The best army in the world? Not if china has something to say about it

[Valentin the II]

LINK
This is surprising, not to mension embarasing.
I didnt know if I should laugh or get depressed.:hmmm:

[VALIS]

Water + Ships = Navy.

[Valentin the II]

Water + Ships = Navy.

.......?

[Ace_Combat_uk]

Wow... And usa spend 10x more then china. This is embarrassing.

[danzig]

I dont see how or why it is embarrassing if other countries couldnt do things that are a possible threat then there would be no need for the exercises to begin with.....if anything probably a questionable move on the part of the Chinese to surface since you show boat but you also give away your capability.

The thread title is "The best army in the world? Not if china has something to say about it"

Well to be fair the chinese navy is clearly superior to the us army at being well...a navy.

[Carach]

Wow... And usa spend 10x more then china. This is embarrassing.

u are aware of the swedish (or was it norweigan?) sub that the US loan to learn countermeasures against? it has many times utterly destroyed entire us carrier fleets. there was also a small task force not involving a carrier made up of multiple nations - their group was also 'sunk' at the hands of one submarine.

this stuff happens all the time, although this incident is a little amusing as it wasnt planned, and the chinese kind of just popped in to say "haiii!" in the middle of an exercise.

personally i lol @ the comments made onthe article.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

u are aware of the swedish (or was it norweigan?) sub that the US loan to learn countermeasures against? it has many times utterly destroyed entire us carrier fleets. there was also a small task force not involving a carrier made up of multiple nations - their group was also 'sunk' at the hands of one submarine.

That would be ours then, the HMS Gotland which did indeed managed to "sink" the USS Ronald Reagan.

[boerekovic]

A German Sub once approached an US Carrier and made a Photo (!) of it.
Results:Someone got fired.
Source:N24,German Documentary/News TV Channel.

[s.rwitt]

.......?

The thread title is "The best army in the world? Not if china has something to say about it"

The story is about the Navy.

[Farnan]

Honestly, the US Navy probably was suprised because they weren't looking for subs to come attack them.

And the Army probably has more boats than the Chinese Navy thank you (though we have more than the USN)

[Caelius]

Do you know what the difference b/w an Army and a Navy are?


Anyway, this same thing happened a year ago, at a time ironically enough when the same carrier wasn't even conducting ASW operations, to say the least of having it's ASW sensors and equipment activated.

Seriously, we're talking about the same Song Class boats that cause "Sub Trains" to start out in the S. Pacific and Indian Oceans for crying out loud (ie a Chinese boat being shadowed by a Russian boat, being shadowed by an Indian boat, being shadowed by an American boat, being shadowed by an Australian boat). As comical as that may seem they actually occur pretty frequently out there.

Like all media "reports" on these kinds of incidents, people should not expect to know what was going on for real. Or that they would actually occur when a CVBG is not conducting peacetime exercise maneuvers, as opposed to being put under an actual wartime ASW watch.

The US fleet could, for all we know, have been tracking the sub the entire time from a hundred klicks out, but the Fleet CO decided to play it like they had no clue, to encourage the Chinese to leap to the wrong conclusions about the sensor equipment on the US ships and the level of training.

Or it could be the Chinese sub was provided with the exact location of where the US fleet was going to be through HUMINT and they got themselves carefully prepositioned long before the US fleet arrived, shut down and silent as a tomb, then surfaced when the US fleet arrived overhead, said fleet not moving around at speed like it usually does.

Or its possible the US wasn't maintaining a real ASW watch because they are a bunch of lazy incompetent idiots, or the Chinese Capitan is the Chinese equivalent of Marco Ramius ala Red October. Or (alternatively), it was the Chinese skipper who was the moron, and once he surfaced in front of an American CVBG, tried to do everything he could to appear non-threatening.

The bottom line is that we will never know, but I'm inclined to think either the US ships were not maintaining a real ASW watch for some reason and the Chinese sub was able to sneak its way in, which will result in some American officer getting stripped down in true USN fashion. Or, the US ships were in fact completely aware of its presence the whole time, but were playing it like they were not aware of it in the classic 'they know that we know, but they don't know that we know that they know that we....' and so on (i'm going with the latter). It's a classic game played by both the USN and USAF in their mutual "we need bigger budgets to combat the threat from XXX! Give us more money!" game within the Pentagon bureaucracy. They love to do it when they compete with foreign militaries so that if they happen to lose in an exercise they can go cry to Congress afterwards. It's worked like a charm everytime.

