hmm, no I’m sorry, you drink too much 😀 You mean in the Castle class ship’s mast? I do see a small white ball that you might consider as a kid’s head…

H88 is HMS Enterprise, a new survey vessel of the Echo class.
The Dutch submarine is one of the Walrus class Diesel-Electric subs. The extension on the sail is a snort exhaust. It has a towed array, for more info you can go and do a google search.
A900 is HrMS Mercuur, the Dutch submarine support vessel.

I’ve seen people here doubting Hazegray.org and nagging about it, but they are working on it. (I’m cooperating). So, yes Andrew Toppan is working for a year now on the World Navies Today section and Sandy McClearn is working on the picture part!. I think soon we can expect some news.

Crobato, we are everything except sure on those MLRS. For now, it looks like it’s just a chaff and decoy launcher, given the lack of any of these on all ships carrying the MLRS. Also, it is of no use to have four such MLRS in the ASW mortar role on a ship. Also, there are some pictures of the Shenzhen with it’s decoy launchers. It looks quite similar to the MLRS, except for the fact that the tubes are shifted to different directions. So, untill we have proof of any assumption (the MLRS also looks a bit like Ogon and could be used to launch rockets with different purposes) it would be safe to assume it is just the decoy launchers. And even if it is an ASW mortar, like used on some older Chinese designs, this does not really give your ship a true ASW capability. There has been and still is a very hard debate on whether these mortars are still effective or not…

Tom Clancy really isn’t an idiot… Although indeed sometimes he makes “mistakes” by forgetting certain aspects like the long-range S300PMU versions in “The Bear and the Dragon” or by not really exploiting his sometimes very excellent strategic ideas (like not placing his bombers on Iceland in “Red Storm Rising”.) Or Inventing new stuff, like his Ghostrider plane in Red Storm Rising.
But I have to conclude that I can only adjust and go further on his nice ideas and that it would be very hard for me to really come up with such a plan from scratch myself. Hence I consider him very well informed and nice to read.

Maybe British and Chinese??

3 ports… I did say it was only as a matter of speaking, China does not have 1,000 tankers either. It’s just a numerical example, like this entire “exercise”.

However some people feel quite injured here and want to shift the debate on India 😀
It is a bad thing to think India is a midget, since it’s growing a LOT lately. Also 60% of NASA engineers are Indians, they are excellent in Electronics, also their shipbuilding market is growing a lot too. Probably overtaking China’s in several years.
India would in fact be a harder target. It has much more space to defend, but also much more space to use. With 5 SSNs, it would be impossible to cover the West, South and East of India. This is harder than the Chinese example because the SSNs can’t go straight to a new zone… There are much less chokepoints and merchants going to India have a lot more space to choose a track to get to their port. Their ASW is better than the Chinese one. They do have the IL-38 May ASW aircraft, several more Helix helicopters together with 10 Kilo class SSKs and a large number of German built Type 209 class SSKs, in total that makes about 18 or 20 submarines, lot less than China, but all of them are relatively new. Also they are ordering more modern subs too now (not that that makes a difference in a current situation exercise). Their carrier also has some Helix helicopters onboard and they are therefor capable of doing some long range defence too. They can shield the Red Sea entrance to the Indian ocean and if necessary also the Taiwan strait (from the base on the Andaman and Nicobar islands) to keep an eye on any possible sub entering the Indian ocean.

Question for Jonesy: I do know the UK SSNs can pass Suez without any trouble, but what I don’t know is whether they can do that while submerged. That is what I meant with being seen when you pass suez. Every sub I’ve seen pictured passing the Suez, was surfaced. (of course, otherwise it’s a lost effort of taking a picture of the Canal with a submerged sub).
So, can they stay submerged and not be detected or do they have to stay surfaced and hence quite visible to people standing on the entrance and sides of the Canal?

As for China’s obsolete naval forces: I thought “The Sum of All Fears”
have given all of us some very good and almost accurate indications of where technology lies in the
21st century — on medium and long range anti-ship and other missiles.

Do we base our “knowledge” on movies here? Sum of all Fears shows a lot of mistakes… WHat makes you believe a carrier only has CIWS mounts? What makes you believe the US would let it’s carrier float near Russia unprotected? In the movie, they just flew in with their planes throw some missiles and hit the carrier… SURE! If it was that easy, what are we worried about then? Why would someone want a carrrier? Costs too much for being crashed this easy…
In the movie all Kh-22 missiles worked, first of all, the missiles didn’t work in their good days, nowadays, probably none of them is in such a state as to be used in any exercise or war. Even when they were fielded as “the” weapon, more than half of them exploded just 30 seconds after launch. I believe only 1/10 missiles made it to the target area, exploding somewhere near the target but never quite on top of it. Also, the range was quite lower than the stated 500km. Depended on the guidance, and that was a hard thing to accomplish. The first missiles only made 30miles or so. Of course they could fly up to 500km, but then there is no guidance… All the remaining fuel after 30 miles makes it very dangerous of course!

