With some 5000 US military personnel on their way to the gulf analysts have been speculating that the White House is intending to try and take control of Strait of Hormuz with the ground invasion.

Ministry analysts say that undertaking would be extremely risky and almost certainly result in very high casualties amongst US servicemen. Iran is a country with a population and has an extremely large standing army of 600,000, of which some 190,000 are fanatical and well-trained Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops.

In addition, Iran has thousands of drones that have proven to be so effective against infantry in Ukraine. The US is yet to develop the counter-drone technology Ukraine possesses. The White House has reportedly done no planning for a ground invasion.

“A ground invasion usually requires months of intricate planning and preparation of logistical supply chains before it's launched. But Trump appears to be winging it,” says bne IntelliNews’ military analyst Patricia Marins.

According to reports in the US press, the decision to begin the attack on Iran was taken by his immediate circle and actors like the Pentagon and the Department of State were not involved, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It is almost certain that as the US ships carrying the troops, expected towards the end of this month, Tehran will block all traffic through the strait and mine the shore, making an amphibious landing precarious.

Even if the US forces focused on a strategically simpler operation of just taking the Qeshm Island in the northern part of the strait, the US forces would still be vulnerable to a hail of drones and missiles.

US troops would come under fire from Shahed drones from the air and unmanned naval drones from the sea, the fleet of mini-submarine and another fleet of fast boats, say military experts. In addition, Iran could lay its naval mines in the approaches in the run up to an invasion. The attempt to land in the Straits of Hormuz could play out along similar lines to the Allies Normandy landings in the Second World War, says Malcom Nance, a former US intelligence officer and military analyst.

“The potential ground force of 2,500 is too few to be able to capture and control the islands and the coastline on the northern side of the straits,” according to Nance. “The problem is that Middle East Force commanders gamed this out 40 years ago and estimated we'd need 6,000 Marines plus all equipment spread across multiple Islands.”

“The plan was to first take Larak, Hormuz and Qeshem to box in Bandar Abbas. Then small landing parties to raid, Greater/Lesser Tumb, Abu Musa, Sirri, and then Kish, Nance added. “Hundreds of thousands of IRGC troops and Basij regular army would come out and bombard/suicide attack these islands from the mountains that hover over them,” says Nance.

Supplying a ground-based assault would be another major headache, and would have to come from US bases in the UAE and Qatar. That would provoke a heavy response by Iranian missile strikes to cut them off. Both countries were just victims of Iran’s retaliation for the Israeli South Pars missile strike on March 18.

The US’ regional allies are already unhappy with being targeted for hosting US bases, and analysts say it's entirely possible they will refuse to cooperate.

An alternative target is Kharg island, the home to 90% of Iran’s exports. The US struck military installations on Kharg Island on March 14, but it is also sufficiently close to the mainland to be within easy range of Iran’s drones and missiles.

“I have absolutely no idea how anyone could seize more than 2,000km of Iranian coastline to secure the strait and capture Kharg island,” says Marins. “How exactly would that even work if the Iranian navy is still fully operational with hundreds of missile launchers and at least 20 submarines?”

Marin’s points out that Iran’s forces are ensconced in the mountainous redoubts that cover almost the entire Iranian coast and are largely immune to Russia air strikes.

"I agree that the only way to achieve any objective would be with boots on the ground, but I still don’t see the slightest chance of that happening," Marins adds. "If they actually try it, it will be a massacre.”