Where Chinese warship, in Australian waters, aimed laser at Australian aircraft.
(Map courtesy 7News Sunrise)
---
At about 1am February 17, 2022 (Australian time) a Chinese/PRC warship, sailing within Australia’s exclusive economic zone, aggressively aimed a military-grade laser at an Australian P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.
Australia’s
DoD condemned “the unprofessional and unsafe military
conduct” by the Chinese ship.
All modern warships have
lasers, mainly to determine a target's range, position and to electronically “designate” a target immediately before
firing a weapon (be it machine-gun, larger naval cannon or missile). So using a laser
against a manned aircraft is a hostile act.
Laser beams, especially military grade ones, are themselves dangerous because they can cause permanent blindness if shone into someone’s eyes. Lasers can also damage important navigational and other related systems critical to air safety. More commentary see.
Could this be the beginning of aggressive Chinese acts that will escalate after the Beijing Winter Olympics? Emperors for Life, Putin and Xi, had several coordinated tactics to discuss when they met in Beijing early February 2022.
3 comments:
Pete
On the question of which AsSN class for Australia, this episode of the CGAI podcast is worth a listen. Called Defence Deconstructed “Deep Dive on Aukus” it features US, Canadian and UK experts, two of whom are former naval commanders, debating the relative merits of Aukus and sub choices. The UK expert seems convinced that the work on the RN SSNR “Successor” class is in fact a modified Astute with updated reactor and tech advances since the Astute was designed but essentially an Astute hull.
The UK PWR3 reactor is quite similar to the US S9G reactor, so this is very consistent with the previous suggestion I have seen reported of a modified Astute with S9G reactor being explored. This would preserve all the advantages we have previously discussed of an RN design, crew size and RN approach to crew training.
Worth a listen; amusing to hear the arguments. Clearly both UK and US want to be the preferred partner on Aukus.
https://soundcloud.com/user-609485369/deep-dive-on-aukus
Hi Anonymous [at Feb 21, 2022, 10:51:00 PM]
For commercial, legal and political reasons US and UK corporations and governments are unlikely to accept the concept of a UK designed SSN using a US reactor labeled "S9G"
which is why a UK reactor labeled "PWR3", with mixed S9G and UK Rolls Royce characteristics seems acceptable.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_PWR#PWR3
"PWR3 was a new system "based on a US design but using UK reactor technology".[18][19] The Royal Institution of Naval Architects reported that it was likely that the UK was given access to the US Navy S9G reactor design used in their Virginia-class submarines"
As with a larger version PRW2 going into the Vanguards and smaller PWR2 version into Astutes
I suspect a larger PWR3 is going into the Dreadnoughts and smaller version PWR3 into the SSN(Rs) aka SSNRs.
I'll get back to you on the 45 minute podcast.
Regards
Pete
Hi again Anonymous [at Feb 21, 2022, 10:51:00 PM]
Thanks. My takeaways from the Canukistani podcast of Sept 29, 2021 https://soundcloud.com/user-609485369/deep-dive-on-aukus include:
Some voice saying the Astute was 5 knots faster than the Virginia sounded curious, given speeds are secret info. Faster they go, noisier they are, generally.
Someone saying arms purchases "not about performance" more about politics.
11min AUKUS being "just another alliance" exhibits disregard for the "True Faith" (Excommunications pending)
Australia "world leading on hypersonics" Yay!
20min French "intelligence" "DGSE didn't hear about AUKUS beforehand". For shame Messieurs ;)
29min Significant what UK or US SSN generation Australia will get.
30min US now needs powerful allies.
32min Interoperability between AUKUS and Five Eye allies important.
37min Ex Canadian High Commissioner to Australia had chatted with, then PM Tony Abbott, about Canada's past interst in SSNs, including difficulty introducing nuclea technology in naval supply chain.
US had always knocked Canada back on SSNs. [Culminating in the US and Canadian public knocked back Canada-class SSN issue of the 1980s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-class_submarine ]
44min - UK chap says timings and tech transfer suggest Australia will choose the UK SSN(R) which is to have a lot of US tech inside.
Post a Comment