April 16, 201016 yr Author From Korea Times 04-15-2010 17:15 External Impact Likely Cause of Ship Sinking By Lee Tae-hoon Staff Reporter Experts said Thursday a powerful external explosion is the likely cause of the sinking of the naval ship Cheonan in the West Sea as the broken section of its stern part appears to have been ripped apart and the severed edges appear badly damaged. They said the explosion seems to have occurred underwater, below the 1,200-ton warship, as the upper metal structure of the warship was bent upward by a ``bubble jet`` effect. They said the possibility of a metal fatigue fracture or an implosion is slim, claiming that the ship appears to have been torn into two parts as a result of a torpedo or a sea mine exploding underwater. Analysts agreed that an internal blast is an unlikely cause, given that most of the weapons on the frigate, including 76mm and 40mm guns under which ammunition is stored, remain intact. Military authorities say they are keeping all options open and have also ruled out the possibility of a metal fatigue fracture, saying if that were the cause, the vessel would have split more evenly in two, rather than been torn apart. . Military officials have urged people not to make rash judgments as a joint investigation team of civilian, military and multinational experts are analyzing the wreck to verify the exact cause of the tragedy. Navy ships equipped with sonar and underwater camera systems have been searching for debris from the Cheonan and shrapnel from the explosion to identify the type of weapons detonated. International experts ― eight from the United States and three from Australia ― have arrived to contribute to the investigations to ensure transparency and objectivity. As the possibility of an external explosion is high, the hypothesis of Pyongyang's involvement in the maritime disaster is gaining momentum. Earlier, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said in a National Assembly session that a torpedo could have caused the blast, though all possibilities needed to be considered. Some say an explosion from a mine placed either by South or North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War or one that floated down from the North could also have been the cause. The communist North has made no official comment on the incident.
April 17, 201016 yr Author From BBC News Page last updated at 06:14 GMT, Saturday, 17 April 2010 07:14 UK North Korea denies sinking South's warship North Korea has denied sinking a South Korean warship near their disputed maritime border last month. "As South Korea can't identify the cause of the accident, they are using the media to attribute it to us," said a statement carried by state media. It is the first official comment by Pyongyang on the incident, in which more than 40 sailors were killed. South Korean media has has pinned the blame on the North, but official statements have been more circumspect. There has been speculation in the South that the naval vessel was hit by a North Korean torpedo. South Korean officials have also previously suggested the ship could have struck an old mine left over from the 1950-1953 Korean War. North Korea accused the South of "a foolish attempt" to link the incident to Pyongyang, said an official statement published by the Korean Central News Agency. Fifty-eight crew survived, but 46 sailors died in the incident on 26 March. Salvage workers found 36 bodies in the shattered hull of the Cheonan, a 1,200-tonne navy gunboat. Two more bodies were recovered earlier, and another eight sailors remain unaccounted for. The bow section of the vessel is due to be raised in about a week's time. The Cheonan sank close to the sea border which marks North and South Korean territorial waters. The North does not accept the maritime border, known as the Northern Limit Line, which was drawn unilaterally by the US-led United Nations Command at the end of the Korean War. The sea border has been the scene of deadly clashes between the navies of the two Koreas in the past.
