Observing the Massive Naval Preparations in the Pacific

Originally posted by magicmushroom
Also its highly probable that if a confrontation took place China would go nuclear and nuke the carrier battle groups.

If China ever nuked a U.S. navel fleet, I feel the U.S. would have no choice but to retaliate in kind with, at a minimum, a tactical nuke on their mainland. Then the crap will probably really hit the fan.

This tells you all that you need to know.
www.navy.mil...

I highly doubt we will do anything to China unless they are making moves on Taiwan. I have heard that they may use the games as a cover for taking Taiwan by force however that would cause even Russia to pimp slap them for stupidity. What is shown are the ships that are moving out and headed somewhere. What is not shown is the ships that are already on station and yes a CBG has two attack subs in each and many other surface ships. They don't tell you where all the Ohio class subs are and they never will because they are always in hiding ready to hit back if we are ever attacked. You can bet they are always near China and Russia to decrease the pizza delivery time and they can still target the mid-east if need be so they are in the pacific and I'm sure a few in the Arctic with the polar bears.

reply to post by Sky watcher


A star for you.

And to the question a previous poster asked. I believe taking nuking China after they did us would be acceptable.

Nimitz has been working with her battle group and the USS Essex, along with forces from the Republic of Korea during Exercise Key Resolve/Foal Eagle 2008. It's an annual joint exercise involving the ROK and US Navy.

The Abraham Lincoln is transiting to the Persian Gulf. She's going to be operating in that region and returning to Everett around October. It's actually a 7 month deployment.

reply to post by 4thDoctorWhoFan


If they even can now with the Standard 3 missile on our Aegis ships. We would obliterate China if they took out one of our CBGs with a nuke. Beijing would be gone fifteen minutes after such an attack. A CBG commander don't need permission to respond to a nuclear attack like that.

reply to post by Sky watcher


Two problems there. The SM-3 is NOT designed to go against an ICBM. It's designed for theater defense against IRBMs. The second problem is that there are something like 7 ships currently that are CAPABLE of deploying the SM-3 and the SM-3 is in very limited numbers. I believe the Navy currently has less than 100 of them.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Two problems there. The SM-3 is NOT designed to go against an ICBM. It's designed for theater defense against IRBMs. The second problem is that there are something like 7 ships currently that are CAPABLE of deploying the SM-3 and the SM-3 is in very limited numbers. I believe the Navy currently has less than 100 of them.

Actually I was reading about this today on that navy blog, there are 17 AEGIS ships with ballistic missile defense, 16 as listed here plus the USS Ramage as identified in the comments here by another naval blogger.

According to the navy website, all those ships listed are homeported in the Pacific. If they have 100 SM-3s, that doesn't leave many to go around if they are distributed among the ships, but it sounds like only half or so of the 17 ships can act as shooters.

Interesting that is the same blog of the original article in this thread, because I ended up going to the blog indirectly by link from a Defense Industry Daily BMD news article.

Makes the blog as a source for the news in the Pacific a bit more credible in my view.

This is interesting but not altogether a condemning occurrance. Having been in the Marine Corps and attached to an amphibious assault group in the late 80's and early 90's, I can say that March of every other year is the month of a large joint exercise. I don't remember the name, but I do know that when my unit participated in it, it included Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine participation as well as ROK Marines.

In general, the ground forces were regiment sized, but I do not know the size of the surface or air components.

I hope this isn't an attempt by the US to "bully" China. That would just be plain stupid.

reply to post by darksided


By the END of 2008 there will be 18 capable ships. This includes ships that are ONLY capable of the LRS&T mission, and NOT of firing the SM-3. The current number also includes at least 3 JSDF ships that have been modified or are in the process of being modified. The number of ships capable of SHOOTING the SM-3s is actually much lower.

[edit on 3/20/2008 by Zaphod58]

reply to post by JanusFIN


If the US was going to do something about Tibet, or put pressure on China/Nth Korea.

