Ships attached to a destroyer flotilla with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy sail in formation en route to a training exercise in the East China Sea. (Wei Chenping/Chinese Defense Ministry)
BEIJING — China on Friday said it had appointed a new defense minister after months of uncertainty following the firing of his predecessor for reasons still unexplained.
The official Xinhua News Agency announced former naval commander Dong Jun would serve in the largely ceremonial role, but offered no comment on the reasons for the switch or the current circumstances of previous minister Li Shangfu, who has not been seen or heard from since August.
The uncertainty surrounding the leadership of the world’s largest standing military comes as Washington and its Asian allies are offering stronger resistance to China’s bid to assert itself as the dominant military power in the region.
Dong’s naval background is significant in that China has largely asserted its territorial claims using its massive force of warships, Coast Guard cutters and fishing boats acting as a maritime militia in the South China Sea. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has also expanded its range to the Mediterranean Sea, South Africa and beyond, while adding three aircraft carriers and a plethora of destroyers, nuclear-powered submarines and other latest-generation craft to its fleet.
Along with challenging the Philippines and other nations that hold maritime claims in the South China Sea, China challenges Japan for control of an uninhabited island group in the East China Sea and has engaged in deadly clashes with India along their contested border high in the Himalayan Mountains.
Li’s disappearance came amid what analysts have called a purge of officials in the highly influential military hierarchy, as well as those in the financial and diplomatic sectors, including former Foreign Minister Qin Gang, whose fate also remains unknown.
Speculation over the reason for the removals has ranged from corruption allegations to spying suspicions.
However, they also point to challenges facing the leader of the ruling Communist Party, head of state and supreme military commander Xi Jinping, who has made himself a long-term leader and waged a relentless campaign against all real or perceived threats to his hold on power, even as China’s economy stalls and its foreign relations have become more contentious over its support for Russia and other authoritarian regimes.
The German “Panzerschiff” (armored ship) Admiral Graf Spee (foreground) with HMS Hood (left) and the battleship HMS Resolution (centre) during King George VI’s Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead, May 1937
HMS Hood (pennant number 51)
Already under construction when the Battle of Jutland occurred in mid-1916, that battle revealed serious flaws in her design despite drastic revisions before she was completed four years later. For this reason, she was the only ship of her class to be completed, as the Admiralty decided it would be better to start with a clean design on succeeding battlecruisers, leading to the never-built G-3 class. Despite the appearance of newer and more modern ships, Hood remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years after her commissioning, and her prestige was reflected in her nickname, “The Mighty Hood”.
Hood was involved in many showing-the-flag exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935. When the Spanish Civil War broke out the following year, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to Britain in 1939 for an overhaul. By this time, advances in naval gunnery had reduced Hood‘s usefulness. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 kept the ship in service without the upgrades.
In May 1941, Hood and the battleshipPrince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiserPrinz Eugen, which were en route to the Atlantic, where they were to attack convoys. On 24 May 1941, early in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded, and sank with the loss of all but 3 of her crew of 1,418. Due to her publicly perceived invincibility, the loss affected British morale.
The RN conducted two inquiries into the reasons for the ship’s quick demise. The first, held soon after the ship’s loss, concluded that Hood‘s aft magazine had exploded after one of Bismarck‘s shells penetrated the ship’s armour. A second inquiry was held after complaints that the first board had failed to consider alternative explanations, such as an explosion of the ship’s torpedoes. It was more thorough than the first board but concurred with the first board’s conclusion. Despite the official explanation, some historians continued to believe that the torpedoes caused the ship’s loss, while others proposed an accidental explosion inside one of the ship’s gun turrets that reached down into the magazine. Other historians have concentrated on the cause of the magazine explosion. The discovery of the ship’s wreck in 2001 confirmed the conclusion of both boards, although the exact reason the magazines detonated is likely to remain unknown, since that portion of the ship was obliterated in the explosion.
