Posted on 01/16/2008 12:53:42 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Tense battle-ready standoff in Taiwan Strait
(Hong Kong=Yonhap News) Chung Juho = U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk (and its battle group) had 28-hour battle-ready standoff with a Chinese submarine and a missile destroyer in Taiwan Strait last November, it has been revealed.
This was the first military standoff between U.S. and China since the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996.
According to Jan. 16 dispatch by China Times in Taiwan, on Nov. 23 last year, Kitty Hawk battle group was en route to Japan after China refused its port call in Hong Kong, entering Taiwan Strait instead of using its normal route. China immediately dispatched a Song-class submarine which happened to be in the neighborhood, and had it track the battle group.
China also sent a missile destroyer Shenzhen from its Southern Fleet which was readying itself in Hainan Island for the (upcoming) visit to Japan, joining the Kitty Hawk watch.
The battle group with the carrier and its eight escort ships were sailing northward at an even distance away (from China and Taiwan,) and the Chinese submarine and the destroyer were following and watching the battle group from the western side along the Chinese mainland.
Carrier Kitty Hawk was alerted by a P3-C anti-submarine plane from U.S. forces in Japan that a Chinese submarine and its destroyer were following them. The group stopped sailing and went into battle-ready mode, sending out warplanes to protect the fleet.
After tense 28-hour standoff, the battle group was able to return to Yokosuka base in Japan only in Nov. 24.
According to an U.S. military source, the Chinese submarine sneaked into Taiwan Strait from west after taking a detour around Taiwan's southern shore from east, in an effort to monitor Kitty Hawk battle group. S-2T anti-submarine plane from Taiwanese navy was conducting the regular patrol in the area, but was not able to detect the submarine.
After the Olympics, they will be free to attack.
How successful a ditching is depends on several factors - including how rough the seas were and the weather. Both of those factors at the time of the incident were ideal for ditching.
A suicide mission. I think it is you who are reaching here - I never suggested anyone commit suicide. What I said was the pilot should have ordered the crew to bail out - and then he should have ditched the aircraft.
It would have been a much better option than what he did do - to wit - he handed over a TOP SECRET aircraft and TOP SECRET documents to the Chinese; and he subjected the US to days and days of humiliation at the hands of the Chinese as they demanded (and subsequently received ) an apology for our actions.
Expensive?
This had nothing to do with material costs.
You can't put a price tag on our intelligence capabilities.
There were horribly compromised. Moreover, the pilot initially ordered the crew to bail out and was planning on ditching the aircraft, but he changed his mind and flew a straight in visual approach to a Communist Chinese military base.
That was a terrible decision - one for which he should not have been awarded the DFC for.
I wonder what happened to Singapore offering to base one of our fleets. Probably a more convenient location than Perth, though it might have been more convenient for the enemy as well.
“...Ditching or bailing out over the ocean would have meant the death of some or all of his crew.”
True. The other question is, how many lives will be lost because the Chinese have compromised what was on that plane?
I am 100% opposed to the pilot’s decision. And I came from that community.
Not anymore. We do not have the men or machines to keep track of all of them.
Everybody just got i a little practice.
“When is the collective leadership of the United States going to pull it’s head out and deal in and adult manor with China?”
With all the corporate investment in China? Get real, the money boys call the shots in every country in the world.
“Great - but he could have sent the EP-3 to the bottom of the sea instead, and our crew could have been rescued at sea.”
I thought at the time that the incident was very strange. I couldn’t imagine just giving the equipment to the Chinese. Made me wonder if he wasn’t ordered to land and that the equipment they got wasn’t what they thought they were getting.
If the general public knew how often stuff like this happened with the USSR (and probably still would today if Russia could get their subs out of port regularly) they would be in a panic.
“I despise the chicoms and their agents that have infiltrated FR... they know who they are... and so do we!@ Screw the chicoms... boycott their pathetic Olympics!”
Lets be honest here. We have infiltrators from every country and special interest group in the world probably. I’m sure they use software to alert them when a flagged subject is mentioned on FR too.
It is expected that this happens from time to time. The Kitty Hawk acted accordingly. This is not some pretext for war that some around here seem to think on a daily basis.
This is exactly the stuff the Chairman Joint Chiefs talked about when he took over in October.
Our global threats are more than just in the Middle East.
Really? And what were they? What was the sea state at the time? How were the winds?
Ideal conditions for ditching a P-3 is a sea state of 0, light winds, clear visibility, a light aircraft, and rescue units close at hand. I'm not aware of any of that being the case.
A suicide mission. I think it is you who are reaching here - I never suggested anyone commit suicide. What I said was the pilot should have ordered the crew to bail out - and then he should have ditched the aircraft.
The pilot did the right thing, he got his crew down safe. The crew did all they could in the time they had to sanitize the aircraft. Bailing out or ditching most likely would have killed some or all of them.
I came from the surface community where the commander going down with the ship was not expected.
bump — gotta read this
bump — gotta read this
“I came from the surface community where the commander going down with the ship was not expected.”
The commander going down with the ship is just stupid. Ditching a plane to keep extremely sensitive gear out of the hands of the enemy IS expected.
It comes down very simply to the lives of a couple of dozen of the aircrew balanced against the very real possibility of the enemy breaking into data transmission nets, spoofing or hiding electronic signatures, and otherwise using the technology gained to sink surface ships, killing thousands.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.