This is probably just a case example of the media hyping up a Chinese sub surfacing in an exercise area and trying to exploit the "our carriers are vulnerable!!!" mindset that some twits seem to have in order to get more readers.

[Joker85]

Do you know what the difference b/w an Army and a Navy are?


Anyway, this same thing happened a year ago, at a time ironically enough when the same carrier wasn't even conducting ASW operations, to say the least of having it's ASW sensors and equipment activated.

Seriously, we're talking about the same Song Class boats that cause "Sub Trains" to start out in the S. Pacific and Indian Oceans for crying out loud (ie a Chinese boat being shadowed by a Russian boat, being shadowed by an Indian boat, being shadowed by an American boat, being shadowed by an Australian boat). As comical as that may seem they actually occur pretty frequently out there.

Like all media "reports" on these kinds of incidents, people should not expect to know what was going on for real. Or that they would actually occur when a CVBG is not conducting peacetime exercise maneuvers, as opposed to being put under an actual wartime ASW watch.

The US fleet could, for all we know, have been tracking the sub the entire time from a hundred klicks out, but the Fleet CO decided to play it like they had no clue, to encourage the Chinese to leap to the wrong conclusions about the sensor equipment on the US ships and the level of training.

Or it could be the Chinese sub was provided with the exact location of where the US fleet was going to be through HUMINT and they got themselves carefully prepositioned long before the US fleet arrived, shut down and silent as a tomb, then surfaced when the US fleet arrived overhead, said fleet not moving around at speed like it usually does.

Or its possible the US wasn't maintaining a real ASW watch because they are a bunch of lazy incompetent idiots, or the Chinese Capitan is the Chinese equivalent of Marco Ramius ala Red October. Or (alternatively), it was the Chinese skipper who was the moron, and once he surfaced in front of an American CVBG, tried to do everything he could to appear non-threatening.

The bottom line is that we will never know, but I'm inclined to think either the US ships were not maintaining a real ASW watch for some reason and the Chinese sub was able to sneak its way in, which will result in some American officer getting stripped down in true USN fashion. Or, the US ships were in fact completely aware of its presence the whole time, but were playing it like they were not aware of it in the classic 'they know that we know, but they don't know that we know that they know that we....' and so on (i'm going with the latter). It's a classic game played by both the USN and USAF in their mutual "we need bigger budgets to combat the threat from XXX! Give us more money!" game within the Pentagon bureaucracy. They love to do it when they compete with foreign militaries so that if they happen to lose in an exercise they can go cry to Congress afterwards. It's worked like a charm everytime.

This is probably just a case example of the media hyping up a Chinese sub surfacing in an exercise area and trying to exploit the "our carriers are vulnerable!!!" mindset that some twits seem to have in order to get more readers.

I'll bet I could run up and sack Tom Brady as he is getting off the team bus as well. Might not be so easy in the middle of a real game. Something people don't seem to understand when they post stories like these.

[Exarch]

the chinese are sending a political message to the yanks dontcha know,
it's like 'dont think u can **** around with us 7th fleet or not'

regarding the chinese space race, it's not like the usa has been friendly or such
when china tried to apply for a spot on the ISS(internatinal space station) the yanks blocked their request, which is why the chinese are building their own space station

[leeho730]

The US fleet could, for all we know, have been tracking the sub the entire time from a hundred klicks out, but the Fleet CO decided to play it like they had no clue, to encourage the Chinese to leap to the wrong conclusions about the sensor equipment on the US ships and the level of training.

US armed forces are not very much known for such subtlety. Us armed forces' strength mostly lies in superior equipments and logistics to overwhelm enemy forces.

Not long ago US conducted a military exercise to intimidate China. They have no reason to deceive China, the only reason US will want to deceive China is when US is acutely preparing for war with China, but I do not believe US has means and wills to attack China at the moment.

Or it could be the Chinese sub was provided with the exact location of where the US fleet was going to be through HUMINT and they got themselves carefully prepositioned long before the US fleet arrived, shut down and silent as a tomb, then surfaced when the US fleet arrived overhead, said fleet not moving around at speed like it usually does.