Do you honestly believe they would put all their Carrier groups in one region?

One or two nukes from the Chinese & the whole lot would be lost.

THis is prolly nothing more than a changing of the guard.

Stop sweatting, The Chinese don't want to start a war this year, they stand to make Billions in Tourism Dollars from the Olympics.

Hmmm.... Maybe next year...lol

Originally posted by Zaphod58
By the END of 2008 there will be 18 capable ships. This includes ships that are ONLY capable of the LRS&T mission, and NOT of firing the SM-3. The current number also includes at least 3 JSDF ships that have been modified or are in the process of being modified. The number of ships capable of SHOOTING the SM-3s is actually much lower.

Yea that is how I understand it too. Looks like the system requires a tracker and a shooter, and according to the graphs provided the target is 2010 for all 18 to be ready to shoot.

Looks like there are 8 US shooters right now, if I'm reading the data right. 3 CGs and 5 DDGs.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Well if it can hit theater nukes and take out faster moving satellites then why do you think that it cant take out ICBMS? They all have to come down to hit their target and when it gets in range it will be intercepted. They only say that the SM3 cant work against an ICBM is that because one would be shot from mainland to mainland way to high up for the missile to reach if the ship was way out to sea. If we had one in our home port and the missile is in its large range then its another ball game. Were we not talking about China nuking a CBG? That would mean that they would be sending one right into the SM3s area of protection. Who knows how many SM3s we have now, I can bet they are being produced now at full steam given their great successes in every test. Soon all of our ships will have them and we will be able to protect what ever we want. One thing that is so very nice is that all that is learned from the SM3 will be brought to the other systems.

reply to post by darksided


No, eventually ALL ships that are LRS&T capable will be capable of being shooters. However, there are two upgrades necessary to the system. The first and easiest, is the LRS&T capability.

reply to post by Sky watcher



Because the ability to hit the satellite was a TEMPORARY modification to the system. It was removed from the system and returned to a normal system immediately affetr the satellite was shot down.

As for the difference between an IRBM and ICBM interception, with an IRBM you are usually talking a reentry speed of up to about 3 km/s. With an ICBM you are talking closer to 7 km/s. It's a much faster reentry, which requires a much faster interceptor than the SM-3.

Its not going to be chasing it for sure, It will be intercepting it so speed don't mean much. Oh and if you believe that we are not going to keep our new little satellite killer around then your are very naive. They will incorporate that capability into the system even if they need to call it a SM4 and have separate missiles on board for it. The Congress will be sending all kinds of money to the Navy after that kind of show for sure.

ICBMs also incorporate maneuverable warheads, so yes speed makes a HUGE difference.

As for being "naive" the software to hit the satellite was removed from the ships within 48 hours after hitting the satellite. Almost as soon as the Lake Eerie and Russell returned to port they were removing the modification.

The SM-3 while very successful in tests also has yet to be used in a highly realistic test against decoys. There are missiles out there that you won't be able to tell the real warhead from the decoys on radar. The SM-3 has been used against crude decoys, but not some of the more realistic ones yet.

The SM-3 that shot down the satellite was, in fact, designed—is part of the overall program—to shoot down ballistic missiles. But, as Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and former commander of Strategic Command, the agency that runs the missile-defense program's operations), said at a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday, the SM-3 had been "modified" to shoot down the satellite. As reconfigured, he said, it was "not a missile defense system." The two tasks "do not correlate." The profile of the target and the nature of the intercept were "very different."

One reporter asked, "Does the whole episode then add to the knowledge that could be used or applied to missile defense at all?"

Cartwright replied, "Other than netting the sensors together, which is what we used for missile defense"—and which has been tried out in many previous missile-defense tests—"not really. I mean, it doesn't cross over."

