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Beijing ridicules Seventh Fleet after warships' collisions
[AsiaTimes] A semi-submersible ship ‐ reportedly Chinese-built ‐ has been deployed to tow the badly damaged USS John S McCain back to its home port in Yokosuka, Japan, after the 8,300-ton guided-missile destroyer’s collision in August that claimed the lives of 10 of its crew, and left another five injured.Virginia-based Navy Times has reported that the destroyer USS O’Kane will be on ad hoc secondment to the Western Pacific to fill the "void" left by the McCain and Fitzgerald, as the two damaged warships will have to undergo an emergency refit and will remain out of service for at least a year. Pro-Beijing military commentators say the big holes in the two destroyers caused by the early-morning collisions ‐ said to be the size of a tennis court ‐ have laid bare the Pentagon’s flabby oversight and discipline, stressing that both the McCain and the Fitzgerald used to patrol the South China Sea and "provocatively" intrude on Beijing’s sovereignty. The fact that seamen on the sinking Fitzgerald, after a blackout that downed all electronic devices, had to use a private cellphone to send SOS signals has evoked much derision among fans of the Chinese military, as they jeered that ships of the ace US Seventh Fleet couldn’t even sail properly at night and therefore posed a grave danger to other vessels, as such collisions occurred not just once but twice. Some have gone so far as to call the US Navy a "paper tiger" on the sea. Hu Bo, of Peking University’s Ocean Strategy Research Institute, told Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly that the Seventh Fleet and the Pacific Fleet as a whole, the largest of the forward-deployed US fleets, might be overstretched by a host of drills and peacekeeping operations in response to the region’s heightened geopolitical tensions, ranging from the North Korea nuclear and missile crisis to the South China Sea territorial row, as well as boosting defense for its treaty allies, in particular South Korea and Japan. "The fleet finds itself in a manpower and hardware crunch even though its ships and soldiers have to patrol more waters on a more hectic [schedule].... Frontline soldiers are tired and they receive inadequate training," Hu said. Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 2017-11-04 |
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