Last I heard, the USS Kitty Hawk was high-tailing it to the South China Sea so that its compliment of 70-some fighters could escort future EP-3 “recon missions”.
What are the means by which the escorts will assure the safety of future missions? Do they plan on engaging Chinese fighters if they get too close again? Are they going to have Camcorders so at least we’ll have some evidence next time they force our EP-3 down onto one of their territories?
What will armed escorts do, asside from increase tensions?
I’ve been out of the navy for 16 years but F-14As had a pretty snazzy television camera system that could be slaved to the radar. I’m sure the F-14Ds they fly now and F-18s have something similar.
“Engaging” the chinese is pretty serious business but we’ll have the capability of escorting the P3s nicely.
BTW the Kitty Hawk can’t hold 70 fighters, only about that many total airplanes. The air wings have changed since I was in but the compliment will probably have sqadron of EA-6B prowlers (electronic warfare, no weapons), E2 Hawkeyes, S-3 Vikings and helecopters.
I’ve been out of the navy for 16 years but F-14As had a pretty snazzy television camera system that could be slaved to the radar. I’m sure the F-14Ds they fly now and F-18s have something similar.
“Engaging” the chinese is pretty serious business but we’ll have the capability of escorting the P3s nicely.
BTW the Kitty Hawk can’t hold 70 fighters, only about that many total airplanes. The air wings have changed since I was in but the compliment will probably have sqadron of EA-6B prowlers (electronic warfare, no weapons), E2 Hawkeyes, S-3 Vikings and helecopters.
To paraphrase the gun nuts (hey guys, how’s it going? :)), “an armed airborne encounter is a polite airborne encounter.” It’s a very different thing to buzz and otherwise endanger an unarmed aircraft then to buzz and otherwise endanger an aircraft with armed buddies in the neighborhood.
I don’t know what, if any, standing orders the U.S. Navy has concerning the use of force to protect navy personnel, but Chinese pilots are likely to be more circumspect in the presence of a missile-laden U.S. fighter. If nothing else, they won’t know the fighter pilot’s orders, either. Uncertainty can be a good thing.
Tactically, I suppose that one theory might be that if a couple of F-14s are escorting a surveillance craft, the Chinese wouldn’t dare play the games they played the last time. The escort might well decide that such an action is a “threat,” and respond accordingly. And yes, there would be multiple witnesses which might escape any incident.
With the independent targeting capabilities of the F-14, two Tomcats could likely send a half-dozen or more F-8s scurrying for their lives should the Chinese be so unwise as to illuminate the American planes with radar or otherwise threaten them.
Politically, it would mean that the United States is serious about maintaining their missions and treating that airspace as international. The presence of an escort might be enough to deter a sane government from antagonizing recon missions altogether. Whether or not the government of China is sane in my capitalist running-dog opinion is best left for another thread.
The independant targeting of the AWG-9 weapons system is a tad overrated and in any event not applicable to close in action. It’s really only usable at fairly long ranges at steady targets and only then when carrying multiple AIM-54 missles, something rarely done. The fact is that short range AIM-9 Sidewinders which have been around since the fifties have more kills than guns and all other air to air missles combined.
No kidding? Well, thanks for opening my eyes there, Padeye. I’ve honestly believed that you could do a series of fire-and-forget launches on multiple targets with little trouble, anywhere outside of cannon range. I should have known it couldn’t be that simple.
That makes me think a little differently. If, say, a finger-four of F-8s starts closing in, at what point do the F-14s consider illumination and targeting? It seems as if it would be farther away than I had originally thought.
I remember reading that the F-14 weapons system, when accompanied by the Phoenix missile, could target 18 aircraft at one time, and fire on 6 targets simultaneously. Claimed ranges were something like 110 miles for targeting and 70 miles for firing. I take it this was mostly hyperbole then?
One problem with the Phoenix missile - it’s ungodly expensive. Back when the Tomcat was new, the Phoenix was 1.1 million bucks EACH. I imagine they probably cost more than 5 million per unit now. That’s undoubtedly more than the Chinese fighter they would shoot at is worth.
My boss is an ex-F18 pilot, and basically his take is that the presence of a carrier means that we are capable of waging full scale war. Apparently it’s all about the ability to project power. Once a carrier is there, we own the sky for all intents and purposes, and nothing flies without our say-so.
This means that any planes harassing our recon missions will find themselves dogged by an overwhelming number of fighters. As Sua said earlier, I’m sure the standard of behavior among Chinese pilots will increase as they notice the multiple armed escort.
Militarily quite effective. A CVBG is a substantial weight of power, quite sufficient to gain local air dominance in the area for any reasonable length of time.
Diplomatically stupid. It’s a threat, plain and simple, and an arrogant one at that, telling those uppity chinks that we’ll spy on them if they like it or not, and they better not give us any lip. Add in a measure of hypocrisy: the situation is not terribly different from the harassment we used to give Soviet Bears doing the same kind of flights outside our territory (but of course it’s different when it’s us :rolleyes: )
Politically, possibly a good move. Bush’s party always has contained a large share of over-patriotic hardliners, who probably consider anything less than blasting Chinese aircraft out of the sky as “too soft”
I was an aviation fire control tech in the navy for six years. My specialty was the AWG-9 weapons systems in the F-14A. It’s a topic I know reasonably well.
