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Boo!
Looks like China's getting pretty good at playing with their submarines:
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.
While high on sensationalism and low on detail, the article does seem to represent a kind of watershed in military relations between our two countries. There's most likely going to be one helluva lot of CYA shuffling amongst the sub hunters of that fleet, as this is the sort of thing which can end careers.
Still, "sailed within viable range" is a funny sort of phrase. Something tells me that, when and if the details of this incident come out, it'll turn out that the sub was just barely within the very outside of its weapons envelope. If that is the case, while the chances of a successful weapon launch were good, the chances of a successful hit were most likely very bad.
Also interesting was the sensational "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik" quote from an unnamed NATO official. Notwithstanding the poor understanding of US history it represents, why NATO and not the Navy? Just who's leaking what, and for which purposes? Are we pissing off the French again or something?
Finally, and strangest of all, is why they even bothered to reveal themselves in the first place. If you want to send a message, use Western Union. Needlessly revealing your enhanced capabilities just alerts the other guy he has a problem. Our Navy is quite well known for some truly spectacular cock-ups, but they are also equally well known for never screwing up the same way twice. I can just about promise no Chinese submarine will ever get this close again.
Update:
Always read the comments, where I found this (on Slashdot):
... Interestingly, the Wikipedia page notes that this incident occured in October 2006 "in the ocean between southern Japan and Taiwan", at a range of 5 nautical miles (less than half the distance to the horizon) off Okinawa. One wonders if the Kittyhawk was conducting flight ops (the tone of the article would seem to indicate no).If you've been on one of her escorts and had to be plane guard for an aircraft carrier, you know her for a fickle wench out chasing a breeze. If the submarine commander wasn't really comfortable with his knowledge of the sea bottom, that surfacing could have had everything to do with fearing for his life. Trading paint with 84,000 tons of US diplomacy underway going full-tilt-boogy is not going to be a career enhancer. Not that this wipes the egg off the face of whoever was in charge of the escort screen, if the Chinese presence was indeed the surprise that the article touts it as.
Which nicely explains why they popped up. An accidental reveal of capability is much different than a purposeful one, exactly opposite of what the article tried to pass it off as.
Still, it's better than the old Soviet boomers that went down AND STAYED!!
Posted by: Mark on November 13, 2007 05:34 PMNo surprise that this was passed off as an embarrassing find. Fact checking is for someone other than the MSM. So are little things like how close, what was the actual threat level, etc.
But, yes - heads will roll in the USN. Policies long forgotten will be dusted off. And money down, we end up with a few subs sitting off their ports and trailing their subs.
Posted by: ron on November 13, 2007 06:36 PMFunny you should say that. Slashdot may be a bastion of left-wing nerd groupthink, but (because it's so goddamned big) there were several officer-level Navy veterans who commented on the story. Nearly every one said, to the effect, "congratulations, Confucius, you just picked up an LA-class shadow on your next patrol. Like, forever."
In a strange sort of way, I think it's a good thing. Even when Mao was in charge, the Chinese were never particularly interested in ruling the world. There definitely was/is a bit of megalomania*, but (from what I've read) it was never anything like the manic "kulaks against the wall!!!" sort of thing the Bolsheviks were so enamored with.
Now that The Chairman is long dead and gone, even less so. They are, however, extremely interested in the whole world taking them seriously. We Are the Dragon, Hear Us Roar, sort of thing. As long as everyone pays attention, and everyone plays by a particular (albeit expensive) set of rules, well, it could end up an interesting sort of game.
Which may just be why Captain Chin decided to surface instead of getting run over by 85k tons of American Diplomacy. I think the real indication of just what went down out there will be who got promoted, and who got cashiered, out of their respective navies.
I think the results will be unexpected. Which is why we most likely never will hear about it in the MSM.
Which is why I subscribe to Aviation Week!
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* Having a cultural continuity that stretches back 5,000 years will do that to you.
Posted by: scott on November 13, 2007 09:52 PM