November 10, 2007-Oh shit! The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk (CV-63) was in the Pacific, conducting an exercise with her battle group. On day two of the exercise she got a rude surprise from an uninvited guest.
A Song class submarine of the Chinese navy penetrated the defenses of the battle group and surfaced within visual range of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. The sub had remained undetected throughout it’s approach. This placed the U.S. carrier well within the range of the sub’s Yu-4 torpedoes and her Yingji-82 anti-ship missiles.
The Song class is a recent Chinese design with the flag ship first putting to sea on 25 May, 1994 (pennant number 320). The Chinese Navy has launched three of these boats, the last one in November 2003.
The advanced design of the sub, some intelligence officials have noted has benefitted from the transfer of U.S. techonolgy to China during the Clinton Administration.
The incident led to tense diplomatic exchanges, with shaken American diplomats demanding to know why the submarine was “shadowing” the U.S. fleet while Beijing pleaded ignorance and dismissed the affair as coincidence.
The U.S. Navy has been given a serious wake up call.
propaganda. 1st off, the sub “penetraded” 5 miles away from Kitty Hawk and fleet. 2nd off this was in 2006, not 2007 (old nes); and 3rd, the only way they could have sit undetected is if they had gone to full off as the engines are diesel/electric and very noisy.
Which means when they surfaced they were 1) immediately detected; 2) more vulnerable than the kittyhawk which was surrounded by its destroyers, and 3, not fully powered up and ready for battle.
1st- Thanks for catching that typo. You have a great future teaching fifth grade. 2nd- Yes the incident happened in 2006 I referenced the day it was REPORTED. Google OPSEC. 3rd- New diesel/electrics are extremely quiet. Especially submerged. The tactic used by the Chinese has not been revealed. However it got there, PENETRATING a carrier group to a range of 5 nm is a serious failure on the part of the battle group. Of course they were detected when they surfaced. The sub crew waved at the Kitty Hawk for Christ sake. They were making a point. Please note that whenever a carrier group is at sea the defenses ARE “powered up and ready for battle”.
But thanks for the comment. Feel free to continue the discussion. I’d love for a carrier sailor to throw their two cents into the hat.