US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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Washington Free Beacon said:

A Chinese naval vessel tried to force a U.S. guided missile warship to stop in international waters recently, causing a tense military standoff in the latest case of Chinese maritime harassment, according to defense officials.

The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, which recently took part in disaster relief operations in the Philippines, was confronted by Chinese warships in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning, according to officials familiar with the incident.

“On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

“This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap.”

A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China in both Washington and Beijing in both diplomatic and military channels.

The Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time. The carrier had recently sailed from the port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.

According to the officials, the run-in began after a Chinese navy vessel sent a hailing warning and ordered the Cowpens to stop. The cruiser continued on its course and refused the order because it was operating in international waters.

Then a Chinese tank landing ship sailed in front of the Cowpens and stopped, forcing the Cowpens to abruptly change course in what the officials said was a dangerous maneuver.

According to the officials, the Cowpens was conducting a routine operation done to exercise its freedom of navigation near the Chinese carrier when the incident occurred about a week ago.

Rick Fisher, a China military affairs expert, said it is likely that the Chinese deliberately staged the incident as part of a strategy of pressuring the United States.

“They can afford to lose an LST [landing ship] as they have about 27 of them, but they are also usually armed with one or more twin 37 millimeter cannons, which at close range could heavily damage a lightly armored U.S. Navy destroyer,” said Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

Most Chinese Navy large combat ships would be out-ranged by the 127-millimeter guns deployed on U.S. cruisers, except China’s Russian-made Sovremenny-class ships and Beijing’s new Type 052D destroyers that are armed with 130-millimeter guns.

The encounter appears to be part of a pattern of Chinese political signaling that it will not accept the presence of American military power in its East Asian theater of influence, Fisher said.

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usaf0314 said:

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I wonder what the US respond will be when a Chinese warship conduct reconnaissance 100 miles outside of San Diego at a USN carrier group

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jobjed said:

It's hilarious that they have the audacity to also claim that this was a "routine operation". My understanding of the word "routine" is that it denotes an act that is done repeatedly and between regular intervals. As far as I know, this is the first time the US has dispatched a surface vessel to conduct surveillance on Liaoning with multiple escorts, near Chinese waters no less. So unless the officials' definition of the word "routine" is that it means doing something for the FIRST time, then I seriously think they need to go back to redo the primary school English curriculum.

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It's hilarious that they have the audacity to also claim that this was a "routine operation".

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Armed Forces News said:

The US Army has put new vehicle-mounted laser technology through its paces in first-time trials during which mortar rounds and UAVs were targeted and taken down.

The US Army HEL MD (High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator) trials were staged at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range and lasted for six weeks. During this period, some 90 airborne targets were targeted in all.

Equipped with up to five lasers, the Boeing HEL MD is meant to protect remote military installations from rocket and artillery attacks, of the kind so often experienced by US warfighters deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent times.

The lasers deployed had a 10 kW strength - 10 per cent of the firepower ultimately intended for the HEL MD. Without elaborating too much further, officials described the laser truck trials' results as a "significant success."

Boeing Directed Energy Systems' vice president Mike Rinn added: "The system is capable of rapidly acquiring with the radar these very small targets and point a laser beam about the size of a quarter and destroy the targets while they're flying".

Preliminary High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator tests at low and medium laser power settings were conducted in 2011. These most recent trials served to validate the system's high power capability.


A key HEL MD component is the BCS (Beam Control System), featuring a dome that can turn 360 degrees and employs mirrors to focus and direct its beams. The HEL MD's lasers fire at around 186,000 miles per second, engaging targets with complete exactitude. "These tests were the first in which HEL MD repeatedly destroyed consecutive rounds of mortars and aerial threats with speed-of-light precision and a high degree of accuracy", Boeing's Rinn concluded.

The vehicle element of the HEL MD is an eight-wheeled, 500 horsepower Oshkosh Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) as deployed by US forces since the early 1980s. Nicknamed "Dragon Wagons", HEMTTs are mainly tasked with transport and logistics roles and can be carried inside and forward-deployed by the USAF's Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and Lockheed Martin C-130J airlifters.

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jobjed said:

Was the US destroyer posing navigational hazard to Liaoning and her entourage? If it was, then the Chinese response is both legal and justifiable. However, if the US destroyer was sufficiently far away from Liaoning and her entourage to not pose a navigational hazard, then the Chinese response is only justifiable, but not legal.

An LST is slower than the usual ~30 knot top speed of modern destroyers so I find it puzzling how an LST would be quick enough to 'cut off' a destroyer. Unless of course, that the US destroyer was approaching the vicinity of the LST of its own accord, which seems to be the case judging from the way the 'officials' said "[t]he Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time."

It's hilarious that they have the audacity to also claim that this was a "routine operation". My understanding of the word "routine" is that it denotes an act that is done repeatedly and between regular intervals. As far as I know, this is the first time the US has dispatched a surface vessel to conduct surveillance on Liaoning with multiple escorts, near Chinese waters no less. So unless the officials' definition of the word "routine" is that it means doing something for the FIRST time, then I seriously think they need to go back to redo the primary school English curriculum.

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