Blair is lobbying F136 apparently because of the involvement of RR

Jonesy,

Are you really so superb by reading the below news briefing then you can insert your slow moving SSK into the route of a moving CVBG

Kitty Hawk Strike Group Gets Underway

http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=26118

Story Number: NNS061018-13
Release Date: 10/18/2006 11:55:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Matthew Reinhardt, USS Kitty Hawk Public Affairs

USS KITTY HAWK, At Sea (NNS) — USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) and its strike group departed Yokosuka, Japan, Oct. 17, for a fall deployment with embarked Carrier Air Wing 5 after completing a month of maintenance.

The strike group is expected to return to Yokosuka by the end of the year.

Other ships departing with the Kitty Hawk Tuesday included the guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens (CG 63), and guided-missile destroyers USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and USS Mustin (DDG 89).

The destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) and guided-missile frigate USS Gary (FFG 51) left Yokosuka last week.

About 7,400 Sailors departed with the eight ships, including more than 5,200 aboard Kitty Hawk alone.

Kitty Hawk, leading the Navy’s only forward-deployed carrier strike group, will spend the underway period conducting carrier qualifications, drills and exercises in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. 😮

During this deployment, Kitty Hawk will also take part in ANNUALEX 2006, a joint exercise between the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

During the brief in-port period, Kitty Hawk Sailors worked with Ship’s Repair Facility workers, and Japanese contractors on several hundred maintenance projects, said Lt. Cmdr. Billy Partington, Kitty Hawk’s maintenance officer.

“The ship’s engineers had to work extra long hours fixing extra discrepancies that were discovered as maintenance was performed,” said Partington. “Their efforts brought [the ship] back up to 100 percent [mission] capable.”

The Kitty Hawk Strike Group is the largest carrier strike group in the Navy. It includes Kitty Hawk, the aircraft squadrons and staff of Carrier Air Wing 5, USS Shiloh (CG 67) and Cowpens, and Destroyer Squadron 15 staff. The group’s ships and destroyer squadron staff are based at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan, and the air wing and staff are based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan.

The only one reporting this is the US military. It was the same with the Han class SSN that tailed another carrier a few years back. An indication that this happens on a regular basis.

So sounds more like a US Navy ploy to get more funding than anything else.

Yes, but also we can’t ignore the internal twist between PLAN “submarine” faction and lately media stolen “ aircraft carrier” faction.

The key PLAN man in this encountering is said to be General Ding yiping, who was demoted when a PLAN 035 SSK sunk with lost of 70 lives in 2003. However, he made a comeback as depute Chief of PLAN just in sept this year, He probably was eager to score 1 or 2 for his newly promotion and boost the now a bit fading influence of the “submarine” faction.

Thus, I don’t see this encountering is merely by chance or “Luck”, however, an event carefully organized and coordinated by the PLAN “submarine” faction represented by General Ding.

If so, then we know actually PLAN lacks no “situational awareness” around the East China Sea at all, quite contrary to some people suggested that PLAN doesn’t have enough such capability in the “Strongest Asian Navy” thread. A SSK without being detected must be in low speed, and have to rely solely on external info for positioning itself well into the routine of the highly mobilized CVBG in deployment. Such routine of CVBG is classified. How to track the moving of CVBG depends on PLAN’s reconnaissance.

BARS is the overweight Radar even Russian Airforce doesn’t equip if my memory serves correctly. Of course when they promoted sales then, they could put up the advertising words like” a Radar so advanced that even our own force yet to equip”, so, you can see who indeed hooked by the beautiful words.

… and maybe the US fleet let it come this close purposely. (i.e. we don’t know whether the sub was not detected and tracked all the way in)

Remember when in 2003, a couple of EA-6B from a by passing CVBG were briefly jammed by land based PLA stations in Fujian province. The CVBG reiterated by launching a brief EW war on the coast area where the PLA EW units based. The words then were: the Yankees still got the edge despite the PLA has accessed the top secret EP-3 spy plane.

So apple to apple, the USN will never show it’s in weak mind.