At around 0300 on 3 June 1969, Frank E. Evans was operating in darkness in the South China Sea between Vietnam and Spratly Island in a formation with ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and Royal New Zealand Navy. All ships in the formation were running without lights. The Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrierMelbourne was in the process of going to flying stations and radioed Frank E. Evans, then to port of her, to take up station as the rescue destroyer. This required Frank E. Evans to reduce speed and take up station on Melbourne′s port quarter. The commanding officer of Frank E. Evans was asleep in his quarters, having left instructions to be awakened if there were to be any changes in the formation. Neither the officer of the deck nor the junior officer of the deck notified him when the station change was ordered. The bridge crew also did not contact the combat information center to request clarification of the positions and movements of the surrounding ships.[10]
The conning officer on Frank E. Evans misunderstood the formation’s base course and believed Frank E. Evans was to starboard of Melbourne. Frank E. Evans therefore turned to starboard, cutting across Melbourne′s bow twice in the process. Melbourne struck Frank E. Evans at a point about 92 feet (28 m) from her bow on her port side and cut her in two at 8°59.2′N110°47.7′E.[11] After the collision, Frank E. Evans′s bow drifted off to the port side of Melbourne and sank in less than five minutes, taking 73 of her crew with it. One body was recovered from the water, making a total of 74 dead.[12] Her stern scraped along the starboard side of Melbourne, and Melbourne′s crew attached lines to it. It remained afloat. Around 60 to 100 men were rescued from the water.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has announced a $180 million commitment over the next five years to modernise and enhance the anti-ship missile defences of the Royal Australian Navy’s major surface combatants.
Rheinmetall Defence Australia signed a contract to build Multi-Ammunition Softkill System (MASS) to equip Anzac Class frigates and Hobart Class destroyers with anti-ship missile protection — this system provides an electromagnetic decoy to protect the naval ships from sensor-guided, anti-ship missiles.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy welcomed the announcement, saying this deal with a Queensland-based facility was a testament to the strength of Australia’s defence industrial base.
“It is great to visit the Brisbane facility where this exciting new system will be developed with support from a number of local companies, creating Queensland jobs,” Minister Conroy said.
The five-year contract will focus on building the capability at a facility in Brisbane, creating up to 45 new local jobs through supply and support chains. This is in addition to over 600 local jobs currently being supported at the facility.
“This investment will not only keep our sailors safe, but also lead to a smarter, stealthier navy, able to protect Australia’s interests in our current strategic environment,” Minister Conroy added.
The government is working closely with defence industry to reshape the Australian Defence Force to respond to Australia’s current strategic circumstances outlined by the Defence Strategic Review.
Going further, the minister’s release explained the importance of capabilities such as this, saying, “Australia has lost the 10-year warning period for any conflict, with the review recommending urgent action to build Australia’s military preparedness, including in the maritime domain. This new capability will protect our Defence personnel, enabling them to keep Australians safe.”
Minister Conroy said, “The Albanese government is investing in sovereign capabilities and working with local industry to ensure our Defence personnel have the capability they need to keep Australians safe.”
The US Navy is preparing to offload two of its Independence Class littoral combat ships into the foreign military sale market during the financial year 2024.
The USS Jackson (LCS-6) and USS Montgomery (LCS-8) are part of a significant decommissioning plan laid out in a Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2024, prepared by the US Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and released on 30 March this year.
The LCS-6 was commissioned in 2015 and LCS-8 in 2016, making them the oldest-serving vessels in their class. The high-speed trimaran design was originally promoted as a small and multipurpose warship designed to operate in nearshore engagements as a light frigate and patrol vessel.
The report indicates both ships are excess to needs and neither has completed lethality and survivability upgrades.
“A total inventory of 17 Independence Class LCS leaves the Navy with two of those ships as excess to need supporting the wrong mission set (outside mine countermeasures and surface warfare),” the report said.
“These two ships will be replaced with new Independence Class ships that are delivering in the FYDP with more capability.”
The report recommends the decommissioning of a total of 11 ships in FY2024, including three decommissioning after their expected service lives.
These include guided missile cruisers USS Antietam, USS Leyte Gulf, USS Cowpens, USS Shiloh, and USS Vicksburg and the recycling of Los Angeles Class submarine USS San Juan and the dismantling of Island Class dock landing ships USS Germantown, USS Gunston Hall and USS Tortuga.
Other important timing from the report includes the upcoming recycling of aircraft carrier USS Nimitz scheduled in financial year 2026 and recycling of aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in FY2027.
FILE: An undated handout photo received from the New Zealand Defense Force on February 8, 2023 shows the Royal New Zealand Navy vessel HMNZS Manawanui retrieving 3.2 tonnes of cocaine adrift in the Pacific in an historic drugs bust estimated to be worth around 316 million US dollars. (Photo by Handout / New Zealand Defence Force / AFP)
SYDNEY, Australia, (AFP) — Australian police said Wednesday they were scouring beaches after mysterious packages believed to contain more than 120 kilograms (260 pounds) of cocaine washed up over the Christmas period.
