Every bit as fanciful as the first link but with far more holes in it

Here are a few of them

Mr Douglas Herman states that:

"The war began as planned." - the first attack going in just after sunrise. Then a bit further down he informs us that around 09:15 with the first missile counter-attack by the Iranians - "Thousands of unsuspecting US soldiers died in the early morning barrage." Sounds a bit bloody ridiculous that having been blasting the hell out of nuclear facilities, naval ports, airfields and missile sites in Iran for what must have been the best part of four hours that there would be any "unsuspecting US soldiers" anywhere in the world let alone within the theatre of operations. Doesn't Mr. Herman believe that the Area Commander would have given his lads a 'heads up' on what was about to happen?

I won't comment on what would be the most likely mission priorities, but we will stay with those selected by Mr Herman. On the subsequent sorties as described by Mr. Herman he obviously does not believe that air defence suppression missions would be flown. That's odd because against an opponent with any sort of air force or any sort of air defence capability that is exactly what you would do. It is precisely what has been done since 1967, but for some reason Mr. Herman has decreed otherwise.

He is quite right about the outcome of any attempted air combat. For example a MIG-29 against say an F-16, the latter can acquire and engage at approximately 120km, the former has to wait until the range closes to 80km. I realise that at combat closing speeds of anything up Mach 4.6 that 40km difference disappears fairly quickly, it does give the F-16 the chance to get the first dig in, and gives the other guy something extra to think about. The Shah's air force was quite good, but the current mob when they initially got into power killed loads of them, their current record regarding aircraft would seem to indicate that they can barely maintain and operate simple transport aircraft, let alone keep high performance fighter aircraft up to snuff. My prediction would be that the Iranian Air Force would bug out in exactly the way that the Iraqi Air Force did - they would be no shows.

If as Mr. Herman states the, "..the pre-dawn, pre-emptive attack wiped out fully half the Iranian defense forces in a matter of hours." Does he not grant the attacking force the intelligence to target the command and control centres of the Iranian armed forces? Again that is what has been done in the past without fail - why not now, in this particular instance?

Herman - "By mid-morning, the second and third wave of US/Israeli raiders screamed over the secondary targets. The only problem now, the surprising effectiveness of the Iranian missile defenses. The element of surprise lost, US and Israeli warplanes began to fall from the skies in considerable numbers to anti-aircraft fire."

Laughable, air defence suppression would by now have taught all but the most foolish battery commander to keep his missile control radars switched off or invite immediate destruction.

As for Iranian anti-ship missiles destroying oil tankers? Another fanciful bit of rubbish, Iranian anti-ship missiles could not even sink the USS Stark. The Iranian fighter plane launching the missile managed to take off, search for and acquire it's target and fire it's misile how? While all the US and Israeli pilots were having a tea break? Ridiculous.

Herman - "US Navy ships, ordered earlier into the relative safety of the Indian Ocean, south of their base in Bahrain, launched counter strikes."

Now south of their base in Bahrain would put all those ships of the US Navy firmly in the middle of the Saudi Desert known as the forbidden quarter - Not a good place for ships, and a damn tricky place to get to particularly if you are in something large that needs vast quantities of water to float upon.

But not in the least discouraged Mr. Herman continues - "At 9 AM, Eastern Standard Time, many hours into the war, CNN reported a squadron of suicide Iranian fighter jets attacking the US Navy fleet south of Bahrain (i.e. in the desert). Embedded reporters aboard the ships--sending live feeds directly to a rapt audience of Americans just awakening--reported all of the Iranian jets destroyed, but not before the enemy planes launched dozens of Exocet and Sunburn anti-ship missiles. A US aircraft carrier, cruiser and two destroyers suffered direct hits. The cruiser blew up and sank, killing 600 men. The aircraft carrier sank an hour later."

Now let us be charitable to Doug Herman and allow that the US Navy's Fleet is in the Indian Ocean which is not south of Bahrain, it's sort of located east-south-east of it. How does this "squadron of suicide Iranian fighter jets" find the US Fleet? Do the Iranians send up a "squadron of suicide maritime patrol aircraft" to locate their target beforehand? Also it must be rather a large squadron for it to be capable of launching "dozens" of Exocet and Sunburn missiles. I know that the Exocet is rather a large missile, aircraft such as the Mirage (bomber version) and the Super Etandard carry one. Unfortunately for Mr.Herman the SS-N-22 Sunburn originally wheeled out in 1994 is a ship launched missile, it is big, it is fast, but like all anti-ship missiles in the former Soviet arsenal it needs to have target data. During the "Cold War" the Russians bankrupted themselves about five times just trying to get a missile system that could counter a strike carrier group, they couldn't come up with anything and eventually had to build carriers themselves. Nothing has changed AWACS, Tanker aircraft and far CAPS would render the SS-N-22 useless.

As you read to the end of the article it sounds uncannily like complete and utter bullshit - fictional bullshit, but bullshit just the same.