April 20, 201016 yr Author From DefenseNews S. Korea Leader Vows Resolute Response to Sinking By JUN KWANWOO, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 19 Apr 2010 13:23 SEOUL - South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak vowed April 19 a "resolute" response to the sinking of a warship last month after North Korea broke weeks of silence to angrily deny involvement in the disaster. However, efforts to salvage the still-submerged bow of the ship hit a snag when one of the chains lifting it from the Yellow Sea snapped because of high waves and strong currents, the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. South Korean officials say an external explosion caused the March 26 sinking of the 1,200-ton corvette, which killed 46 sailors in the nation's deadliest peacetime naval tragedy. "I, as president, will find out the cause of the Cheonan's sinking in full and in detail," Lee said in an emotional speech on public radio. "I will deal with the results in an unwavering and resolute way, and make sure that such an incident will never recur." Tearfully reciting the names of all the perished sailors, Lee said: "Your fatherland, which you loved, will never forget you." South Korea has not directly blamed the communist North for the sinking near their tense maritime border. But on April 18, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said the UN Security Council could become involved if Pyongyang is found to have played a role. Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young has raised the possibility that a mine or torpedo may have hit the Cheonan. But after weeks of silence, the North's official news agency KCNA said April 17 "the South's puppet military and right-wing conservative politicians are now making a foolish attempt to link the tragedy to us". "The reason that the South's puppets are claiming the North's involvement is also linked to their foolish efforts to put pressure on us, even by stirring up international opinion in favor of sanctions," KCNA said. Yoon Duk-Yong, co-head of the South's investigation team, said April 16 that the warship appeared to have received a powerful impact on the port side, where steel plate was curved inwards. He ruled out an onboard blast or a shipwreck. Seoul has launched an international investigation involving U.S., Australian and Swedish experts in a bid to ensure the eventual findings cannot be disputed. Navy officials said the investigators were at a naval base south of Seoul, looking into the Cheonan's recovered stern and debris for more clues. "Up to now, no other debris - except the warship wreckage - have been found," Seoul's defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-Jae said April 19. However, salvage operations were hampered when one of three chains around the bow of the ship snapped April 18, officials said. "It appears the chain could not withstand the tension from high waves," naval officer Park Sung-woo said. An expanded 12-strong U.S. team of experts led by Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles were joining the investigation at the naval base in Pyeongtake, 70 kilometers (40 miles) south of Seoul, the defense ministry said. It said the U.S. team included three experts who had investigated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in Yemen. Analysts have said the incident could harm diplomatic efforts aimed at persuading North Korea back to six-party nuclear disarmament talks that the communist state quit a year ago. The Yellow Sea border was the scene of deadly naval clashes between the North and South in 1999 and 2002 and of a firefight last November that left a North Korean patrol boat in flames.
April 21, 201016 yr Author From DefenseNews Report: N. Korean Torpedo Sank S. Korean Warship AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 21 Apr 2010 06:00 SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean soldiers believe a South Korean warship which sunk last month was hit in a premeditated military operation approved by leader Kim Jong-Il, a South Korean activist said April 21. "Despite Pyongyang's denial, many North Korean soldiers believe a torpedo sank the ship," Choi Sung-Yong, a campaigner for the return of South Koreans abducted by Pyongyang, told AFP. He said his claim was based on a telephone conversation with an unnamed North Korean army officer. South Korean officials refused to comment. The sinking of the 1,200-ton Cheonan on the tense maritime border killed 46 sailors and suspicions are hanging over North Korea, although Seoul has not directly accused Pyongyang. South Korean officials say an "external explosion" was the most likely cause, while Pyongyang has accused Seoul of seeking to shift the blame in order to justify its hard-line policy toward its communist neighbor. "I heard the ship was sunk in a premeditated operation approved by Kim Jong-Il," Choi said. The officer said Kim gave an order to exact revenge for a sea skirmish last November, Choi added. Choi said 13 commandos using a small submarine appeared to have launched a torpedo attack. South Kprea's defense minister has raised the possibility that a mine or torpedo may have sank the ship March 26 near the disputed sea border, the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002, and the November firefight. The November incident left a North Korean patrol boat in flames, and local media reports said one North Korean sailor was killed and three wounded. North Korea has vowed to take "merciless" military action to protect its own version of the Yellow Sea border.
April 21, 201016 yr Author This story is like a prologue out a Tom Clancy or Larry Bond novel. CV32: It gets better. From DefenseNews South Korean Navy Grounds Lynx Helos By JUNG SUNG-KI Published: 20 Apr 2010 16:41 SEOUL - The South Korean Navy has suspended its fleet of Lynx anti-submarine helicopters following the back-to-back crashes of two of them last week. The service ordered emergency safety inspections of the British helicopters, a Navy official said April 19. Investigators are looking into the cause of the crashes at the same time, he said. The Navy had operated 25 Lynx helicopters modified for anti-submarine and surface warfare. The first batch of 12 Mk.99 Lynx helicopters was delivered to the service in 1990, and the second batch of 13 Mk.99A Super Lynx helicopters in 1999. Possible causes include an engine problem and pilot fatigue, said the official. The export variants for South Korea are powered by two Rolls-Royce Gem 42-1 engines, whose production was halted years ago. The Navy therefore has had difficulty supplying the Gem engines but managed to secure used engines from the Royal Navy, he said. "Investigators are looking into all possible causes of the crashes, including an engine problem, but nothing has been confirmed," the spokesman said. Alexander W. Jun, regional director of Rolls-Royce Korea, said, "It's true that the production of the Gem engine has been suspended, but there was not much difficulty in supplying the ROK Navy with the engine." On April 15, a Lynx crashed off the country's southwest coast, leaving one pilot dead and three other crew members missing. The helicopter disappeared from radar at 8:53 p.m. after losing contact with its fleet command while patrolling 15 kilometers off the coast, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JCS denied an allegation that the Lynx had been responding to an invasion by a North Korean submarine. "The helicopter was on a routine nighttime mission," JCS spokesman Col. Park Sung-woo said. The incident occurred as the country's military was being placed on a high alert following the sinking of one of its warships in waters off the disputed sea border with North Korea. The 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan, with 104 crew members on board, went down after an unexplained explosion. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued before the ship sank, but 46 others were missing. The bodies of 38 sailors have been recovered while eight others remain missing. A joint investigation team involving civil and military experts is probing into the cause of the sinking, with more evidence suggesting an external impact caused by a torpedo attack or a mine explosion. The other Lynx crashed at 22:13 p.m. April 17 in waters off the west coast on its way back to a destroyer after chasing "unidentified targets" near an island off the sea border, the JCS said. The targets were later confirmed as a group of birds, it said in a news release. The helicopter made an emergency landing and the three pilots aboard were rescued, said the release. The helicopter was largely undamaged and was later retrieved, it said.
