RTA major vulnerability that allowed French submarine to “sink” aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and most of its escort during drills was apparently revealed by the French Navy and Defense Ministry in blogposts that were quickly wiped out.
Both the French Defense Ministry and the Navy released and then quickly deleted a news post entitled“Le SNA Saphir en entraînement avec l’US Navy au large de la Floride” (“The SNA Sapphire in training with the US Navy off the coast of Florida”) that praised the 34-year-old French nuclear submarine’s success in “sinking” the American aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt along with best part of its escort.
Le SNA #Saphir en entraînement avec l’@USNavy au large de la #Floride http://t.co/pprTsENmS1 #GalaxieColsBleus
— Marine nationale (@MarineNationale) March 4, 2015
The news, before it was deleted was spotted by several outlets, including The Aviationist blog, which disclosed the information which the French authorities initially shared.
The aim of the military games off the coast of Florida which began in mid-February were meant to test the newly upgraded carrier, which had undergone a four year, $2.6 billion overhaul, ahead of the Strike Group’s deployment. The drills involved practicing scenarios of hostile ship boarding, submarine attacks, and enemy ships battles.
The service conducts “full-ship shock trials” the USS Roosevelthttp://t.co/z8zBaEZt2A pic.twitter.com/VJCawndfjQ
— Brian Dreyer (@Bwdreyer) January 19, 2015
During the first phase of the 10 days naval exercises, the French Saphir sub was part of the so-called friendly force to support anti-submarine warfare.
However, in the second phase of the games, the Saphir turned foe and was integrated with the imaginary enemy forces. Its mission become to locate Theodore Roosevelt and to prepare an attack on the strike group by guiding the ships.
During that last stage of the drills, the French sub snuck up undetected on US Carrier Strike Group 12 by penetrating a US defensive screen.
“The Saphir has quietly slipped into the heart of the screen formed by the American frigates protecting the aircraft carrier, while avoiding detection against-pervasive air assets ,” the original release read as quoted by French Challenges blog. “On the morning of the last day, the order of fire was finally given, allowing the Saphir to fictitiously sink Theodore Roosevelt and most of its escort.”
No other details are available about the outcome of the exercise. The strike group will be deployed later this year to provide an overseas forward presence and maintain US maritime security abroad.
https://twitter.com/FauteuilColbert/status/567646008902172672
Ooops! Guess our Navy isn’t as invulnerable as they’d like us to think. And Iran and China are launching new stealth subs. The brass better get their shite together before we get our lovely big carriers turned into scrap iron.
All of the military downgrades should make this a readily obtainable feat.
Last year I think it was during exercises in the south pacific two Chinese subs surfaced in the middle of the fleet undetected. I would have thought that $2.9 billion would have corrected this discrepancy. Maby it was just used for paint and self flush toilets.
Remember the War game “Millennium Challenge 2002?”
The American Fleet was sunk, they had to “re-set” the “board” by re-floating the fleet to continue.
More here:
theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq