China sub secretly stalked U.S. fleet

[SparrowHawk62]

China sub secretly stalked U.S. fleet
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2006
A Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times has learned.
The surprise encounter highlights China's continuing efforts to prepare for a future conflict with the U.S., despite Pentagon efforts to try to boost relations with Beijing's communist-ruled military.
The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying warships also is an embarrassment to the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China aimed at improving relations between the two nations' militaries.
Disclosure of the incident comes as Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, is making his first visit to China. The four-star admiral was scheduled to meet senior Chinese military leaders during the weeklong visit, which began over the weekend.
According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.
The surfaced submarine was spotted by a routine surveillance flight by one of the carrier group's planes. The Kitty Hawk battle group includes an attack submarine and anti-submarine helicopters that are charged with protecting the warships from submarine attack.
According to the officials, the submarine is equipped with Russian-made wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Kitty Hawk and several other warships were deployed in ocean waters near Okinawa at the time, as part of a routine fall deployment program. The officials said Chinese submarines rarely have operated in deep water far from Chinese shores or shadowed U.S. vessels.
A Pacific Command spokesman declined to comment on the incident, saying details were classified.
Pentagon spokesmen also declined to comment.
The incident is a setback for the aggressive U.S.-China military exchange program being promoted by Adm. Fallon, who has made several visits to China in recent months in an attempt to develop closer ties.
However, critics of the program in the Pentagon say China has not reciprocated and continues to deny U.S. military visitors access to key facilities, including a Beijing command center. In contrast, Chinese military visitors have been invited to military exercises and sensitive U.S. facilities.
Additionally, military intelligence officials said Adm. Fallon has restricted U.S. intelligence-gathering activities against China, fearing that disclosure of the activities would upset relations with Beijing.
The restrictions are hindering efforts to know more about China's military buildup, the officials said.
"This is a harbinger of a stronger Chinese reaction to America's military presence in East Asia," said Richard Fisher, a Chinese military specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, who called the submarine incident alarming.
"Given the long range of new Chinese sub-launched anti-ship missiles and those purchased from Russia, this incident is very serious," he said. "It will likely happen again, only because Chinese submarine captains of 40 to 50 new modern submarines entering their navy will want to test their mettle against the 7th Fleet."
Pentagon intelligence officials say China's military buildup in recent years has produced large numbers of submarines and surface ships, seeking to control larger portions of international waters in Asia, a move U.S. officials fear could restrict the flow of oil from the Middle East to Asia in the future.
Between 2002 and last year, China built 14 new submarines, including new Song-class vessels and several other types, both diesel- and nuclear-powered.
Since 1996, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in a show of force, Beijing also has bought and built weapons designed specifically to attack U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships.
"The Chinese have made it clear that they understand the importance of the submarine in any kind of offensive or defensive strategy to deal with a military conflict," an intelligence official said recently.
In late 2004, China dispatched a Han-class submarine to waters near Guam, Taiwan and Japan. Japan's military went on emergency alert after the submarine surfaced in Japanese waters. Beijing apologized for the incursion.
The Pentagon's latest annual report on Chinese military power stated that China is investing heavily in weapons designed "to interdict, at long ranges, aircraft carrier and expeditionary strike groups that might deploy to the western Pacific."
It could not be learned whether the U.S. government lodged a protest with China's government over the incident or otherwise raised the matter in official channels.

[Boats]

I recall when a Russian Bear buzzed our (CVA-31) carrier in about mid 65. I had the Bear Cat watch that day and it was very cloudy a low ceiling. We suddenly got a no drill general quarters alert and off when five ready birds and a photo bird (F8). At that time we still had 4) 5"50's and they were on CCC or radar control. The guns followed something above the clouds - you could hear a loud roar but couldn't see anything.

Suddenly this large port wing drop out of the clouds it had four jet engines on this one wing - wow it was big. It didn't fly directly across the ship but just forward of the bow. It seemed like it was making a large low turn then it went back up above the clouds. Then just flew away.

Our birds came back and the photo plane had taken several pictures of the Bear - our planes looked like little gnats next to it. They escorted it out of the area. But I was amazed how close it actually got to our ship and escorts - before being escorted out of the area?

So I'm not surprised by the China issue since its happening all the time at sea. Ship's shadowing other ships and planes flying around into zones that normally would be considered an act of war in some cases.

These are dangerous games they are playing and someday there will be an incident that could trigger a larger response. Collisions still occur periodically - many are not reported.

[SparrowHawk62]

Boats, I remember a few over flights of Bears while the Indy (CV-62) was out and about the Med. and I.O. They were something to see in flight!
Also saw a few "snorkels" in my time, scary stuff when your butt is planted on a flat top with no place to go!
Indy was also passed close aboard by a Russian Krivick (sp) she was about the size of a DD. One hell of a fast boat!
Yeah, the good ole days, when we knew who the bad guy was!

[SuperScout]

Methinks, as my brother Seascamp is wont to say, that the folks on board our flattop and looking as the screens, knew all too well that they were being peeked at by Wun Hung Lo and his sub. So far, the other side has no been able to produce the quiet props that our subs possess, although the other side would literally kill to get their hands on that techology. We don't want the Commie Pinkos to know everything we know.