There is a big gulf between what’s possible and what’s practical for multiple Phoenix launches. There has only been one six launch/six hit firing ever and that was back in the seventies with drones. I’m not aware of a Phoenix ever being used in combat but someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
The multiple launch Phoenix scenario works best against things like cruise missles. Most of the AIM-54’s flight is kinetic energy from a short motor fire. That’s all well and good for a target going in a predictable path but a live target can easily maneuver enough to make the missle drain it’s energy trying to chase it.
Mounting multiple Phoenix missles is a problem too. The wing stations, 1 and 8 IIRC are impractical at sea because a thousand pound missle has to be lifted six feet off the ground. I have never seen a Phoenix pylon mounted on those stations in the fleet. That leaves the belly stations 3-6 (2 and 7 are the gas tanks that mount under the engine nacelles). It’s common to have multipurpose rails and LAU-93 launchers on the forward two stations but rare to put them on the aft two stations. Each Phoenix weighs close to a thousand pounds and the rail/launcher weigh about the same. Mounting a third and fourth Phoenix on the aft stations is putting a hell of a lot of weight in the extreme rear of the plane. An aft center of gravity tends to make a plane less stable in flight.
There is a launch and leave capability for the Phoenix but only within <mumble mumble> miles.
AIM-7 Sparrows and AMRAAMs are pretty good missles, less costly and have far less weight than a Phoenix. Sidewinders and cheaper and lighter still, 180lbs, and far superior for these kinds of intercepts.
I got to see an intercept of a Soviet (remember them?, ooh, cold war nostalgia) Bear recon plane that tried to buzz the Constellation. We launched two alert-5 fighters which intercepted and tracked the bear with each plane taking turns tracking it from behind. The bear could fly slower than an F-14 so the fighters would break off when they approached too close. The Bear was low and close enough to see the guy in the rear “gunner” position.
When their side rattles sabers sometimes you’ve got to rattle yours. When they conducted missile testing near Taiwan during their elections we sent a few of our ships in the area.
And I’d like you to explain how we’re being hypocritical on this issue. As I recall our response to Russian planes was to fly near them not crash into them.
Thanks for remaining reasonable about the whole thing.
I doubt that fighter pilot intended to collide. Aircraft are not cars, you can’t brush fenders and expect to just muss your paint job. Or are you saying he was on a deliberate kamikaze mission?
I also don’t much consider them “rattling sabers” for harassing what’s essentially spy craft. Yes, those missions are technically legal, but yes, China also has every right to resent it. We do the same things in the same situations. See above.
No, it’s not reasonable, that’s the point. What I said above is merely a paraphrase of more than a few posts I’ve seen on other message boards by those with far right leanings. No matter how diplomatically suicidal it might be, it’s making domestics of that political bent quite happy. It tends to be a trait of people that use the term “Chicom”
What if it is a threat, in the nature of a warning not to jack with us? I have no problem with that.
What if we are telling them that we will conduct recon on them whether they like it or not? I have no problem with that.
What if we are being hypocritical from some standpoint, by aggressively intercepting our enemies’ recon planes? I would have no problem with that if it were true, though I have my doubts–AFAIK, we never caused any Soviet Bears to crash through our own pilots’ recklessness.
We’re a superpower. We have a perogative to preserve regional stability in East Asia. We have every right and incentive to try to preserve our own interests in the region, including open shipping lanes through the South China Sea and a free and democratic Taiwan. We can only do so from a position of strength, by letting Beijing know that if they mess with us they will pay a very dear price. So what’s the problem?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what he INTENDED… the simple fact is that the pilot acted stupid, and got himself killed as a result, AND severely damaged (to the point that it needed to land immediately) a large plane and endangered two dozen lives.
We crash into planes and then act like jackasses? Gee, coulda fooled me, pal.
And some people disagree. It would have been unreasonable while the Chinese held our people (THAT would have been construed as a threat), but now it seems to me that the statement is “You [China] can’t control your pilots, so we’ll control them for you.” I don’t see how that’s appropriate.
Keep in mind that this incident wasn’t the first time that Chinese fighters intercepted our ships and “hot-dogged” around them… this is simply the first time a major affair was made of it.
Considering that China runs the EXACT same missions on their neighbors, including Japan, Russia, South Korea, and a number of other neighboring countries, I do not really see how they have a right to be resentful. And in the history of our intercepts, how often have we come within 10 ft. This incident with China was not a mere accident, it was an accident with a clearly negligent party.
Sailors? Very unlikely. As I recall, China’s blue-water capabilities are functionally nonexistant and I would not put any money on their ability to directly attack a carrier battlegroup with their land-based aircraft. As with all things military, sure, it can be done if you’re willing to pay the price, but it would be quite costly. There’s the diplomatic considerations as well: in symbolic terms, attacking a carrier is second only to attacking the mainland US. It WILL provoke a response.
But aircraft? Depends on how stubborn everyone’s going to be about this P-3 business. We’re apparently not going to back down and I can’t say if China’s going to. However, judging by the froth that the Chinese people are in over this, and the “saving face” aspect now that they’ve actually started on it, I think it’s doubtful they’ll back down unless we offer them a graceful way out. It’s not really a big enough issue for either side to start shooting over, but wars have started over stupider things.
…and sending in the Kitty Hawk is about as graceful as pointing a gun at someone. As the OP said, I don’t believe sending escorts can do anything but raise tension. The best solution IMO would be to work some sort of concession out of them in return for stopping the P-3 flights, and going to a less provocative means of spying.