Doesn’t really matter by whom it is made, it’s low frequency instead of medium, meaning it is much less aimable/directable. Meaning it will detect something at longer range, but your bearing will be crude.
As for you port issue, be sure that is not an issue, they simply HAVE to use these Northern ports. Their inflow of Oil and goods would be decimated, if not even parted by half, if they only used their Northern ports. You can have a 1,000 tankers, but if you only have 3 ports, you’re sh*t with your tankers, because basically, they’ll be all laying at anchor waiting till the next can enter. Meaning that most of the time only 10 or 15 of your tankers will be at sea (just a matter of speaking of course, depends on length of trip etc). That is also the reason why I would like Anti-Port warfare instead of Anti-tanker warfare. Although that doesn’t really fit into the scheme here, since Jonesy’s point is proving the anti-surface capabilities of the SSNs (in which he very much succeeds according to me). JOnesy is indeed the one doing the planning here and taking the initiative. All I can see you do is just react on things he tells you. Indeed you should take in account that you don’t know what Jonesy tells you. The only thing you know is that tankers are being attacked along the Chinese coast and that there are some SSNs around. What will you do? Send out an aircraft to all places where tankers are attacked? Send your surface ships to that area?

As for Jonesy, AWCH, I could have been dead if you have these routes… I was sailing on a RED painted ship and our route to Japan was closer to your RED routes than to your GREEN one 🙁 . The routes in that area are not only to be followed. It changes every months, since we use the winds and currents. Also, if you’re heading towards a country, you don’t really know where you are going. The Green route you show is probably the route for Northern Japan. Like for my ship, we only knew our destination about 5 days before arrival. We knew from the Gulf that we had to go to Japan, but we didn’t know where. We made about 5 or 6 passage plans, yet we only had to go to 2 ports, that, together with the winds and currents made us take a very steep Northern course, only bending to the East 20 miles South of Taiwan. On the return on the other hand, we came from much more North and did follow your green course more or less. For a Non-merchant, you’re good in estimated the routes!!! If you want it, I can send you the chart we used (although it’s one for November only) with the winds and currents to which we very much choose our tracks.

The Netherlands also used to have a carrier. The Karel Doorman. It was sold to Brazil I think.
So, now, to put them in a list:
USA
UK
France (one nuclear, Clemenceau scrapped and used for spare parts)
Russia (one in service/doing trials)
Italy (one in service, one building)
Spain (one in service)
Brazil (one in service)
Thailand (one in service)
India (one in service, one bought)
Japan (small amphibs might be used to operate Harriers and certainly the new planned DDH)

Lost powers:
Argentina (Vinceinto de Mayo),
Australia (Melbourne),
Netherlands (Karel Doorman)
Kuznetsov:

Admiral Kuznetsov has left for the sea
20.08.2004 17:26
According to the head of the training dept. of the Northern Navy Rear Admiral Agafonov the main task of the crew is to test sailing properties of the ship, adjust navigational and radio technical equipment, measure physical fields of the ship and its maneuverability elements as well as preparing for the deck flights. 12 older pilots will work with the 12 young. The main crew of ships has successfully completed firing missile and artillery complexes Kortik and Kinzhal. Admiral Kuznesov is to pass the second round of the after-repair tests and perform “in order” operation with other ships. Then it will be included into the force of permanent readiness.

Crobato,
Jonesy is right, he has stated about a billion times that this situation is purely an exercise, let’s see it as a “cube in space with a piece of China-shaped land in it. Putting in the assets we need”. That’s what this topic is about (well not meant this way though).

It would be more practical if the Trafalgars just dashed in, launched their Tomahawks at the port-facilities for the loading and discharging of Crude. This would put away your problem of identifying targets. And it would disable several tankers with every hit, since all those tankers than do not have a port to discharge. And going to another port will mean several days of delays and eventually very long rows of anchored ships waiting to discharge in front of a port. Better guard these anchorages then…. (Believe me, it can be very annoying to lay there, boring and a huge waste of time, certainly for the charterer of the vessel, it takes about 1 day to discharge or load a tanker).