A first batch of 39 barnacle-encrusted, one-kilogram bricks of suspected cocaine was discovered on Friday near Magenta Beach, north of Sydney, police said.
Since then, another 85 packages of the same size had been spotted along about 80 kilometres (50 miles) of the New South Wales coastline, state police said.
Police urged people to report any suspicious packages, Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Weinstein said in a statement.
“Detectives and specialist police are currently combing beaches and coastlines for any outstanding packages and working behind the scenes to make sure we find and hold accountable those responsible,” said Weinstein, who is director of the state’s crime command.
USS HOUSTON 1934 The USS Houston ( code and identification number CA-30 ) was a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy , belonging to the Northampton class and so named by the homonymous city in Texas . Set in May 1928 and launched in 1929 as a light cruiser ( CL-30 ), it was heavily reclassified in July 1931 following the signing of the London naval treaty .
After the test trip the Panama Canal passed and entered the Asiatic Fleet base in the Philippines , from which it left in 1932 to protect US interests threatened by the brief war between the Japanese Empire and China in January. At the beginning of 1934 he returned to Pearl Harbor where he joined the Pacific Fleet , then in the summer he took President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a cruise that ended in the Caribbean in Portland. The cruiser also served as a presidential ship, in detail in October 1935, in 1938 and again in January 1939 during a combined US navy exercise in the Atlantic Ocean ; in 1937 he also attended the inauguration of the Golden Gate Bridge . After extensive revisions lasted for much of 1939, he anchored in Pearl Harbor, from where he left at the end of 1940 to return to the Asiatic Fleet . On the morning of December 8, 1941, he escaped for a few hours to the devastating Japanese raids that struck the archipelago at the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor . L ‘ Admiral Thomas Hart, commander in chief of the fleet, left the Philippines with all the ships and reached first Darwin in Australia , then joined the Anglo-Dutch forces that were preparing to fight the Japanese invasion convoys in the Dutch East Indies .
Damaged by an airstrike in January 1942, Houston only came into contact with Japanese warships on February 27 during the Battle of the Java Sea, which ended in disastrous results for the Allies . He received orders to fall back into the port of Tjilatjap on the southern coast of Java but was identified and sunk by numerous Japanese units on the night between 28 and 1 March; the approximately 370 survivors of the crew were almost all captured and lived a long imprisonment for the rest of the Second World War . https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Houston_(CA-30)
August 6, 1945. “Troops of the 20th Armored Division and units of the 9th Army whoop it up between raindrops as the S.S. John Ericsson nears Pier 84, Hudson River.” Photo by Al Ravenna, New York World Telegram & Sun.
August 6, 1945. “Troops of the 20th Armored Division and units of the 9th Army whoop it up between raindrops as the S.S. John Ericsson nears Pier 84, Hudson River.” Photo by Al Ravenna, New York World Telegram & Sun.
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) pulls into the Republic of Singapore for a scheduled port visit on Dec. 17, 2023. US Navy Photo
Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and its escorts are back underway in the South China Sea following a short port visit to Singapore. The Vinson Carrier Strike Group is one of the few extra-regional naval forces currently operating in South East Asia over the Christmas period with other navies having all wrapped up their deployments.
The strike groups – composed of carrier Vinson with embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) and destroyers USS Kidd (DDG -100) and USS Sterett (DDG-104) – arrived in Singapore for a scheduled port visit on Dec. 17, according to a Navy release,
“The Vinson Strike Group is glad to be back in Singapore following our last visit in 2017,” said Rear Adm. Carlos Sardiello, commander, CSG 1, in the release, “the U.S. defense relationship with the Republic of Singapore enables much of what we are working to achieve across the Indo-Pacific; maintain freedom of navigation, international goodwill, and the rules-based order”.
The CSG departed on Thursday and is now in the South China Sea. With the exception of the Royal Navy with OPV HMS Spey (P234) currently in Singapore for end of year maintenance and Indian Navy corvette INS Kadmatt (P29), which concluded a Bangkok, Thailand port call on Friday as part of its long-range deployment to the North Pacific and South China Sea, the U.S. Navy currently is the only extra-regional Navy on a visible presence deployment in South East Asia during the Christmas period. Australia, Canada and Russia wrapped up their Indo-Pacific deployments and returned home after the second half of December.
