May as well paint the subs pink!
China sub stalked US carrier, says report | NEWS.com.au — This is ludicrous to allow this.
A CHINESE submarine approached a US aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times reported today.
The newspaper said the encounter highlighted China’s continuing efforts to prepare for a possible future conflict with the United States despite the administration’s efforts to try to boost relations with the Chinese military.
The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its battle group also is an embarrassment to the commander of US forces in the Pacific, Admiral William Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China, the report said.
Citing unnamed defence officials, the paper said the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within 5 miles (8km) of the carrier on October 26.
found by Aric Mackey who says the reason nobody is talking about this is because of our new dependency on China.
Distressing.. Maybe now that Bush has sent all the money to China and can’t afford to be the big fish in the sea now.
I think this should give us insight to the disarray our military is in? I don’t blame the troops, I blame the leadership!
Start practicing your Chinese now! Only $9.99!! Send your money to my sweatshop.
Lesson #1 –
Repeat after me: “Ni hao ma?” (hello greeting)
Next: “Xia xia” (thank you)
Next lesson is “I love China”, and “please don’t arrest me.”
Who here knows the topography of the ocean in that area and the state of the carrier at that moment? By which I mean who was doing what and were they even looking for bad guys at all? Is there some natural formation that makes it hard to detect a vessel? What route did the approaching sub take? What kind of missiles is the sub stocked with and do we know they have a range of five miles or more?
Anyone have any details that could shed any actual light on the story?
I suppose if I was a reporter and just wanted to file a sensational story that embarrassed the U.S. and challenged the military exchange program I wouldn’t ask any real questions either.
By the way, the original Washington Times story is here:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061113-121539-3317r.htm
It’s no more informative than the Aussie paper’s recap.
The Song Class is the latest in Chinese submarine technology, with a skewed propeller and encapsulated anti-ship cruise missiles. One doesn’t have to go nuclear to have a decent submarine, especially with the recent developments in battery technology.
Events similar to this one occur often, and I fail to see how this poses a major threat to the U.S.’s national security. China has some new toys and they want to try them out, can’t blame them for that. Also, China’s current naval fleet is not “blue water” capable and only threatens our ability to threaten China’s ability to threaten Taiwan. I like Malren’s point on the lack of information as to what the objective of the Kitty Hawk was, surely it was not a seek and destroy mission which excuses this event to some degree. There was also another type of attack on America by the Chinese, this one involved Chinese hackers breaching “low-priority” computer targets at the Navy War College. Here’s the link, it makes for some interesting reading, and makes one ponder what the U.S. (NSA/NRO) is doing to breach China’s top secret IT systems. http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20061211.aspx
If they’re using Sony batteries the problem will take care of itself.
#4 & #5 good excuses as to why they weren’t detected
Are you telling me that the USA cannot accept that their military forces are not the only show in town ? Don’t forget there are many other countries in this world. Other countries with either as good technologies and maybe even better technologies than the USA. Not all countries show off their latest weapons on the news to show who is the best. To me, the smart ones keep these a secret.
I was actually on board the USS Kitty Hawk when we actually collided with a Russian submarine running submerged. It was 1984 or so. As a low ranking sailor, I don’t know the ‘true’ story, but it seems to me that if it was within our security perimeter and we hit it, we probably didn’t know where it was.
The submarine (Victor class) was heavily dented, and rumor was that a piece of blade was embedded in our hull. It put a pretty good gash in a forward compartment of the Hawk when we hit the sub.
In an unrelated and largely unknown story, the same exact sub went into an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and blew it’s top while docked in Russia, killing a bunch of workers and making tens of miles of coastline unusable for decades to come.
T Chinese sub captain screwed up…he let somebody know how close he could get. Big, big mistake.
This seems like an “in your face” attempt to flaunt their power.
“Although Mr Zhu said war was unlikely, his proposal that China should adopt a first-strike nuclear option against the US will alarm the Pentagon. ”
“China has only 18 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland. Most sit in their silos unarmed. ”
“However, US intelligence predicts that over the next 15 years, China will expand its IBM force to 75-100 strategic nuclear warheads targeted primarily at the US. They will be mounted on a new mobile solid-fuel rocket, the Dong Feng-31, and, possibly, miniaturised for launch from China’s submarine fleet. ‘
http://tinyurl.com/bsp2q
But hey, its only 18 ICBMs. Lets not take this seriously.
Just keep going to WalMart people.
At my company all of the individuals who work in our Beijing office have adopted English names. I’ll start to worry when I have to adopt a Chinese name.
11,
It isn’t a screwup if he surfaced on his way out…
#5 shouldn’t be anything new to the USN – see http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/23/1064082993693.html for example.
Just for the record…. diesel-electric subs can be quieter than nukes, at least when they’re running on batteries… in fact, they can be COMPLETELY silent if the crew turns off everything that makes noise and nobody had the curried beans for dinner. Nukes are actually kind of noisy. The cooling pumps can’t be shut down, ever. They just don’t have to come to the surface very often, and they’re really really fast when submerged.
I like the caption.. May as well paint it pink!..
