Any bets on whether this has anything to do with this (or this)? I’m guessing 99%………

…of course they never learned to tell the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale. Looks like that holds true today.

Oldnuke on November 11, 2007 at 10:08 AM

Its very easy to tell the difference:

A fairy tale starts off with, “Once upon a time…”

A sea story starts off with, “This ain’t no shi’ite…”

Someone remind me how and when the Chinese acquired the technological sophistication to build those non-cavitating screws that are so very quiet.

MCPO Airdale on November 10, 2007 at 2:55 PM

I’d wager it was during the klintonista regime.

Texas Nick 77 on November 11, 2007 at 5:19 AM

As I said before, it was long before Bubba defiled the Oval office that the Chi-coms got this technology.

I read an article years ago about Jimmah allowing the sale of computer milling machines to China. At least one of those machines were sold to the Russians, and the US Navy was PO’d at Russian subs suddenly being very quiet, because the screws were being milled from a single block of bronze rather than how they used to build them.

Stupid defeatocrats…helping the enemy for years.

As I recall from the original accounts that reported this incident, one of the biggest surprises was that the Chinese sub was operating where it was. Their diesel-electric boats usually operate much closer to home than this one was. This raises the possibility that we didn’t detect it because we weren’t expecting it to be there, and accordingly weren’t looking for it. Overconfidence on the Navy’s part, but better to learn unpleasant lessons now than when the actual shooting begins.

Another possibility is that we knew it was around. But what can you do about it? The exercise was held in international waters, not territorial waters, so who are we to say where another country’s sub can or can’t go in this situation? That other nations, especially the Russians, shadow our carrier task forces is nothing new. The Kursk, for example, was doing just that with one of our carriers in the Mediterranean during the Serbia-Kosovo conflict. During the Cold War, Soviet “fishing trawlers” sprouting a forest of antennae and sailing in close proximity to the CV battle groups was such a common sight that the old joke had the battle group commander ordering one of them to “take its assigned station.”

Besides, if we knew the Chinese sub was there or if we didn’t, does anyone think we’d say anything about the true situation? Why reveal the real measure of our ASW capabilities – strengths as well as weaknesses – to a potential enemy before we have to? This may well be one of those, “It’s what you don’t read in the papers that’s significant” kind of events.

Connect the dots that other posters have put up, and the scenario could have been:

1. Chinese diesel-electric sub operates where such subs haven’t been known to operate before. Sub performs the usual role of a diesel-electric boat, that of a hard-to-detect “barely-mobile underwater mine” cruising underwater at 5 knots or less on or near the path of the battle group and hoping to remain undetected until the carrier sails into weapons range.

2. Sadly, after the Cold War the USN isn’t as efficient an ASW machine it once was, illustrated by the retirement without a replacement of the S-3 Viking from carrier air wings and the reduction in the numbers of P-3 Orion land-based ASW aircraft. Mix that with a little bit of overconfidence, and we could’ve set ourselves up for a surprise.

3. If we had detected the Chinese sub, we may have kept tight lips about it because we wanted to hide the true nature of our ASW capabilities from the Chinese. Let them go ahead and snicker about how they “humbugged” us, as long as we’d know that in a war we’d have had the first-and-last laugh (and as importantly, the Chinese remain ignorant of that reality).

I think that the Navy knows a lot more about this incident than it has let on, and for good reason. Don’t talk about your weaknesses in front of a potential enemy, while at the same time keeping them in the dark your strengths. Hopefully they’re addressing the weaknesses and keeping the strengths under wraps.

Were you ever on Enterprise?

TheGoblinKing on November 11, 2007 at 6:34 AM

Qualified on A1-W, NRTS Idaho. Yogi Kaufmann was the skipper he was relieved by a guy named Nicholson…you may have heard of him he did something on some boat named The Naughty Lass or something like that :-) I rode the DLG(N)25 as opposed to CGN :-) for about three years. Was there for the Big E’s fire. We assisted till they got it under control and then looked for survivors for three days. Got out in 70 but stayed in the game (civilian nuke) till 2000. Same people just made more money, didn’t get underway and no one shot at us.

Been out for a while but seems to me that this Chinese sub drill is a bit overblown. In the day we’d be laughin’ our a$$es off about it and how much the idiots in the press were making of it. They do love a good gloom and doom sea story, and of course they never learned to tell the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale. Looks like that holds true today.

If the Navy HAD, in fact, detected the sub approaching, would they have admitted it? Should they?

If you were the group commander, how would you react to a likely Chinese sub approaching? Should you react at all?

__________

Whether the CIC was surprised or not, I’m willing to bet the story would have been the same. What you see in CIC stays in CIC. I’ve known a few sonarmen. They seldom tell true sea stories.

All this story tells us is what the Chinese want us to think about their capabilities without giving anything away on our side.

China has been engaging in a quiet war with the US and practicing tactics at sea and in space while we scratch our heads and figure we need better relations. Wake up.

I was in basic nuke 65-1, you? Which prototype did you qualify?

Wow! I am humbled by your saltiness!

I was in class 8807 in Orlando and sailed the prototype seas with the USS Tullibee in Connecticut (S1-C), ET1/RO on Enterprise, 1989-1993, lpo 1-plant but I was originally a 3-planter. Did 1 westpac and rode that bad boy into a hellified refuelling/refit for 3 years after in Newport News.

Were you ever on Enterprise?

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1891620088

Someone remind me how and when the Chinese acquired the technological sophistication to build those non-cavitating screws that are so very quiet.

MCPO Airdale on November 10, 2007 at 2:55 PM

I’d wager it was during the klintonista regime.

this is far worse than bad news, it is a clearly intended provocation by China.

doriangrey on November 10, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Sorry, I beg to differ. After the initial shock, this could turn out to be GOOD news, because now we know what we don’t know, and what it is that needs to be done. I think it’s better to have discovered this now than perhaps later.

reine.de.tout on November 10, 2007 at 2:09 PM

And just think, the Chi-coms sold a few of these same boats to their buddies, the Iranians. Scary to think of what those nutjobs will do with this capability.

Very true. Terrorism is no threat at all compared to China.

Yes but China is no threat at all compared to jihad (of which terrorism is only one aspect and not even the most important).

right2bright on November 10, 2007 at 10:37 PM

One of my brothers did his enlistment on the Kitty, he was a cook. Been on it several times myself.

TheGoblinKing on November 10, 2007 at 2:32 PM

The Kitty Hawk can handle the f-18′s, when it was stationed at San Diego many years ago I had the honor of being on board and watching them launch and retrieve the f-18′s.
The Kitty Hawk I believe was the largest non nuclear carrier built by us, a fantastic ship for its day.

http://www.fotosearch.com/UNY101/u16804258/
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/18954/limit/recent