Australia’s regional presence deployment task group comprising of destroyer HMAS Brisbane (DDG41), frigate HMAS Toowoomba (FFH156) and fleet oiler HMAS Stalwart (A304) set out in September for a three-month regional presence deployment in Southeast and Northeast Asia with Toowoomba operating separately from Brisbane and Stalwart, “This deployment is part of the Australian Defence Force’s robust and long-standing program of regional engagement that demonstrates Australia’s enduring commitment to an open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific”, stated an Australian Department release on the conclusion of the deployment. Toowoomba arrived at its homeport of Fleet Base West, Western Australia on Dec.13 while Stalwart returned to Fleet Base West the following day. Brisbane arrived home to Fleet Base East, New South Wales on Dec. 15.
According to the release, the task group completed multiple activities with partner nations including Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Multilateral exercises included the Five Powers Defence Arrangements (FPDA) exercise Bersama Lima held around Malaysia and Singapore in October and the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) Annual Exercise 2023 held in the Philippine Sea in November. The FPDA consists of Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The JMSDF Annual Exercise (ANNUALEX) included participation with ships and aircraft from the U.S. and Canada along with the Philippines participating as observers. Toowoomba also conducted surveillance patrols in the East China Sea as part of UN sanctions on North Korea leading to an incident on Nov.14 with Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) destroyer CNS Ningbo (139) where Australia accused the PLAN destroyer of unsafe and unprofessional actions in using its sonar while divers from the Australian ship were in the water.
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) recovers aircraft during flight operations on Nov. 19, 2023. US Navy Photo
Canada wrapped up its deployment on Dec. 18 with frigates HCMS Vancouver (FFH331) and HMCS Ottawa (FFH341) along with replenishment ship MV Asterix returning to Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt, British Columbia, having set out from the base in early August. A Canada Department of National Defence (DND) release stated that the task group visited seven countries including Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States. All three Royal Canadian Navy ships and one Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CP-140 Aurora Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) participated in the JMSDF ANNUALEX. Vancouver and the CP-140 also supported Operation Neon, Canada’s contribution to multinational efforts to monitor sanctions placed on North Korea by the United Nations Security Council.
“This deployment marked a major milestone for Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) presence in the Indo-Pacific. 2023 marks the first year that Canada deployed three warships to the Indo-Pacific region, delivering on the commitment that Canada made when it launched its Indo-Pacific Strategy” stated the release. Earlier in March, frigate HCMS Montreal (FFH336) deployed to the Indo-Pacific and returned to Halifax, Canada on Oct.3.
Like Australia, Canada’s deployment was marked with incidents with China with Peoples Liberation Army Air Force fighter jets twice harassingOttawa’s embarked CH-148 Cyclone helicopter on Oct.29. Ottawa also conducted two joint Taiwan Strait transit with U.S destroyers during its deployment, the first on Sept.9 and the second on Nov.2
The Russian Navy Pacific Fleet wrapped up its Indo-Pacific deployment on December 20 with the return of destroyers RFS Admiral Panteleyev (548) and RFS Admiral Tributs (564) and fleet oiler Pechenga to Vladivostok where the task group had set out on Oct.7. The deployment was for the Russian Navy to conduct engagements with its partners in the Indo-Pacific. During the deployment, the Russian Navy ships made port calls in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam along with conducting exercises with several of the countries it had visited. Japan tracked the two destroyers on their homeward leg as they passed through the waters near Japan.
A Japan Joint Staff Office (JSO) release on Dec.18 stated on Dec.16 at 10 a.m., the two Russian destroyers were sighted sailing northeast in an area 210km southwest of Miyako Island and then sailed through the Miyako Strait to enter the East China Sea. A JMSDF P-1 MPA of Fleet Air Wing 1 based at JMSDF Kanoya Air Field, Kyushu and a JMSDF P-3C Orion of Fleet Air Wing 5 based at Naha Air Base, Okinawa, tracked the Russian ships. A subsequent release on Dec.19 stated that the Russian ships were observed around noon on Dec.18 transiting the Tsushima Strait. JMSDF fast attack craft JS Otaka (PG-826) and a JMSDF P-1 MPA of Fleet Air Wing 4 based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Honshu tracked the Russian ships, according to the release.
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