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China-Japan-Koreas
Japanese tracking mystery sub
2004-11-11
Japan's military on Thursday shadowed an unidentified submarine that entered its territorial waters the day before, but officials said they had not yet figured out what country the intruder was from. Tokyo put its navy on alert Wednesday after spotting the submarine off Japan's southern island of Okinawa, and sent a reconnaissance plane and destroyer to follow its movements. The submarine, which spent two hours in Japanese waters before leaving, was heading north Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference. He refused to confirm media reports that defense officials believe the vessel is from China, saying: "We don't have enough conclusive evidence to make a determination."

He said it would take some time to identify the submarine because it hasn't surfaced and didn't appear to be heading toward a specific country. Hosoda said Tokyo hasn't confronted any countries about the incident. Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono told a parliamentary committee Thursday the military was still tracking the submarine. Officials have refused to confirm media reports that Tokyo was investigating a possible link between the sub sighting and China's recent exploration of natural gas fields in Japan's southern waters. Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said defense officials suspect Beijing may have sent the vessel to head off criticism from Tokyo about China's recent surveys for gas fields near Okinawa.

Territorial disputes have occasionally flared up between Japan and its neighbors, China and South Korea, including one that has deepened in recent months with Beijing over natural gas deposits in the East China Sea. Japan has accused China of conducting surveys for gas fields near Okinawa that extend into Japanese territorial waters. China says its activities are close to its coast and don't concern Japan and has rejected offering more information.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#24  sent him a constructive criticism email - he has good stuff
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-11 9:54:24 PM  

#23  ...to landing SPEPCOPS teams

Isn't that a 'Law & Order' spin-off?
Posted by: Pappy   2004-11-11 9:35:56 PM  

#22  whoa! No paragraphs and lots of all caps acronyms. wtf did he say?
Posted by: Classical_Liberal   2004-11-11 9:27:48 PM  

#21  ASYMMETRIC WARFARE applies to undersea warfare as well as surface, aerospace, and space, espec given America's new concepts od maintaining absolute Battlespace, SPAWAR, and MilTech dominance as much as possible. No matter their rhetoric, RUSSIA-CHINA are still COMMUNISM-CENTRIC/CONTROLLED - America's alleged new friend Russia is still engaged in massive global Anti-American weapons proliferation and tech transfers, with CHINA, amongst others in the world, gobbling up Russian -built Airborne transports, fighter-bombers, missle systems, and Submarines AMAP. Submarines, NOT surface ships, is intended to be China's ultim mainstay/primary platform for both strategic attack, deterrence, and local tactical area defense, includ local and regional anti-USN /Carrier naval defense of PLAN amphibious, commando, airborne, ground and naval surface forces. Various Net sources still argue that China is bent on acquiring Russian AKULA II's attack subs, or to develop its own, and that both Russia and China are bent of developing large UW armed Sub Transports for carrying troops, regular or commando, and supplies, as well as dev the techs necessary for conversion in case of war ags the USA. With its future J-10 and other LCA [Ex. French Mirage2000's], as anticipated China intends to flood the skies with a HI-LO MIX of mostly light but capable fighter and fighter-bomber tacair. All things equal,. in case of WW3 ags the USA, both Russia and China intend to use "TAKE-AND-HOLD" tactics, with the Clintons and International Diplomacy taking care of the rest as to the milpol defeat of the USA. The sub detected near Japan is believed by the JMSDF to be of the HAN-type, doing anything from probing of Japan's UW defenses to conducting UW surveying to landing SPEPCOPS teams. For me, the only pragmatic, non-political reason for China to be surveying and resurveying the undersea geography near Japan is that they are in process of dev specific underwater warfare tactics for use in coming war ags US and Allied SSN or attack subs, i.e. asymmetric, undersea "sub(s) vs. sub(s)" offensive-defensive battle requiring maximum use of natural geography. With Russia allowing so many Chinese into their FAR EAST-SIBERIA regions, just an AIRBORNE- andor SUB-hop away from Northern Japan and espec ALCAN [Alaska-Canada], specifically the Mountains, High Ridges, Riverine Basins, Valleys, and Swamps, snow or water, anything to minimize US Tech and SATWAR advantages in favor of SPECFORS AND INFANTRY COMBAT.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2004-11-11 9:22:31 PM  

#20  It's 'Kimmy' alright! The NORK's card under the table, would be to launch against the Japanese should the US preempt their nuclear developemnt strategy with a strike. That activity requires 'probing' the Japanese defense readiness. The Japanese will do nothing under the secret US reassurance that they are tracking the intruder from base!
Posted by: smn   2004-11-11 9:13:44 PM  

