Aus election is near. There will be ramping up of anti china issues as it gets heated up. It will be politicized. Manufactured stories like Chinese threats, interference in aus politics, spying etc.
I thought the laser was a range finder from the start. There is no reason a 052D would use DIRCM (does it even exist on Chinese ships?) on aircraft unless it is actually intending to shoot it down. The 052D also wouldn't open its radars except for the navigation radar to not give any ELINT to the ESM suite on the P-8. They used the rangefinder to range the aircraft as the result.
Though targeting of the cockpit is probably intentional. I can see China responding in an escalatory way to Australia if they sensed any disrespect. Close flight over the ship may fit China's definition of disrespect.
Chinese Defense Spokesperson on "Chinese vessel lasing ADF aircraft": "The Australia's statement is completely inconsistent with the facts. The RAAF P-8A was conducting close-in reconnaissance on the Chinese warships, flying as close as 4km.
It can be seen from the photos that the P-8A is very close to the Chinese warships, and P-8A even released sonobuoys nearby. Such provocative actions can easily lead to misunderstandings & misjudgments, posing a threat to the safety of ships, aircraft and personnel of both sides.
It can be seen from the photos that the P-8A is very close to the Chinese warships, and P-8A even released sonobuoys nearby. Such provocative actions can easily lead to misunderstandings & misjudgments, posing a threat to the safety of ships, aircraft and personnel of both sides.
4km is very close. I hope they damaged the aircraft's systems by using the laser.
It should be a good lesson for them to stay further away next time
How on earth is 4km close? If it had been 400m then maybe. How many pictures are there of Chinese aircraft/vessels closing well within 1km of foreign vessels in the SCS, quite a few.
400 Meters? You're insane if you think that level of proximity is allowed or even operationally SAFE. I hope that Australia tries to get that close so that they'll get more than just a range finder. Just don't cry about it when the result isn't going to be pretty.
Pray tell how 4km is too close & considered unsafe? Aircraft pass within 4km ships all the time. Imagine the fury if an Australian vessel had lit up a Chinese aircraft with a laser range finder while in the SCS.
Lethe
Captain
The statements and images from PLAN are indeed useful. 4km (as confirmed by both Chinese and Australian sources) does not strike me as a particularly close approach. The P-8's deployment of one or more sonobuoys is much more interesting, for the sonobuoy must be intended to gather data concerning the signature of either the PLAN surface vessels, or a known or suspected PLAN submarine. In either case, particularly the latter, it does not seem unreasonable to regard this as a mildly hostile act deserving of a response in kind. The use of a sonobuoy is curious for another reason also: namely that the PLAN surface vessels could potentially recover it, something of which the personnel aboard the P-8 and those authorising its deployment must surely have been aware.
The other item of interest is that it has not, to my knowledge, been alleged that the PLAN laser was targeted at the cockpit of the P-8 in question. That is to say, the Australian account is consistent with PLAN's account of use of a laser ragefinder as a rangefinder, i.e. not as a blinding weapon.
At this point my interpretation of events is that we are seeing is a fairly unremarkable example of military-military communication between hostile powers, in which displays of one kind (close surveillance, dropping sonobuoys) are met with displays of another kind (laser rangefinder). Given the Australian political climate over the past few weeks, with an election imminent and a government that has been trying to portray itself as "tough on China" while portraying the opposition as "weak on China", it seems likely that this encounter was either explicitly orchestrated by the Australian government, hoping to elicit a response that it could then employ for domestical political purposes or, and I think this is more likely, rather occurred "organically", and was then subsequently seized upon and sensationalised by the government for those same purposes.
The other item of interest is that it has not, to my knowledge, been alleged that the PLAN laser was targeted at the cockpit of the P-8 in question. That is to say, the Australian account is consistent with PLAN's account of use of a laser ragefinder as a rangefinder, i.e. not as a blinding weapon.
At this point my interpretation of events is that we are seeing is a fairly unremarkable example of military-military communication between hostile powers, in which displays of one kind (close surveillance, dropping sonobuoys) are met with displays of another kind (laser rangefinder). Given the Australian political climate over the past few weeks, with an election imminent and a government that has been trying to portray itself as "tough on China" while portraying the opposition as "weak on China", it seems likely that this encounter was either explicitly orchestrated by the Australian government, hoping to elicit a response that it could then employ for domestical political purposes or, and I think this is more likely, rather occurred "organically", and was then subsequently seized upon and sensationalised by the government for those same purposes.
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Gathering data from sonar-buoys I personally wouldn't consider a hostile act but who knows what was being thought on the bridge. A laser range finder is normally part of a fire control system, so in general could be considered similarly to locking a contact up on radar. In the end it happened, move on. If China did manage to retrieve a sonar-buoy, then that was the risk Australia took in dropping one if that's what that float actually was.
