Posted on 10/29/2015 9:04:58 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
Two Russian warplanes flew within one mile of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, forcing the U.S. Navy to launch four fighter jets in response Tuesday, a Navy spokesman told Fox News.
The USS Reagan was sailing in international waters east of the Korean peninsula, Stars and Stripes reports. It adds that the U.S. is currently engaged in joint military exercises with South Korea.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yeah, this is not unprecedented. It used to happen like this back in the freakin’ 70’s.
I hope the people giving orders on both sides keep their sense of humor and their heartbeats down.
Do not carrier groups regularly fly combat air patrol? Why were there no assets already in the air? What if these were hostiles? The Reagan would be severely compromised if that were the case. One mile? Unconscionable.
One mile?
Anti-ship missiles have a much greater range than one mile.
“Splash the zeroes!”
I assure you, they had a CAP intercept them 150 miles+ out.
>>I hope the people giving orders on both sides keep their sense of humor and their heartbeats down.<<
It keeps our pilots on a good edge.
The ruskies should be careful, though. In WVR our craft are still far superior to Migs.
An ariel game of “tag, you’re it” probably helps both sides.
Hey, don’t they know there is a 12 mile exclusion zone,
it’s just a floating island after all.
They get intel when the Russians take off and they’re tracked all the way out to the carrier. E2-C’s put the CAP on them far in front of the ship.
International waters east of Korean peninsula is a lot closer to Russia than it is to America.
I don’t trust the government I don’t see why Russians would either.
I guess 2 sides can play the “freedom of navigation” game in int’l waters and airspace.
Welcome back to the old Cold War ( that never really went away).
The captain of the ship must have been asleep at the switch along with the crew of the Hawkeye AWAC’s plane.
To let a potential enemy aircraft get within a mile is dangerous if not stupid.
I hope that the navy wakes up and tightens its airspace control or one morning we’re going to wake up to the news that one of our carriers has been attacked by air launched antiship missiles.
Its kind of what I was implying.
I knew some submariners from the 80’s. They did not describe much, but they did talk about playing hide and seek. And that, from time to time, it was a little too serious.
“I assure you, they had a CAP intercept them 150 miles+ out.”
Maybe not. The position described could literally have been as little as 12 or 13 miles off the Russian coast where it meets North Korea.
There’s a very good chance the Russian base the planes came from was less than 50 miles from the carrier. If the Reagan was just outside the Russian territorial waters, the interceptors couldn’t interact within the 12 mile limit. There might have a very small window.
In wartime the Reagan wouldn’t need to be that close though. This is a probe.
“The captain of the ship must have been asleep at the switch along with the crew of the Hawkeye AWAC’s plane.
To let a potential enemy aircraft get within a mile is dangerous if not stupid”
They watched it from as far out as possible. I can guarantee that the Russian jets didn’t suddenly appear a mile away. And even watching them and intercepting them, they can legally pass that close and even closer.
Fighters just watch and are prepared to respond to any hostile moves.
But they aren’t exactly prevented from flying very close by and looking at things in international waters. We do the same thing. It has been this way for decades.
“That is a negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.”
Even if Cougar is freaking out, we still have Maverick and Goose...
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