MSDF Helicopter Down

News article here.

A Maritime Self-Defense Force patrol helicopter with seven crew members on board crashed into the sea off Aomori Prefecture on Sunday after hitting a destroyer, leaving the captain of the aircraft missing.

Six other crew members were rescued and listed as being in not life-threatening conditions, the MSDF said, adding it and the Japan Coast Guard are searching for the 37-year-old captain, Lt. Cmdr. Masahiko Miyanaga.

The crash occurred around 11:05 a.m. in Mutsu Bay when the SH-60 helicopter hit the portside of the MSDF destroyer Matsuyuki, according to the MSDF. The chopper had left its base in Mutsu in the prefecture earlier in the morning to see off an MSDF training fleet, including the Matsuyuki.

I think it is interesting the news is reporting the name of the missing pilot so quickly. This incident is being described as a training accident.

PLAN ESF's run in with JMSDF's P-3C

I posted a few days ago about 525 and 138 visiting Vladivostok on a port call. It turns out that when they were rejoining 529 (054A) and 886 (a replenshiment ship), that caused quite the incident. Check this article:

hinese destroyer sailed through Tsugaru Strait

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Four Chinese naval vessels, including a destroyer and a supply ship, recently passed through the Tsugaru Strait bound for the Pacific Ocean, officials from the Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry announced Monday.

Chinese naval vessels had previously sailed through the same strait, but it is the first time that Chinese vessels with attack capabilities have navigated through the strait.

The naval vessels had sailed in international waters and although it did not infringe upon Japan's territorial waters, the Defense Ministry believes the Chinese Navy is stepping up activities in the Pacific Ocean.

According to a Joint Staff Office official, the Chinese vessels' movements were discovered by a P-3C patrol aircraft used by the Maritime Self-Defense Force about 35 kilometers off Tappizaki cape on the northwestern tip of the Tsugaru Peninsula in Aomori Prefecture, on Sunday evening

If you check CDF, you can see pictures from Japanese TV showing 529 and 886 sailing in the ocean.

The following two pictures give a good indication of the time line:


So basically:
1. 525/138 sailed off to Vladivostok on October 14th
2. 529/886 were spotted off Tsugaru Straight on October 17th
3. The 4 ships met on the eve of 18th or early morning of the 19th
4. P-3C found the 4 ships on 5 PM on the 19th.

I can see why JMSDF would feel agitated by this, but that route is by far the most convenient path to Vladivostok.

Unknown Submarine Spotted in Bungo Strait

The Japanese destroyer JMSDF Atago (DDG 177) spotted a periscope over the weekend, and with active sonar found itself a submarine. What is very interesting is where the submarine was spotted.

The submarine was detected at 6:56 a.m. south of the Bungo Strait, 7 km inside the territorial sea line and some 60 km southwest of Cape Ashizuri in Kochi Prefecture.

The nationality of the submarine was unknown, but the defense officials said it likely did not belong to the United States, Japan's closest security ally.

"It was very regrettable," Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said. "We need to do our utmost tracking down the submarine and getting to the bottom of the incident."

Hayashi suggested he did not consider the incident serious enough to order the Maritime Self-Defense Force to take maritime security operations, an operation the MSDF has taken only twice in the postwar era.

The article rules out a US Navy submarine, which only leaves 4 possible options: South Korea, North Korea, Russia, or China. It will be interesting if the media keeps asking who the submarine belongs to. If it was the port of Long Beach, the US media would keep asking until an answer was given.

We all know which country the submarine belongs to, but the question is which submarine class was able to get so close undetected?

7th Fleet Focus: Feels Like Yesterday

Somehow this just fits the theme of the week. From Friday's news sitting in the stack of stuff.

A Russian navy intelligence ship has been in the Pacific off Japan's southern Okinawa island, possibly to monitor radio wave data from US forces, Japan's Kyodo News reported Friday.

A Japanese destroyer found the ship moving and stopping repeatedly in the high seas some 30-60 kilometers (18-37 miles) east of the island of Okinawa on Wednesday, the report said citing Japanese Defense Ministry sources.

While this is nothing new, and certainly something that goes back decades in the context of Russia and the US, it really does highlight how the US Navy is ahead a generation. I'll stand corrected next time we send a surface ship to spy a couple dozen miles off Vladivostok.

After all, we do this from an invisible position underwater now, while China and Russia are still using ships on the surface. Too bad no photo was published, would have been fun to look at all the gear.

That Other AEGIS Warship Story

While Americans are observing the AEGIS Cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) as it may or may not shoot a satellite down tonight, there is a strange 'other' AEGIS story in the news. Specifically, somehow the JDS Atago (DDG-177), as in the new Atago class AEGIS destroyer recently commissioned by Japan, was returning to Japan from Pearl Harbor when it ran over a fishing boat and most likely killing the father and son crew.

