makes no mention of the date... so either this is the second time this has happened, or this is recycled news.
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.
Ok. They caught a big fish. Did they throw it back or bring it home?
I don’t know.
At the very least they degraded security (so it wouldn't be demeaning to those without clearance), and allowed Chinese Nationals to work in our agencies and with our defense contractors on our military hardware and research.
Years back, probably near the end of the Clinton administration there was an article out that discussed the 'openness' in the fields, and suggested that the Chinese have so much access that they are researching ways to counter our classified technology before we've even deployed it. That's what likely happened here.
makes no mention of the date... so either this is the second time this has happened, or this is recycled news.
Holy crap!
SOMETHING VERY EMBARRASSMENT WILL THIS WEEK HAPPEN TO YOU
“Looks like they’re rehashing an incident from October ’06.”
That, plus adjectives.
Diesel-electric subs are a challenge, no doubt. I think we ought to offer the ChiComs a duel: a CVBG against any two of their subs, with live warshots and existing bare-knuckles rules of engagement. That would be entertaining.
TC
LOL!
Like posting a one year old story?
Exactly!
Oh really? What were we doing with the soviets for 40 years in all the oceans of the world.
Something does not smell right. Is this just a deception we allowed to happen? The soviets could not flush a toilet on a nuc sub in any ocean with us not knowing.
So how did a Chinese sub gets into the middle of an a naval exercises and know one knew it?
Actually I’ve figured out a way to move even quieter than electrically powered propellers. It’s a variation on the otter’s fin, slow but as silent as an otter’s fin-thrust.
Have you spoken with the Navy yet?
gotta keep a closer check on those Chinese fortune cookies
I have no idea, but the US government does not deny that it happened last year, and we are unsure if this is a new report.
I don’t think this is a new report, now that I think about it, and read other posts, which brings up the question of ‘Why bring it up, again, now?’
Hmmm.
I think this is about that earlier incidence.
LLS
Excuse me, but is this the way to Albuquerque?
I’d like to know what our free trade friends are going to say if we lose a few carriers to these subs when China takes on Tiawan. It’s also possible for us to lose about 75% of our populace to nuclear first strike from subs located off our coast. What will the free traders say about something like that, when they were the ones who financed China’s indistrial military complex?
I’ve had military types tell me this type of scenario was impossible. They rode me pretty hard for even suggesting it, saying they were in the know. Okay you ‘in the know people’, care to explain this?
True. And this was an older-type deisel-electric sub. Their new ones are probably even quieter.
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