Can anyone ID these warships, or classes of warships for me?

Factual Questions
1

Here is the story of a joint American/Japanese that will be sailing around the East China Sea showing the flag. Here is the full-size pic of some ships in the fleet. You don’t often see three carriers sailing in formation, even if two of them are some kind of helicopter/assault ships.

Obviously the big carrier is one of America’s nuclear carriers. If you scroll down the story page, you can see a better picture of one of the small carriers (here it is), which turns out to be Japanese. The ship trailing it (in the big pic) has a blocky superstructure that kind of looks like an Aegis cruiser, but otherwise looks a bit too small for that. Also, in that side view, you can see a sub on the surface on the far side, which to my eye looks too small for an American sub.

But maybe my perspective on size is way off. I find it very hard to figure out relative sizes of ships that are of considerably different size and also separated by hundreds of yards from each other.

2

The US carrier is likely the George Washington, since that’s stationed in Japan.

The smaller Japanese carrier is a Hyuga helicopter destroyer.

3

Is the trailing ship a Burke-class DDG? To me, the sub doesn’t look like either the Japanese Oyashio-class SSK, or the Soryu-class. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference between them and any USN submarine from that far away. Here’s a list of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces, with links to the individual classes. Maybe you all will have more luck?

4

Thanks for the list/ If the sub is one of those two, it’s an Oayshio class – if you zoom in on the pic you can see a vertical tail jutting out of the water behind the hull, and the Soryu has a V-shaped tail configuration.

I’ll look around for a site with more pics.

5

Quoting the linked article;
*Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia are locked in escalating territorial disputes with China and have sought to bolster military ties to Washington to counter Beijing’s influence. *
Vietnam wants US assistance in a dispute against China?
This is a WTF moment.

6

Yeah! Ain’t it cool?

7

I think gray ghost got it right. I couldn’t find any other US warship with that same slab-sided look (besides the Burke class, of course).

Check out this page for a Burke photo that looks remarkably similar.

8

Of course, the Japanese have Aegis ships, too.

9

The Japanese wikimedia page for the picture with the carriers has tagged IDs for most of the ships.

The description says the sub is either Oyashio or Soryu class (as suggested above) and that the upper-left untagged destroyer is either a Murasame or Takanami class (they have identical profiles).

10

China is claiming the entire South China Sea, virtually right up to the shore of a number of nations, completely ignoring the UN recognized 200 mile Economic Exclusion Zones. The basis of their claim is about as strong as “It’s the South CHINA Sea, right?” - they’re claiming that it has always been their property.

Then they’re trying to divide-and-conquer, refusing any joint negotiations, insisting only on one-on-one negotiations with each affected nation and accusing the USA (which has a vested interest in the region and in freedom of navigation) of interfering in their affairs.

Then you got an up and coming group of Chinese Nationalists aggitating for war and threatening it every time some minor conflict over it comes up. When the little bullshit about the Japanese gov’t buying those disputed islands from a private party popped up a few months ago, some people in the Chinese gov’t were quoted as saying that if Mao were still in charge, they would already have destroyed Japan. Given how tightly the Chinese media is controlled, shit like that doesn’t make it out unless it has some pretty serious backing.

Which should be as scary as it sounds.

11

Well they’ve obviously seen The Princess Bride, since they don’t think it’s a mistake to fight a sea war in Asia. Still, no matter how big and powerful you are, when you start looking for trouble with Vietnam, it’s a signal to hand your buddy your keys and call a cab.

12

There’s a bit of oil and gas there, in the South China Sea, that probably has something to do with the heightened concern.

The Spratly Islands have been a trendy guess for the flashpoint of the next big global conflict for awhile.

Good catch on the rear stabilizer(s) being different on the two sub classes. After traversing global security’s annoying pay us now pop-up, it looks to me a bit more like a Takanami, than a Burke. I think that’s the dome from the Phalanx on the fore-deck Either would ruin your day though if you were in an airplane, and that close to them.

13

If you want more info on the photos try this link: http://www.navy.mil/search/photolist.asp Then search on “Keen Sword 2010.” You will find a number of photos, some in HD and some captions that ID some of the ships you ask about.

14

Thanks! If I leave off the date, I find a bunch from this year, including this one, which shows a 4th carrier in the formation (ok a third little helicopter carrier, but still pretty cool).

15

I’m also gonna guess the subs are American. It seems unlikely that non-nuclear subs could keep up with the surface fleet or range ahead for ASW sweeps.