Actually red is the first color to disappear underwater. and it does so at a depth of less than 5 meters. Duh!!!
http://www.underwaterphotography.com/Underwater-Video/Lighting/Color-Underwater.asp
Diesel Electric subs are quite. And this one was hardly a “clunker” as John’s headline said.
US Carrier battle groups aren’t what they used to be during the Cold War either. They used to be assigned multiple SSN to guard them and have more anti-sub ships sailing with them. For that you can thank Bush the first and mainly Clinton.
14, you might be right, but US theory has always been to never let your enemy know your real capabilities.
I recently re-read this book which goes into some detail about US sub espionage. Fun stuff.
Operation Petticoat, on of Cary Grants better films.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Petticoat
How dare the Chinese leaders prepare to defend China in a possible military conflict? I’m shocked that any country doesn’t view America as an uncorruptible force for good in the world. Haven’t they seen the Statue of Liberty? We’re really so nice!
Perhaps we might benefit from a new P.R. team, even better than our current one, with a renewed dedication to diplomacy. That hasn’t been our strongest suit in the last few years. I hope our relations with the Chinese haven’t been as bad (or non-existent) as they’ve been with some other countries.
I agree with Venom Monger and Gig.
Our own diesel-electric submaries were very quite… [A lot of people questioned why we finally eliminated them, in favor of only nuke-powered subs].
When the nuke-powered boats I was on played war games against diesel-boats, our sonar techs used to bitch about how you could hear them for miles – while they were snorkeling on the diesels – but that they would “disappear” when they went on the electric motor [ship’s batteries].
As for the Kitty Hawk: a guy I graduated High School with [in 1976] was on a ship in it’s carrier group – in the mid- 80’s – and back then it’s nickname was “The Shitty Kitty”. I can only imagine what they call it 20-years later… 🙂
shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within 5 miles
Carriers are not stealthy. No conventional surface ships are… which is why us submariners wore Submarine/Target T-shirts – [much better than this modern version]:
http://tinyurl.com/tgbvy
Its only gotten worse in this age of satellites….
And as for a scenario showing how easy it can be:
A submarine’s fire-control system is designed to use inputs from sonar to calculate the course and speed of a vessel relative to your own. Then, you just get ahead of them and sit “dead-in-the-water” – so passive sonar can’t pick you up, and only an active sonar can detect you – then pop-up when they get close.
Just don’t try that when they are in an alert status, with the battle group forming a defensive screen around the carrier – which is why carriers have battle groups built around them.
Carriers launch/recover planes.
The planes and support ships do the fighting.
12 This seems like an “in your face” attempt to flaunt their power
and
12 But hey, its only 18 ICBMs.
I was going to comment, but Gary beat me to it:
20 How dare the Chinese leaders prepare to defend China in a possible military conflict? I’m shocked that any country doesn’t view America as an uncorruptible force for good in the world.
But one question for Sundog: How many ICBMs does the US have?
#21 Mike, now I’m sorry I pre-empted (accidental pun) your post, especially if it was anywhere nearly as good as your perspective on the N. Korean missile test some time ago. Cheers.
21. A first strike is not a defensive move. And I’m sure we have a few more than 18. Point is, we allow China to hold the mortgage on the US, we buy product from them like they are our great friend, and they threaten to nuke us. Glad you guys approve.
Oh and lets not forget we got them scanning incoming Cargo for nuclear material. Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, which is largely owned and operated by the Chinese military.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/6/12/210339.shtml
But I’m sure its fine.
Don’t look now, Sundog #23, but our duly elected leaders, charged with the sole authority to conduct foreign policy, have redefined the word “defense” in such a way that identifying and attacking our enemies on foreign soil before they can attack us on American soil is now a strictly “defensive” action. Sooner or later the world is bound to adopt our new definition (in their own language, of course). The question is, does our definition make for a safer world, or a more deadly one?
So while your statement that “a first strike is not a defensive move” was quite true in the last century, sadly, it no longer holds true in this one. Everything changed on 9/11, not the least of which was our language.
25. Kind of like Preemptive defense?
“Everything changed on 9/11, not the least of which was our language. ”
That is a sad statement in itself. I’m not sure I beleive it. But I see your point.
25: When are they going to start this attacking our enemies thing? Latest word from NPR is that the part of Pakistan that bin Laden is hiding in has signed a treaty with the Pakistani government, effectively granting them autonomy as long as they don’t attack Pakistan. When do them bombs start droppin’? We’ve waited over five years, and so far we’ve attacked Afghanistan, where he wasn’t, we’ve attacked Iraq, which had no way or even desire to attack us, and we’ve let “Sharon be Sharon”, as Bush said (if it was Sharon — substitute rightwing nut’s name) to put the fear of God into the Arab-speaking world, as Henry Kissinger advised Bush.
We’ve slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people innocent of even looking at us crosseyed, and the one place harboring bin Laden is turning into a terrorist fortress and WE DON’T CARE.
any specs ont he Chineese sub, or is it the Russian version??
And China won’t attack us. We owe them too much money.