Crew on board the Japanese destroyer that collided with a fishing boat before dawn on Feb. 19 may have seen the smaller vessel 12 minutes before the crash, the Japan Times said, citing a Defense Ministry report.

A crew member on watch saw a green light on the fishing boat at 3:55 a.m., the report said. The crew took evasive action at 4:06 a.m., one minute before the collision, the Times reported. Maritime law requires boats operating at night to display a green light on their starboard side and a red light on the port side to aid other traffic, the paper said.

The Atago navy destroyer is equipped with the Aegis missile tracking system. It collided with the fishing boat in calm waters off the coast of Chiba prefecture, southeast of Tokyo. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda criticized defense officials after they took more than two hours to notify him of the collision.

Very strange. As can be expected, this story is getting a lot of attention and comment in Japan.

The destroyer reportedly hit the brakes only one minute before the collision -- suggesting it only spotted the small boat very late.

"If they cannot act in an actual case like this, it is a problem no matter how high quality their equipment and training," said Hisao Iwashima, a military analyst and professor at Seigakuin University Graduate School.

But another military expert, Tadasu Kumagai, said it was a common misunderstanding that ships with the Aegis system were looking at threats in the immediate vicinity.

"It has an advanced radar for air defence, but its navigational radar is about the same quality as that of a fishing boat," he said.

Kumagai said however worries over suicide attacks from small boats going undetected were very real.

"A small boat is difficult to find on a navigational radar," he said. "That would be a problem."

This ship may one day be upgraded to the same capability on display with the Navy's ballistic missile defense capability in the Pacific. If that happens, one hopes they invest in a better navigational radar at the same time.

This is the most powerful warship in the world outside the United States in terms of technology and firepower, a first-rate battleship by our ship rating system, and it had trouble seeing a fishing boat at night? Odd.

The JMSDF Refueling Mission Debate

I am not going to claim to understand the politics surrounding the refueling mission to Japan. Needless to say, some there think it is important, and there seems to be a number of politicians in Japan that have decided fighting terrorism is a bad idea. There has been a fact finding mission the last few days regarding some of the details of the refueling mission. At question is the purpose of the refueling mission, the cost of the refueling mission, and if it violated the pacifist constitution.

Via the AP: U.S. vessels get 80% of fuel from Japan ships in Indian Ocean

The United States has been by far the largest beneficiary of Japan's contentious refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, receiving nearly 80 percent of the fuel supplied between December 2001 and August this year, a Japanese government document showed Thursday.

The document was submitted to a meeting of executive members of the House of Representatives Budget Committee at the request of the opposition camp. Whether to continue the mission after the current law authorizing it expires on Nov. 1 has become a major focus of debate in parliament.

According to the document's breakdown of fuel and water supplied during the period by country and year and the cost, 385,000 kiloliters of the 484,000 kl fuel provided to 11 countries was for U.S. vessels.

France was the second biggest recipient, receiving 26,000 kl, or about 5 percent of the total, and Pakistan the third, getting 19,000 kl, or some 4 percent.

The United States was given about 74 percent of all the fuel during the two years to March 2003.

In terms of cost, about 16.2 billion yen, or 74 percent of the overall cost of 22 billion yen, was for the supply to the United States.

As for the supply of water, which began in November 2004, all the roughly 6,530 tons were provided to Pakistan at a cost of 6.96 million yen, according to the document.

This article is a gem. There are only two ways to find something wrong with what we learn from this article. First, someone would have to consider providing any logistics mission to fight terrorism bad in any form, or second, someone would have to be extraordinarily ignorant. For amusements sake, you can visit here to read the story and see the extraordinary ignorance I refer to.

Lets examine the numbers

According to the article the mission to date has cost 22 billion yen between December 2001 and August 2007. The total fuel distributed is 484,000 kl fuel, 80% of it to the US. Sounds like a lot huh. Breaking out my calculator, 22 billion yen converts into roughly $188.3 million US, while 484,000 kls of fuel converts to roughly 3.044 million barrels of oil (US). I understand there is a difference between the fuel being distributed to Navy ships and oil delivered to refineries via tankers in Japan, but barrels of oil is my chosen measurement of volume for this example.

That breaks down to around 2.7 million dollars a month, and roughly 44 thousand barrels a month, or an average of roughly 1,467 barrels a day.

According to the Energy Information Administration, August 2007 International Petroleum Monthly report of September 2007, in May 2007 Japan imported a total 3.587 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf, the least amount on average of any month of the previous year (or 4.584 million total barrels worldwide).

