In the early hours of March 4, 2026, in international waters off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka, the USS Charlotte, a Los Angeles–class nuclear-powered attack submarine, closed in on the IRIS Dena, a new Iranian Moudge-class frigate.
Submerged, the Charlotte fired a heavyweight, acoustic-homing torpedo at the hull of the Dena. It missed. It fired another. It connected. The periscope footage of the attack was released by the United States Department of War. It shows the shockwave of the torpedo fracturing the Dena’s hull and sending its helicopter flight deck metres into the air.
Within seconds, what was left of the Dena was plummeting to the depths of the Indian Ocean, carrying at least sixty of its crew of 180 to their deaths.
Some moments later, an email was sent from US Indo-Pacific Command to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue agency. Twenty miles from Galle’s coast, a ship is in distress. Sri Lanka immediately engaged a search and rescue effort that included its air force and navy. The surface of the sea contained clues that a vessel had been attacked and had likely been sunk. But it was not clear whether the attack had come from above or below. They were able to rescue thirty-two sailors, and recover the bodies of eighty-seven others, many of whom had mysteriously broken legs.
The Charlotte had long vanished like an apparition beneath the waves.
This was on the fifth day of the US–Israeli war on Iran, 2,000 nautical miles from the immediate conflict zone.
The US has been the main villain ever since they inherited the role from the British. None of this is surprising if you’ve been paying attention.
The 40k universe is clearly inspired by real-world politics. There are only bad guys, villains, and monsters. Nobody has the moral high ground in this mess.
I hate this comment.
America and Israel are the common enemies of humanity
Add Russia to that
China and North Korea too while at it, please?
Iran goes on that list as well.
Absolutely, and probably a few more countries still
Yeah, they’re not attacking anyone at the moment. Let’s hope they don’t join the club soon
Hegseth and trump playing with lethal toys like a sociopath torturing animals.
A non-hostile ship being targeted because “Just do it and see what happens. “
Mark my words, by the end of Trump’s term the United States is going to have no allies left in the entire world.
Hell, we barely have any left as it is now.
If it was unarmed they could have effortlessly captured it. Imo this is just going to crystallize US opposition.
Unfortunately what is allowed in war is still pretty brutal. This was a warship and it would be a legitimate target from the moment the war started, without exception.
Let’s focus on the actual war crimes, like the Pentagon redefining “military target” to include destroying energy, food, and fresh water infrastructure because soldiers need to drink water too… Hitting those targets would still be a war crime, the Pentagon is not the arbiter of what is and isn’t a military target.
The thing is, the side that perpetrated this action is still denying that this is an actual war. In such a case, is this a legitimate target?
They aren’t the arbiter of what is and isn’t a war.
The US have never been ‘the good guys’.
Who Are the Good Guys Again?
Nobody this time. Especially those holding absolute power.
Nobody this time.
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American Fascists
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Scary Muslims
Well, I don’t want to align with the fascists. But also I do kinda agree with them on the scariness of Muslims.
I guess I’ll do the Radical Centrist power move and say “Both Sides are Wrong”.
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We are. Because we say so. Now the other guy, wooboy what a bad guy!
US are not the good guys since WWII.
Since ever.
America was leaning towards the Nazis before Pearl Harbor.
America was sharply divided between socialism and fascism in the run up to the collapse of the Russian Empire and emergence of the Soviet Union. Consequently, American leftists saw a ray of sunlight in the path Lenin took to revolutionizing the Russian socio-economic system. At the same time, American corporationists saw the USSR as an opportunity to describe American Leftism as a Foreign Invasion.
The adoption of European political theories and figureheads on the left triggered the hysterical anti-immigration reflexes on the right, polarizing and galvanizing the general public which had already grown deeply anti-European in the wake of the First World War.
This culminated in the Palmer Raids of 1919, split the union movement going into the Roaring Twenties, and - in a hat trick of reactionary revisionism - managed to unify Dixiecrat bigots, big money Industrialists, and evangelical Christians (both Protestant AND Catholic) into a single suffocating mono-party that would dominate American politics for the next twelve years.
The Neo-Confederates, the Industrial Fascists, and the Evangelical Paleo-conservatives congealed into the Coolidge/Hoover Republican Party and managed to govern virtually uncontested until the Great Depression upended their coalition.
But at this point, leftist organizing and activism had rebuilt and reorganized around generally palpable national socialist principles. And over the subsequent decade leading to Pearl Harbor, established a left-leaning national government coalition that was broadly sympathetic to the Russian and Chinese Communists to the point that we were openly aiding them in their wars against Germany and Japan.
Pearl Harbor was an attempt by the Japanese military to cut the US out of the Pacific Rim, precisely because we’d undermined their access to Middle Eastern petrochemicals and smuggled arms to the KMT/Communist coalition on mainland China. It was “unprovoked” in a very technical sense, but far from unanticipated given our open aiding and abetting of anti-Japanese forces all across the East Pacific.
America was leaning Communist by 1944. If FDR hadn’t plotzed and handed the keys of the country to a reactionary like Truman, we might have avoided the Cold War entirely. Or, at least, forestalled it for a few more years.
oPeN tHE sTraIt
…Is there an implication of the broken legs I’m missing?
Wikipedia has a video of the blast. Imagine standing on deck when the torpedo exploded and you’ll understand why there were broken legs.
Oh, I understand why, I was wondering if pointing it out was supposed to imply something else I wasn’t getting.
There is something else which explains the word “mysterious” – the last time a torpedo was used on a ship/boat was WW2, so because the rescuers were not familar with those type of injuries (as no one had seen them since 1945) is why they called them mysterious.
Wasn’t the Belgrano sunk by torpedo?
You’re right.
(The Belgrano) was the first ship to have been sunk during military operations by a nuclear-powered submarine (the second being the Iranian IRIS Dena, which was sunk by the American submarine USS Charlotte during the 2026 Iran war) and the second sunk in action by any type of submarine since World War II (the first being the Indian frigate INS Khukri, sunk by the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor during the India–Pakistan war of 1971).
How did it “send the helicopter flight deck metres into the air” and the broken legs of people who were onboard is somehow “mysterious”? They put a shitload of energy at the bottom of it, and it went up. Legs are closer to the floor. Was this written by an idiot?
“I went to RIMPAC, and all I got was this lousy
t-shirtbullet in my back”Kinda thinking about leaving the USA at this point.
