, remember."

[00:15:08]So, they start radioing back and forth, everybody's figuring out what everybody did, if anybody's hurt, what's going on, the whole story. And then as the A-6s are making their way back to the USS Enterprise, guess what they happen to fly past.

[00:15:21]The other modern frigate. So, now the entire US Navy's looking at this last frigate like SpongeBob looking at a jug of water.

[00:15:31]>> [screaming] >> But also, like realistically speaking, the A-6s are pretty much out of ammunition. The only thing they have left are 2000-lb bombs and those just aren't going to be enough by themselves without a Harpoon missile to take down this ship anyway. So, they really are just going to fly by and verify that it's the modern frigate. So, the A-6 Intruders go ahead, they do their flyby, it is in fact the new frigate that they thought it was and it doesn't in fact open fire on the A-6s. A-6s make it out completely unscathed, at which point they pop a U-turn and one of the A-6 pilots is like, So, the A-6 pulls up gaining altitude and then dives down and its nose right at the frigate at like a 35° angle.

[00:16:12]They're doing a good old-fashioned dive-bombing run like it's [ __ ] World War II. The AA guns start firing, there's bullets whizzing past the plane, but they're committed now. They're closing in, closing in. The bombardier behind the pilot lets the pilot know, "Hey, I'm locked on." At which point, bombs away, the pilot pulls up and the bomb goes right down the [ __ ] smoke stack of this boat. Blows up completely destroying the entire engine room. That frigate is now dead in the water with no power. The A-6s go ahead and radio in that they have completely disabled this frigate, at which point the American leadership calls a complete ceasefire.

[00:16:45]They're going to go ahead and let that frigate survive, get towed off, potentially be repaired. With the US Navy having effectively disabled or destroyed over half of Iran's functioning navy, the US military decides to call it a good day, ends Operation Praying Mantis. We all get to live happily ever after. Except later that night, Iran decided that they wanted to fight a little bit more and they launched a bunch of Silkworm anti-ship missiles at American vessels.

[00:17:10]Luckily, no American vessels were actually hit. However, this is now a huge political problem because America has been mad at the fact that Iran even had Silkworm missiles for years at this point and the American government has made it very clear to Iran that if they ever used them, they would be going to war with America, period, that's set in stone. So, the Reagan administration, not wanting to kick off World War III in the 1980s, reaches out to the Iranian government and is like, "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to go ahead and admit that that was an accident, I'm going to sweep it under the rug and we're never going to talk about it again because if this makes headline news and the American people find out, I'm going to have to get real proportional around here." So, Iran is like, "Okay, fine, whatever, it was an accident, let's sweep that whole thing under the rug, but I am still going to take America to international court to try to prove that it was a war crime to take out my oil rigs. That way I can get reparations and make America pay for it." So, they go to international court, they lay out the case. The international court is looking at America like, "Okay, well, first of all, you're the fraction people. I don't know how you think that this is proportional, but it definitely wasn't. Second of all, according to the Amity Act, you absolutely should not have attacked the oil rigs. This is probably a war crime." At which point the representative for America is like, "Well, actually, if you read the Amity Treaty between Iran and the United States, it only talks about ships and boats. It don't say [ __ ] about oil rigs, meaning I wasn't obligated to not attack those oil rigs." At which point the court is like, "Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

[00:18:38][ __ ] he's right. Son of a [ __ ] Okay, well, I guess America's innocent because I've said it once and I'll say it again, it's never a war crime the first time." And now for the best part of the entire story.

[00:18:48]America now proceeds to go over to Dubai, pick up what's left of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, tow it all the way back to Maine, then take the ship out of the water, get it in dry dock, cut out the entire damaged section of the ship including the engine compartment, build another module to fit in its place. This thing weighs like 300 tons, they jack it up, weld it right where it's at, get everything rehooked up, reconnected.

[00:19:11]This boat is back out on the ocean 1 year later on April 1st, 1989. It then goes on to get recommissioned and serves in the Navy until 2015. I mean, playing Battleship against America's got to suck, right? Like, "Haha, I've sunk your frigate." And America's like, "First of all, no, you didn't. Second of all, [ __ ] your entire navy." as it picks up your board and just throws it at the wall.

[00:19:32]So, in conclusion, if you do ever find yourself being the leader of a foreign nation one day, the best advice that I can possibly give you is A, do whatever you can to not raise gas prices and B, whatever you do, do not [ __ ] with America's boats. We do not like that [ __ ] Thank you for watching. Best way to support the channel is like, comment, subscribe, maybe go buy some merch at the fat electrician.com. Quack bang out.

[00:19:55]Very very good. Very very good.

[00:19:57]>> the way he rattled through all that information is impressive. Just so much information you you know, you can get within you know, best part of 20 minutes there. It's just really really good, you know, it's I don't see many I didn't see hardly any cuts in there or anything. So he must have been able to spill it off, you know. Very very good, yeah. Mad as well. I mean, you know, it's really interesting and you know, thanks to Becky for for for sharing that because >> [snorts] >> you know, history and you know, it's a difficult one to you know, if you haven't studied it, you can just live your life without even thinking about history.

[00:20:36]Um I mean, I I may have heard of that at the time, but you know, you don't really sort of take it in cuz it doesn't affect you especially when when you're younger, you know, nothing affects you, does it?

[00:20:44]Oh, that's happening over there.

[00:20:45]Yeah, it's great to sort of re-hear it and and and and again, you know, his delivery style is brilliant. I mean, he does it in such an entertaining way. Um He does. Great. Well done. Thank you very much Becky for that one. Nice.

[00:20:58]Yeah, good job. All right, I hope you enjoyed that history lesson there from fat electrician. We certainly did. Yeah.

[00:21:05]Very very interesting. Um it's off the time as well, back in the '80s. He's sort of saying it would you know, dragged it to Dubai. I wonder what Dubai looked like in the '80s. It can't have been nothing like what it is now. So, you know, anyway, we will be back soon for another video.

[00:21:21]So until then, it's goodbye from me.

[00:21:23]Goodbye from him.

[00:21:25]Jaws. Bye. Bye.