Threat Axis

USNS Able (similiar to Impeccable) on trials

Earlier this week – a story came out that several Chinese vessels had been harassing a US Naval Support ship – USNS Impeccable while it was in international waters.

Now let’s be perfectly clear – USNS Impeccable is not a replenishment ship.  It is SURTASS ship.  SURTASS ships were designed to supplement fixed SOSUS sites to provide sound surveillance of large stretches of the ocean.

Basically – Impeccable is a mobile sonar listening post.  It is very quiet (so it can detect submarines at a great distance).

It feeds its data back to the theater command so that they can track submarines.

Now – back to the Chinese.  Impeccable was 100 miles off shore, in international waters – but within the Chinese declared 200 mile Economic zone.

So we have a very capable submarine surveillance ship operating in waters that the Chinese claim/treat as their own.  I would say the odds are pretty good that the Chinese were in the process of or were about to test a new submarine in that area – and the response was designed to prevent US Navy snoops from gathering info on the new submarine.

I would imagine that the Coast Guard and the Navy would give a similiar ship loitering near either Kings Bay GE, or Bangor WA the same treatment (but would probably draw the line about doing it in their underwear).