In other words, Japan has contributed an average of less than 1,500 barrels of fuel total a day since December 2001, which at 80% is 1,200 barrels of fuel a day to the US Navy. At the same time, Japan has imported at the very minimum an average of 4,584,000 barrels of oil a day from June 06 to May 07.

The US Navy is deployed from the Persian Gulf to the shores of Japan. The US Navy is engaged in protection of the critical energy resources of Japans maritime trade, which includes around 85% of their total oil supply on that route alone, virtually the entire way from Persian Gulf terminal to Japanese port.

In this effort, in protection and in support of preventing a terrorist attack, the left in Japan is up in arms because the JMSDF is contributing what averages to be around $2.7 million a month to the US to this effort. Does anyone else on the entire planet believe this is a bad deal for Japan? Japan has the worlds third largest economy. If the US Navy didn't perform this role, does anyone honestly believe Japan wouldn't be spending substantially more money per month performing that role themselves?

The man on the street in Japan doesn't care though, all that gets attention is whether or not the constitution was violated. To support this claim, those who want to stop fighting terrorism in Japan are looking for any ammo it can find. Today's attempt:

There are no instructions forbidding U.S. warships from taking part in Iraq missions after taking on fuel from Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels supporting antiterrorism campaigns in and around Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Asked in a news briefing about the existence of such instructions, Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes, the U.S. Central Command's deputy director for operations, said: "None that I am aware of. . . . Clearly I am not aware of those instructions."

...

A Japanese peace group said last month that the logbook of the U.S. oiler Pecos and other materials suggested the MSDF ship Tokiwa illegally provided logistic support for the war in Iraq by indirectly supplying oil to the carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which took part in the war.

Under the war-renouncing Constitution, Japan's special law only allows the MSDF to provide fuel for foreign vessels taking part in the antiterrorism operations.

The refueling mission in question involved the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) taking 18,704 barrels (2,986,800 liters) of fuel from the MSDF fuel-supply vessel JDS Tokiwa (AOE 423) on the morning of Feb. 25, 2003, in the Gulf of Oman off Iran. After completing the fuel transfer that morning, the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) refueled the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) strike group, which took the fuel and moved into the Persian Gulf the very next day. In February of 2003, the Kitty Hawk strike group consisted of USS Chancellorsville (CG 62), USS Cowpens (CG 63), USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), USS Cushing (DD 985), USS O'Brien (DD-975), USS Vandegrift (FFG 48), and USS Gary (FFG 51).

The claim is the fuel transfered on Feb. 25th, 2003 was in violation of the constitution because it was used to support war. My response would be, huh? The problem with that theory is the war started on March 20th, 2003, and uhm, that isn't enough fuel to last more than a week for the Kitty Hawk alone, much less the whole group, and even more unlikely considering the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) was directly supporting that many ships in a single strike group. In order for the US to have used the Japanese fuel for the Iraq war, the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) would have had to not performed a single refueling again to the entire group until after March 20th, 2003.

Based on the evidence, it is virtually impossible that Japan is spending too much money, unless $2.7 million US is too much to safeguard 85% of the total energy imports to the worlds 3rd largest economy. It is also difficult to say Japan is somehow contributing too much fuel, because 484,000 kl fuel over a 69 month period is not very much at all for warships. The 80% number is easily explained, the US is the primary presence in the region, with most other countries operating closer to the coast of Africa. The French figure also makes sense, because France has operated the second most number of warships in Operation Enduring Freedom since it began, an average of roughly 1 to every 20 US Navy ships in the region over that time, about the same ratio of the fuel transfer.

The only specific accusation of constitutional violation involves the USS Kitty Hawk strike group, which at the time the supposed violation occurred was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Southern Watch, as it was a full 3 weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom started. It should be a simple bit of math to determine how long the fuel would last on the Kitty Hawk alone, the JMSDF has undoubtedly refueled the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) many times since she is based out of Japan, and the JMSDF probably knows to the kl the fuel consumption of the CV.

This debate is clearly only political and only based on the ideology that Japan should not support any efforts to anyone fighting terrorism. When you look at how relatively small the JMSDF contribution is in relation to the daily support of security by the US Navy to the nation of Japan, the Japanese people deserve all consequence that may ever occur to Japan in the future if the decision is to support the opposition party on this subject, good or bad. While there is no stated direct relationship, it seems to me that the investment of only $2.7 million US dollars a month in support of the same US Navy ships protecting 85% of all Persian Gulf oil imports to Japan might be the smartest government investment in planet Earth history.

Allow me to be blunt a second: If China was exposed to the same opportunity, full guarantees of protection by the US Navy of energy resources from the Persian Gulf to China for the price of $2.7 million US per month, how many seconds do you think it would take them to agree to that arrangement?

