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Are they though, in the straight ? I'm not sure it's such a great move, TBH:

Given that the baddies clearly can locate ships and see that there's no transponder, and come to the conclusion they need. "Hmm, it turned off transponders and is now moving toward the straight. It's a tanker, and not one of ours, or Russia's or China's. Let's bomb it!"

Also, pragmatically, you could look at the transponders suddenly not showing up anymore as a sign of attempt of passage, especially if they show up later on the other side.

But yes, that would no longer be very realtime.



The fleet serving Iran and Russia does not use transponders. It's a large fleet. Ships without transponders are just a fact of life in shipping.


Sure, but for the purpose of this discussion, those ships don't matter. What matters is what the ships NOT belonging to Iran's friends do.


Technically all ships crossing the strait matter as their cargos end up being bought, sanctioned or not, Iran-friendly or not; they wouldn't have crossed otherwise. If we're talking about avoiding a global recession and worst case famine in some parts of the world, the oil and gas must start moving regardless of who is the shipowner.


Transponders are a voluntary system, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_fleet




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