#19  I thought a hand grenade dropped over the rail was the International Invitation to Surface.
Posted by: SteveS   2004-11-11 7:38:16 PM  

#18  Lol, AP! But when you have the opportunity to practice on a real live "enemy" sub, well hell, you've just gotta exploit the shit out of it, lol! Of course, if they had the chance, they'd do the same or worse. I wonder if the socialists hereabouts figure we owe that crew hearing aids...
Posted by: .com   2004-11-11 5:26:37 PM  

#17  An electrician who used to work for me used to fly P2V Neptunes in Antisubmarine warfare for the Navy. They were off of Jan Mayen island one day (toward Iceland and Greenland) when they caught a Soviet diesel sub on the surface. It crash dove, and they kept track of it with sonabouys. They had these cherry-bomb type explosives around, so they started banging around the hull of that sub. For the next two days, in shifts, the P2Vs harassed this diesel sub with the bombs, one after another. My friend said that they enjoyed it immensely, but started feeling sorry for the submariners after a while.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-11-11 5:22:58 PM  

#16  I think Kim Jung Il is messin' with 'em.
Posted by: SMF   2004-11-11 5:17:37 PM  

#15  it's the remaining beatles?
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-11 4:53:42 PM  

#14  Captain, listen to this:

(muffled) We all live in a...
Posted by: eLarson   2004-11-11 4:48:28 PM  

#13  Ha! Simpletons!
Why Ping the enemy?
A simple TrcRt will fetch up evidence galore!.

This is a long voyage gentlemen, only one exclamtion point per watch per day allowed.
Posted by: W Bligh   2004-11-11 4:10:22 PM  

#12  "One ping only, please."
Posted by: Seafarious   2004-11-11 2:54:28 PM  

#11  Look!! It's GODZILLA!!
Posted by: sam   2004-11-11 2:49:28 PM  

#10  As Gweilo Diaries wrote:

No Fair!

According to Japan's Chief Cabinet Minister, his country's defense forces have been unable to confirm the nationality of supected Chinese nuclear submarine caught trespassing in Japanese territorial waters because, in a fiendishly clever move, the vessel "stays underwater."



Posted by: anonymous2u   2004-11-11 1:51:21 PM  

#9  Active ping,they hate that cause then they know they are being hunted.Sovit and US subs did it to let the other guy know"If I wanted you would be dead now".
Posted by: raptor   2004-11-11 1:29:48 PM  

#8  I'm with Yosemite on this one - there's likely a 'blue' sub or two in the neighborhood, or along the route...
Posted by: Pappy   2004-11-11 12:40:32 PM  

#7  Might be fun to take a few runs at it with a practice torpedo.
Posted by: ed   2004-11-11 12:36:00 PM  

#6  I would vote for forcing it to the surface and then boarding it . . . by force if necessary. How do you force a sub to the surface? Depth charges, I believe, are a good way to start.
Posted by: Jame Retief   2004-11-11 12:33:34 PM  

#5  Unless Jacques Cousteau's team has gotten blown off course, it's hard to imagine this being anything other than a hostile incursion. What's the relevant law here? Can you just sink any submarine that crosses into your national waters? With a surface ship, I think you're supposed to try to hail them first, but I don't know how one does that with a sub. Whatever the law says, it'd be nice to see the Japs honor their militant ancestors by dropping a few torpedos on this fool.
Posted by: Captain Pedantic   2004-11-11 12:27:49 PM  

#4  Where's the USS Ward when you need it?
Posted by: Dar   2004-11-11 12:15:43 PM  

#3  Theres no need to sink it to know whos it is. If it really is a nuke, I'm sure they got a blade count, reduction gear tonals, CHT grinder tonals and electric generator tonals. These are like finger prints, unique to each sub. If its a diesel on batteries, thats allot harder to detect but if they have air cover on it (best way to track/kill a sub) they'll wait for it to snorkle to charge its batteries. They'll get a tonal off the diesels then. Its allot easier to ID a sub when you know its not hunting you.

I'd be VERY surprised if they didn't already know whos it is - not to mention one of ours are probably within earshot of it too.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam   2004-11-11 12:02:10 PM  

#2  OldSpook is right. Wannan find out who the mystery sub belongs to ? Fire on the MF'er. Try to sink it NOW.
Posted by: Mark Z.   2004-11-11 11:50:22 AM  

#1  I want to see "Japanese SINK mystery sub"
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-11-11 11:44:10 AM  

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