Saturday, May 25, 2013

Watching Them Search for Us

To sink our carriers, the Chinese have to find them. So the carrier games begin.

Strategypage writes:

As China sends more long-range maritime patrol aircraft out over the West Pacific (to search for American warships, especially carriers), the U.S. is reviving some Cold War era practices it used against Russian maritime patrol aircraft. Mainly this involves sending land-based P-3 maritime patrol aircraft out to keep track of their Chinese counterparts. This task could be done with carrier aircraft, but this would confirm that an American carrier was less than 500 kilometers away.

Cooperation between land-based air power and sea power has always been important, notwithstanding notions that Air-Sea Battle doctrine is a novel way to approach war at sea.