Someone on that sub is going to bed without his dinner tonight
From the
Nanaimo Daily News/Reuters:
Chinese sub collides with cargo towed by U.S. warship
A Chinese submarine accidentally collided with an underwater sonar array being towed by a U.S. military ship, CNN reported on Friday, quoting an unnamed military official.
The incident occurred on Thursday near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines, according to the CNN report.
The destroyer USS John S. McCain was towing the array, deployed to track underwater sounds.
"The John S. McCain did have a problem with its towed array sonar. It was damaged" on Thursday in Subic Bay, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, would not confirm other details of the CNN report, including whether the array collided with a Chinese submarine. He said the U.S. destroyer was not damaged and was not hit by another vessel.
The U.S. Navy does not view the incident as a deliberate move by Beijing to harass military ships operating in the region, CNN reported.
The passive sonar arrays are designed to be as quiet in the water as possible. If the Chinese didn't know it was in the water, they would never have found it unless they went active and if you are sneaking up on a US Destroyer, going active is something you really do not want to do...
Posted by DaveH at June 12, 2009 8:57 PM