[revwardoc]

I don't know how true this one is. It was told to me by a former nuclear sub radio operator; don't remember which boat. He said they were just sitting off the coast of China when they picked up a sub heading east. The tailed it all the way past Hawaii, until it was about 500 miles off CA. They then "pinged" it, letting it know that they were right behind it. The Chinese sub surfaced for a parley. The captain asked how long the US sub had been tailing him and the US captain read off all the heading changes the Chinese sub had made since leaving their base, then asked the Chinese why they were heading for the US coast. The Chinese captain said it was just a routine exercise and that they would head back to China. Just in case, the US sub tailed them back.

GI bullsh1t story? Dont' know. I can't say since I wasn't there.

[SuperScout]

Just reading the book, Blind Man's Bluff, gives me reason to believe that nobody but nobody in our Navy would be that asleep at the wheel to allow any foreign sub to get that close. If you haven't read that book, I would highly recommend it; reads better than a Tom Clancy novel!

[SparrowHawk62]

Admiral says sub risked a shootout
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 15, 2006
The Navy's top commander in the Pacific said yesterday that a Chinese submarine risked setting off a military confrontation by closely shadowing a U.S. aircraft carrier sailing near Japan.
"It illustrates the primary reason why we are trying to push to have better military-to-military relationships" with China, said Adm. William J. Fallon, in his first public comments on the U.S.-China naval encounter disclosed Monday by The Washington Times. China's government, meanwhile, said it was unaware of the incident. "I have not heard of such a report," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, when asked about The Times report. China's defense policy is "based on self-defense," she said.
A Song-class Chinese submarine equipped with wake-homing torpedos and anti-ship cruise missiles surfaced within five miles of the USS Kitty Hawk in waters near Okinawa on Oct. 26 in what U.S. defense officials said was a provocative act. Defense officials believe the Chinese submarine was practicing for tracking and targeting carriers.
Pentagon officials said the matter likely will be raised during defense-policy coordination talks with Chinese military officials set to begin Dec. 7 in Washington. "Maritime safety is on the agenda," a spokesman said.
A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday he was not aware than any protest had been lodged with the Chinese over the incident in the East China Sea near Okinawa.
According to the officials, China has refused since 1998 to agree to notify the Pentagon about its naval movements, something U.S. officials say could help avoid incidents at sea, such as the submarine encounter, that might trigger a conflict.
Adm. Fallon sought to play down the incident. He said describing the covert underwater tracking of the carrier as "stalking" was "sensational."
But he acknowledged that the submarine's unannounced surfacing so close to the carrier was risky and in other circumstances might have produced a shootout.
"The fact that you have military units that would operate in close proximity to each other offers the potential for events that would not be what we would like to see -- the potential for miscalculation," Adm. Fallon said during a break in a 23-nation meeting of defense chiefs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Adm. Fallon said that the Kitty Hawk and escorting warships were conducting exercises at the time of the incident, but the maneuvers did not include anti-submarine activities.
"But if they had been, and this Chinese submarine happened to come in the middle of this, then this could well have escalated into something that was very unforeseen." He did not elaborate.
Navy officials also sought to portray the submarine encounter as benign because China and the United States are not at war.
It was not the first time the Kitty Hawk was shadowed by a Chinese submarine, and the Navy's relatively timid response last month contrasts sharply with its reaction to a 1994 encounter.
For two days in October 1994, aircraft from the Kitty Hawk chased a Chinese nuclear submarine to within three miles of the Chinese coast after the submarine was detected shadowing the carrier battle group about 200 miles away in the Yellow Sea.
China responded by threatening to shoot down the U.S. anti-submarine warfare aircraft and flew its fighters in the direction of the carrier.
"It was quite upsetting to me when I read of a Chinese sub tracking our fleet in the Pacific and we didn't even know it. That's bothers me a lot," said Rep. C.W. Bill Young, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
The incident is a warning Congress needs to fund defenses against threats other than those related to the war on terror, such as the potential threats posed by Iran, North Korea and China, Mr. Young said.
"We know China is challenging us economically," he said. "The Chinese are building a massive military system. We know the Iranians are doing the same thing."
The incident is a setback for Adm. Fallon's ambitious program to develop closer ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries, which were put on hold in April 2001 after a Chinese fighter collided with a U.S. surveillance aircraft off the coast of China.
Disclosure of the submarine encounter comes as the head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Gary Roughead, is holding talks in China with Chinese navy leaders.
"One of the reasons he's in China is to be present at the very first exercise" between the U.S. and Chinese navies, Adm. Fallon said. "It's a modest search-and-rescue exercise, but it's a start ... ."
The search-and-rescue exercise is to take place Sunday near the port of Zhanjiang, in southern China.
U.S. officials who are skeptical of closer military contacts say China has used the exchanges in the past to gather valuable war-fighting information from the visits.
In one case several years ago, a Navy officer revealed to a visiting Chinese admiral a key vulnerability of U.S. aircraft carriers that led China to buy wake-homing torpedoes from Moscow.

[Robert Ryan]

Remember mooning the Russian Bears when I was on the Kitty Hawk on WESTPAC. That was the year of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It was sutpid of us, but man over the 1mc, you got an update minute by minutes almost of "bear time". You would hear somehting like " 2 minutes to bear time", and the you would the Russian Bombers. I know that during the Hostage Crisis, I was with HS-8 and while in the IO a Pakistan Sub was forced to surface after our Helicopters old SH-3Sea Kings) dropped some sonobouys, and started to ping on the sub.