Most Probably.

Same thing happened before attack of Pearl Harbour-Japanese cut all the transmission so as to avoid detection by US radio.

Or its possible the US wasn't maintaining a real ASW watch because they are a bunch of lazy incompetent idiots, or the Chinese Capitan is the Chinese equivalent of Marco Ramius ala Red October. Or (alternatively), it was the Chinese skipper who was the moron, and once he surfaced in front of an American CVBG, tried to do everything he could to appear non-threatening.

Unlikely.


Personally I believe Chinese anti-satellite weapon much more threatening. In modern warfare, so many projectiles are dependent on GPS, such as new tomahawk cruise missile having new features, mostly of them GPS-related.

[Thanatos]

*cough*

Now this is embarassing.

[PointOfViewGun]

Are you kidding? It's such an embarrassment. It's like a Chinese agent popping out in White House shaking the president hand and dissappearing again. It gives the message that we can hit you whenever we want to and you can't do anything about it. If you say the sensors were I would say either Navy was trying make a lame excuse or they're really stupid.

[s.rwitt]

you know what happened in Vietnam and Iraq.

Vietnam- We won every battle, but only pulled out after support at home erroded?

Iraq- We have defeated AQI?

It was mainly British idea which produced mass deceptive operation before Normandy attack.

Source? The Supreme Allied Commander was American, you know?

[Rapax]

Vietnam- We won every battle, but only pulled out after support at home erroded?

Iraq- We have defeated AQI?

Yes we know already and let's leave it at that before Caelius cites the Counterinsurgency Manual and who wrote it again.

[Carach]

Source? The Supreme Allied Commander was American, you know?

that does not mean the normandy landings were entirely of american making s.rwitt.

That would be ours then, the HMS Gotland which did indeed managed to "sink" the USS Ronald Reagan.

thats the one; and how much is your military budget compared to china's? (who's budget is "10 times smaller than Americas")

Looks like the US is on the verge of collapse!21one!

[Caelius]

US armed forces are known for its capability in conventional warfare (I believe it's world's best, period), but when it comes to more unconventional, delicate and politically intriguing warfare, such as counter-terrorism, well, you know what happened in Vietnam and Iraq.

Uh, COIN ops aren't the end all and be all of unconventional warfare. Furthermore, I fail to see how you're trying to draw comparisons to the US in Iraq and Vietnam to what went down with this incident. The fact is that the US has routinely practiced such things before with regards to deceiving other militaries, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was also the case with the Chinese.

Then you're more than welcome to show me a fine example of such deception US pulled out. Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964 (regarind the second attack) wasn't that great, either.

I don't need to, you're more than free to google them yourself. There's pages and pages of info you could find on the subject. Though i'd suggest you start with Sun Tzu's work, or even Clausewitz's On War, for starters.

In majority of cases, deception usually is deployed prior to some major attacks such as Normandy or Pearl Harbour.

That's only one facet in which deception can be employed by a military force however, and not at all applicable to the context of which it would've been utilized in the incident reported by the OP.

And it is very, very illogical that not long ago US has pulled out a major navy exercise to intimidate China by showing its strength, then somehow US wants China to believe that US fleet is somewhat vulnerable?

If you actually knew the long history of military postures the US and China have shared towards each other (to say the least of the postures adopted by the US and Russia), then it wouldn't seem illogical at all.

Such tactic would be usually employed to lure China into attacking US fleet, and considering astronomical cost of building and maintaining fleet (which China knows too well), why on earth would US wants China to think that US fleet is somehow vulnerable?

No, such a tactic would simply be used to keep them off guard, as is the objective of such deception practices. Who said that the US wants the Chinese to believe anything? Neither one of us can claim to know what really occured, so why you're so insistent to continue making conjecture is beyond me. Furthermore, how would China know the costs of building and maintaining a carrier fleet? They've never had one.

Who's not thinking logically here? The probability that this whole incidence was a deception by US fleet is quite ridiculous.

No it's not, as i've already pointed out, it wouldn't be the first time the US has done such a thing. However, it was just a hypothetical guess of mine, I have no more of an idea of what the US fleet was really doing than you do.

Yes, but I believe 'US tried to deceive China by pretending not to know the presence' is bordering conspiracy theory in terms of absurdity.