Let's back up. The SM-3s, which are based on the Navy's Aegis-class cruisers, have been the most successful weapons in the multilayered missile-defense program. They have hit their target—a mock warhead—in 11 of their last 12 tests. The Pentagon didn't need to fire one against a satellite—a mission that involved much modification in its software—to show that, within the parameters of the test, it works.

www.slate.com...




[edit on 3/20/2008 by Zaphod58]

[edit on 3/20/2008 by Zaphod58]

China has at least 4 Soveremenny Destroyers armed Sunburn Nuclear missles. The counter for this missle was halted by the Clinton administration. It would sink an aircraft carrier on impact and flys in a zig-zag type pattern as to make it harder to destroy (hence a viable counter is necessary).

The US goes off intel from other countries including Isreal and Great Britain. It could be that there are more strategic movements by the Chinese that we are not yet aware of.

If all those ships are there, is for good reason i'm sure. Those types of descisions are not takely lightly.

China originally stated they wanted to take Taiwan before the Olympics as to have some 'clean-up' time, but that must of been decided against.

Maybe they'll hold Olympic Athletes hostage as a bargaining chip while going after Taiwan at the same time.

There has been speculation since 2005 that China has been potentially planning an attack on Taiwan just before the Olympics.

You can read some about this below:
thedignifiedrant.blogspot.com...

This dude did his home work:

"The Chinese should also announce in late 2007 and early 2008 lots of lucrative purchase deals with Canadians, Europeans, Japanese, and even American firms. If the Chinese can quickly conquer Taiwan, this will increase the calls for peace by lots of nations or companies eager to keep those contracts intact."

This has been done with the purchase of 70 plus Boeing aircraft, new deals with Microsoft, and other major US firms bofore HU's visit (April 2006 - see link below for more):

archive.newsmax.com...

[edit on 21-3-2008 by jetxnet]

Currently, China holds over $1 trillion in dollar denominated assets (of which $330 billion are U.S. Treasury notes). In comparison, $1.4 trillion represents M1 or the "tight money supply" of U.S. Dollars which suggests that the value of the U.S. Dollar could change dramatically should China ever choose to divest itself of a large portion of those reserves.

Let me think. China makes overtures of "cashing out" and Uncle Sam sends our military might to the Pacific to say "no, don't cash". At this point in history, "the Sleeping Giant" as I like to call it, has more leverage against us than we have against them. Yes, we keep their economy going; however, it's all about resources. China has accumulated enormous amounts of resources in the past five years alone.

They don't have to push a nuclear button to destroy us. All they need to do is "cash out" to destroy our economy. If it was you who was holding on to the dollars and you saw your fortune being eroded daily, would you cash out?

I strongly believe there is more happening than meets the eye. Isnt't that how it always is? Tibet, Taiwan, the Olympics - the eyes of the world are on that region of the world, as much as in the Middle East.

Maybe the secret letter Bush sent Putin has something to do with this? We'll see.


[edit on 21-3-2008 by manticore]

reply to post by JanusFIN


Probably due to the election due to take place in the Republic of China (Taiwan). The USA usually increases its military presence in the region when the ROC has General Elections. Maybe this time the commie cowards of mainland China (PRC) will grow some balls and give us a reason to blow them out of the planet (wishful thinking).

Originally posted by daviroo

Originally posted by ian990003100
....

This is a conservative listing from about 3 years ago i have the naval institute guide to comabt fleets of the world 2005/2006

The thing to find out is have the UK deployed any ships or any other allied nations?

The US can't afford another war I don't think this is anything to worry about....

For people that were wondering about UK deployments, you can see them all on this map. here

Also the video on the top right of that link shows where everyone is and it shows one UK ship being deployed to the Pacific.

A question I can't help asking is, is it wise to announce the positions of your entire fleet to the world over the internet?

Hmmm let me think about this....only those ships doing their normal run of the mill well publicised activities will be on that map. You can be absolutley guaranteed that any craft involved in any secret/covert mission will not be shown!