I think any number greater than 5 is the wrong answer.

Note: I understand USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) was USS Pecos at the time.

Sayonara Shinzo Abe

Skippy has some good analysis up, a read I highly recommend, on the resignation of Japense Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and includes an interesting maritime perspective and what this means for the future of the "yuyuukatsudo," or refueling mission the Japanese Navy has been providing in the Indian Ocean. Skippy speculates the refueling mission, set to expire on November 1st, will in fact expire without renewal.

If true this represents a huge loss for the Bush "Coalition of the Willing." As far as I am concerned, that is a good thing. The lack of a Congressional declaration of war is clearly a major contributor to the political division today over the war, clearly the primary reason there are not bipartisan efforts and ideas for victory, and with that division we are suffering broad diplomatic consequences both home and abroad. Coalitions used to be alliances inked by diplomats, but the Bush version rides political tides, and isn't very enduring.

In this case, the internal US political division supports the Democratic Party of Japan position of withdrawing support for the war, in this case the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean. That position isn't difficult for the JDP to take, after all, there is a daily call in the US to withdrawal support for the war.

Japan isn't the contributor to the "Coalition of the Willing" that a country like Britain is, but as an economic juggernaut Japanese support matters a lot. I don't think this is over yet, it is still possible Japan could continue the refueling mission, but probably not. It is going to take a bipartisan diplomatic effort in Washington if it is going to get done. With that unlikely to happen, get ready to say 'Sayonara' to the JMSDF forces in the Indian Ocean.

7th Fleet Focus: Malabar 07-02 Order of Battle

Malabar 07-02 Order of Battle

USS Nimitz (CVN 68)
USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63)
USS Princeton (CG 59)
USS Cowpens (CG 63)
USS Higgins (DDG 76)
USS Chafee (DDG 90)
USS Pinckney (DDG 91)
USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54)
USS Mustin (DDG 89)
USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53)
USNS John Ericsson (T-AO 194)
USNS Rainer (T-AOE 7)
USS Chicago (SSN 721)

INS Viraat (R22)
INS Ranvijay (D55)
INS Ranjit (D53)
INS Karmukh (P64)
INS Kuthar (P46)
INS Aditya (A59)

Unidentified Brahmaputra class frigate
Unidentified Shishumar class submarine

HMAS Adelaide (FFG 01)
HMAS Sirius (OR 266)
RSS Formidable (F68)
JDS Oonami (DD 111)
JDS Yudachi (DD 103)

Japan and the F-22A

There have been several warnings and concerns regarding a possible sale of the F-22A to Japan. I oppose such a sale, the advantage the US holds with the F-22A is one not to be taken lightly, and represents the ace card in any potential conflict, assuming of coarse the Air Force can build enough for them to be relevant in combat.

This article should give pause to those who consider a F-22A sale to Japan a worthy adventure.

Civilian and military police have searched the homes and workplaces of Japanese navy officers and a destroyer in connection with leaked classified data on high-tech Aegis radar systems.

The defense ministry says the searches follow a series of investigations earlier this year into leaked intelligence on the missile defense system that Japan shares with the United States.

It declined to give details on the nature of the classified data.

The investigators searched the 4,650-tonne destroyer Shimakaze over the leaked secrets.

A scandal erupted earlier this year when Japanese naval officers were found to have leaked classified information about the Aegis radar system used on US and Japanese missile-defense capable ships.

Japan has pledged to improve its handling of defense data.

Japan has become a close friend of the US in the region, but they need to fix their security problems.

Meet Japan's New Destroyer - Updated

Japan launched their latest warship today in Yokohama, the 13,500 ton (18,000 tons at full load) "Helicopter Destroyer" JDS Hyuga (DDH 181). The first noticeable feature is this is the largest warship operated by Japan since World War II. The second noticeable feature is this isn't actually a destroyer anywhere except Japan.

Paragraph 2 of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution states "the right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." In that spirit JDS Hyuga (DDH 181) will deploy three SH-60J and one MCH-101, although it is reported to have the capacity for 11 helicopters, and can fully support the large CH-53E if necessary.

Payload includes a 16 cell MK41 with 64 ESSMs enabled by the a Thales missile control module and the Mitsubishi FCS-3 radar. With an expected crew around 350, the JDS Hyuga (DDH 181) is designed to be a flagship for the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, providing command and control capabilities to the fleet while using its organic helicopters to support ASW and MIW operations, or operations other than war.

While not an official aircraft carrier, JDS Hyuga (DDH 181) is about as close as it gets without a constitutional amendment.

Update 1: More photo's posted online here.