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Williamb -> RE: PT Killers (9/3/2004 1:40:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mogami
Hi, Do you know what one of the largest fears a present day USN Battlegroup commander has in the Gulf? High speed motor boats. You don't see them and when you do it is too late to call for air. Large guns are useless. Today in the Gulf every US warship has machineguns and 20mm manned 24/7 for protection against those cigarette boats and the TF is over 100 miles from the coast. (I know I stood my share of watches behind a .50cal with the CO hopping up and down in CIC because he thought small boats were in the area)
In fact this just happened near Iraq.
A small ship rammed a USN Carrier. The Captain of the Ship is in hot water for allowing it to happen. This was despite the fact the small ship had been spotted on radar several hours before.
Carrier’s run-in with dhow raises red flags
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 31, 2004
How could a small boat designed for fishing in the Persian Gulf get so close to a multibillion-dollar American carrier equipped with state-of-the-art radar and armed with its own air force?
That’s the question Navy investigators are still asking after the carrier John F. Kennedy struck and sank the mysterious boat in the Persian Gulf on July 22.
No survivors or remains from the small boat, known as a dhow, have been recovered. The crew of the Mayport, Fla.-based carrier and its Virginia Beach-based air wing did not sustain any injuries from the collision, Navy officials said. No structural damage to the carrier was reported.
But the little-noticed accident, now under review by an admiral sent from the Pentagon, could raise serious questions about the Navy’s ability to protect its own ships. Small suicide boats have already attacked larger Navy ships or their crews in the region on at least two occasions in recent years.
In 2000, a bomb-laden skiff blew a 40-by-20-foot hole in the Norfolk-based Cole while the destroyer was refueling in Yemen. The explosion killed 17 sailors and injured 42 others.
In April, three crew members from the Virginia Beach-based Firebolt died after a dhow exploded near the coastal patrol boat’s boarding team in the Persian Gulf.
Other reports indicate that terrorists have attempted to strike Navy ships close to shore or while transiting maritime chokepoints such as the Straits of Gibraltar.
But a spokesman for the Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain said that it was too early to speculate on the cause of the accident, much less the intentions of the dhow.
“It’s a bit premature,” Cmdr. James Graybeal said by telephone Friday. “We need to let the investigation run its course.”
Other Navy officials said that they did not worry in general whether ships such as aircraft carriers were able to protect themselves adequately.
“There is an ongoing investigation, but I don’t have any overall concerns about ship self-defense,” said Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem , assistant deputy chief of naval operations who previously led the Harry S. Truman carrier strike group.
But Paul K. Van Riper proved recently that the “4½ acres of American floating sovereignty,” as deployed aircraft carriers are sometimes called, are not completely impenetrable.
Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, commanded an enemy force “Red Team” during the $250 million war game known as Millennium Challenge in 2002. He was able to sink an American carrier using a salvo of surface-to-surface missiles, but his overall naval strategy also employed swarming small boats.
“The Navy took that part seriously,” he said in an interview this week.
Traditionally, carriers post sailors standing watch 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Graybeal said. Flattops are also protected by an air wing packed with surveillance aircraft and usually ringed by an armada of destroyers, cruisers and other ships.
The Kennedy had only been in the gulf for 12 days when it struck the dhow at about 10:20 p.m. during night flight operations.
Evidently, someone on the Kennedy’s crew spotted the dhow. Graybeal would only say that “it’s my understanding that the ship was maneuvering to avoid contact with the dhow.”
After the sinking, the mine countermeasures ship Dextrous joined the British multi-role hydrographic and oceanographic survey vessel Echo in an effort to locate any survivors.
Navy officials said they know little about the sunken dhow. They do not know the boat’s nationality or its purpose, Graybeal said.
Although the Navy has asked for any information about the boat in neighboring countries through its embassies, no one has come forward to say where the boat came from or whether it was manned at the time.
A debris field has been located, but Graybeal said he did not have details about what it contained.
In the gulf, dhows are often made with wood and sometimes outfitted with sails.
They are used for fishing, trade and transportation. But it is not uncommon for dhows to be used as smuggler’s boats, which could be why no one has come forward so far.
Rear Adm. Evan M. Chanik, who works as director of the programming division for the chief of naval operations, flew from the United States to the region to lead the investigation and report back to 5th Fleet.
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