Not really, do you have any idea how frequent such games were played with Soviet subs throughout the Cold War? Any idea at all? Back then it was worse.

You also must consider political as well as strategic consequences for allowing such delicate military deception-surely someone at the administration must have known this. I mean, you don't pull out extremely expensive and extensive naval exercise not long ago to intimidate China by showing off and then pull out such deception to fool China into believing that the fleet is somehow vulnerable.

You (again) underestimate how such political and strategic decisions are made then, it's not so much a matter of making the Chinese think the fleet is vulnerable (which they know it isn't) as it is allowing them to believe their "track" of developments to counter US ASW technology and techniques has been on the right path. In layman's terms it comes down to that analogy of one person building a good weapon, then another building a counter to that weapon, and so on ad infinitum (with both trying to spy on each other in process). The crux comes down to deceiving one's opponent into taking a different road that ultimately leads them in the wrong direction in terms of R&D, so much so that by the time they realize their mistake your own R&D track is 2-3 generations ahead.

The Valient Shield Exercises (which I assume you're referring to) are bi-annual events whose expenses are included in the Pentagon's discretionary budget, with PRC (or other nation's) observers frequently present to watch the exercises as they occur. Besides, you've failed to mention that this year's exercises were bumped forward so they'd go down at the same time as the military exercises that China and Russia had been practicing at the same time.

And Bush administration is not exactly known for its deceptive strength; the whole administration even could not produce flausible excuse (well, for most of us outside US) properly before attacking Iraq.

You have to delve beyond such temporary things as Presidential Administrations when looking into these kinds of subjects, however. They're far more institutionally based than anything that short-term.

All in due time. You just don't suddenly develop technology, you have to take steps, especially if you're developing it by yourself.

Read above. You're practically agreeing with me.

However, this is an alarm signal for US armed forces because, if in future China successfully develops anti-satellite weapons

How was it an alarm signal? The US Military was well aware of the Chinese ASAT weapon well before they conducted that test (ie intel). Not to mention that as i've already mentioned, the US has had the tech itself for more than 40 years now.

then US may have to rely on conventional homing devices which are not as accurate as GPS. It shows China's initiative to compete with US and it is actually quite correct strategy to effectively counter US projectiles.

Uh....no.

When I say the GPS and MILSTAR constellations are in outer Earth orbit I literally mean outer Earth orbit (ie. mid to upper parts of the Magnetosphere). For comparison, the satellite the Chinese shot down was roughly 760 km above the Earth in a low orbit, whereas some of the early Block-I Navstars that were put up in the 70s and 80s (no longer in service) were 26,000 km above the Earth. The Block IIs (of all types) that are used now are even higher, and the proposed Block IIIs that are proposed to be up by 2013 will undoubtedly be far higher than that. A viable projectile-based ASAT weapon capable of reaching them would basically have to be an unmanned spaceship in terms of the required propulsion systems, fuel, and other materials.

Something that the Chinese simply don't have the adequate space tech to build, and which the US and Russia have never pursued because such an undertaking would be far too expensive for little or no real benefit. It's also exactly why most of the US' modern ASAT capabilities are currently more EW (electronic warfare) based than physical, though that's bound to change as the ABM and (farther ahead) Laser technologies are introduced.

Need I even mention that there's speculation that the Block III Navstars will have stealth technology and features incorporated in them?

u are aware of the swedish (or was it norweigan?) sub that the US loan to learn countermeasures against? it has many times utterly destroyed entire us carrier fleets. there was also a small task force not involving a carrier made up of multiple nations - their group was also 'sunk' at the hands of one submarine.

True, but to be honest the Navy deliberately put the carrier battle group under certain restrictions it'd never have in real combat situations. Primarily so they could guage the measure in which they lost. The USAF and USN, and other militaries, do it all the time.

Yes we know already and let's leave it at that before Caelius cites the Counterinsurgency Manual and who wrote it again.

Darn it!

Looks like the US is on the verge of collapse!21one!

You don't even have to make it that grandiose. Just from reading some of the articles on the subject (which i'll again remind ppl do nothing to relate what actually went on) people would think: A Chinese submarine surfaced "close" to a US battlegroup conducting exercises!!! oH NoES!!!11