Posted on 11/09/2007 4:55:08 PM PST by fanfan
When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed.
At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world's only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders.
That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory.
American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.
By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.
According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.
The Americans had no idea China's fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a level of sophistication, or that it posed such a threat.
One Nato figure said the effect was "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik" - a reference to the Soviet Union's first orbiting satellite in 1957 which marked the start of the space age.
The incident, which took place in the ocean between southern Japan and Taiwan, is a major embarrassment for the Pentagon.
The lone Chinese vessel slipped past at least a dozen other American warships which were supposed to protect the carrier from hostile aircraft or submarines.
And the rest of the costly defensive screen, which usually includes at least two U.S. submarines, was also apparently unable to detect it.
According to the Nato source, the encounter has forced a serious re-think of American and Nato naval strategy as commanders reconsider the level of threat from potentially hostile Chinese submarines.
It also led to tense diplomatic exchanges, with shaken American diplomats demanding to know why the submarine was "shadowing" the U.S. fleet while Beijing pleaded ignorance and dismissed the affair as coincidence.
Analysts believe Beijing was sending a message to America and the West demonstrating its rapidly-growing military capability to threaten foreign powers which try to interfere in its "backyard".
The People's Liberation Army Navy's submarine fleet includes at least two nuclear-missile launching vessels.
Its 13 Song Class submarines are extremely quiet and difficult to detect when running on electric motors.
Commodore Stephen Saunders, editor of Jane's Fighting Ships, and a former Royal Navy anti-submarine specialist, said the U.S. had paid relatively little attention to this form of warfare since the end of the Cold War.
He said: "It was certainly a wake-up call for the Americans.
"It would tie in with what we see the Chinese trying to do, which appears to be to deter the Americans from interfering or operating in their backyard, particularly in relation to Taiwan."
In January China carried a successful missile test, shooting down a satellite in orbit for the first time.
Or one of our subs had been following him and then started to “actively” ping him as if getting ready to fire. The chicoms then got scared and thought they were about to be sunk.
Maybe him surfacing was a way of saying “unc-ral, so sorry”. When he new the jig was up.
At least that is the way I hope it went down.
My thoughts too. I was having a conversation the other night with a former sailor and I mentioned that maybe we knew they were there all along and we didn’t let on so they would become overconfident and allow us to track them, not knowingly of course. It would be a great way to gather intelligence, even if we do have to lose face doing it.
I’m sorry but this just infuriates me. My family is military, I was in the military and I support the military but this is just another piece of evidence of incompetence in our institutions. Everywhere we look our institutions are breaking down and it seems like our whole country is falling apart at the seams while personnel and costs keep going up, up and beyond.
The entire command of that exercise should be relieved of command in my view. We can NOT accept mediocrity of our military. That so many missed this sub is unacceptable.
This is a rehash of a story, of dubious validity, from a few months ago.
Why would they go to all that expense? All they need to do is put some cruise missiles on a container ship or in that port they run down in the Bahamas (area).
No need to risk a multiple expensive ships (subs) and crews when they can do it with some containers on a few cargo ship crewed by 20 or 30.
Minimal expense, minimal risk, fewer assests. Remember a very, very low % of all cargo containers are ever checked.
Thanks.
You are quite possibly correct.
Good night all.
Yea the 1000 points of stupidity started our military on a downturn. Of course Slick Willie had his turn also. Six of Slick's eight years were under a GOP controlled house and senate too. IOW sellouts in both parties from the time Ronnie left the Oval Office-present. No help is coming as the so called elected adults {both parties} are too busy lining their pockets and planning for their high paying retirements.
bfd...a diesel is almost undetecable when on battaries and ESPECIALLY in the middle of all the ambient noise generated by task force NOT conducting 100% ASW operations.
I was in the middle of a NATO task force, where we were the bait. Our own Navy couldn’t find us. We sank every ship in the whole flotilla.
Finally they made us go through a 1 mile wide check point so they could sink US!
skimmers = targets
pure and simple.
It could be that they didn't even know that they were in the middle of a US carrier battle group when they surfaced.
That's really not the answer. The problems are coming from bad policy which began under Poppy Bush?sec of Def Cheney, continued through the Clinton years, and went uncorrected under Bush/Rummy/Gates. None of them not a one was a Reagan or a Weinberger. In the early 1990's under Poppy even during Desert Storm the gutting and downturn began and it has yet to be slowed down. Not having needed resources is a Pentagon and Congressional as well as Sec of Defense issue.
Carriers used to use S-3 Vikings and helo's for anti-sub the S-3 were relieved of that duty if I understand right. Also except for one carrier which now lies 15,000 feet under the sea on the ocean floor no carrier has a sonar dome either. We can not continue cutting vital programs and blaming the poor results on mid level officers for issues beyond their means to control. The Pentagon did it to two carrier Captains immediately after 9/11 for issues caused by the Pentagon and congress. That is where the problems actually lie.
There are reasons why you might: to introduce the element of uncertainty for one. Planners must now weigh more heavily the possibility of losing a carrier to a Chinese sub against taking a hard line on the independence of Taiwan.
What should we have done? Sunk it?
Uh Oh........
Our sub wouldn't have for the same reason, you don't tell your opponent that you've been tracking him.
I'm certain he didn't "give it away".
A few people on the exercise are either in big trouble, or we’re all in big trouble. One or the other.
None that make sense. This didn't introduce uncertainty, it was an eye opener. The U.S. is taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. If this was deliberate then the Chinese just gave away their capabilities.
Our enemies are already in the wire.....why waste their military to take us down......they have the socialist Rat’s n Rino’s doing their dirty work for em....... 10 years from now they can take what they want IMO if we don’t quit trying to save the world why we lose the USA.
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