April 22, 201016 yr Author From Chosun Ilbo 'Human Torpedoes' Are the North's Secret Naval Weapon South Korean military officials are said to be focusing their attention on "human torpedoes" deployed by North Korea military after testimony by defectors that could link them to the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan on March 26. Human torpedoes trace their origins to the Japanese underwater suicide bombers known as "kaiten" who were put into action at the end of World War II. North Korea's human torpedo units belong to the 17th Sniper Corps and are deployed in both the East and West seas at the brigade level. The units are made up of elite soldiers, just like South Korea's UDT/SEAL teams, and were fed very well even when the rest of North Korea's people were starving due to economic hardships, according to defectors. Jang Jin-sung, a North Korean poet who defected to South Korea, wrote recently on his blog that the human torpedo units "are treated better than submarine crew and their training centers around suicide bombing attacks." North Korea reportedly formed such squads in each branch of the military after leader Kim Jong-il said during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that no military in the world can defeat an army that can carry out suicide bombings. But the human torpedoes not only use suicide bombing tactics but also launch attacks using semi-submersible vessels equipped with light torpedoes or other explosives, which are fired or placed on their intended targets at close range. The North is said to have come up with the human torpedoes after its defeat by South Korea in the first and second naval battles in the West Sea, which forced it to realize that it cannot win by conventional means. Park Sun-young, a lawmaker with the Liberty Forward Party, told the National Assembly on April 8 a three-man team aboard a Seal Deliver Vehicle could have sunk the Cheonan. SDVs are used to transport commandos under water. Some military experts say an SDV laden with explosives could have approached the Cheonan to launch a suicide bomb attack. But that is far from certain. Many experts say it would have been difficult to launch a human torpedo attack on the ship, considering the depth, speed of the underwater current and the heights of waves at the site of the tragedy. "SDVs are very slow and there is a low possibility that such vessels were used in an attack," Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers earlier this month.
April 22, 201016 yr Author From Chosun Ilbo Military Increasingly Convinced of N.Korean Sub Attack Military officials and experts believe that if a North Korean torpedo was involved in the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan, it was probably launched from a 325-ton Shark-class submarine. The sub ranks between a full-blown submarine and a mini-sub in terms of size. South Korean military intelligence are reportedly focusing on the fact that one or two Shark-class submarines from a submarine base in Cape Bipagot, South Hwanghae Province are unaccounted for during the time of the Cheonan's sinking. The Bipagot submarine base is around 80 km from Baeknyeong Island. Shark-class submarines can travel at speeds of 13 km/h under water, so it would take them between six and seven hours to reach Baeknyeong Island. Intelligence officers and experts believe the sub made the trip under water, since traveling on the surface of the water would have exposed it to South Korean and U.S. spy planes and surveillance satellites. A drawback of the Shark-class diesel-powered submarines is that they need to surface regularly to recharge their batteries and ventilate, a process known as "snorkeling." During this process, the ventilation device can be detected by radar and other surveillance equipment. "The snorkeling equipment is not big, so there is a slim chance that it was detected by South Korean radars while the sub was in North Korean waters," said one source. The military believes a North Korean sub could have approached by taking a detour through open seas left of Baeknyeong Island, instead of coming in straight between Hwanghae Province and Baeknyeong Island. That is because the underwater currents are extremely fast in that area and it is closely monitored by South Korean forces. There is also the possibility that a sub could have drifted into waters near Baeknyeong Island with its engines shut off. "Between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on March 26, the day the Cheonan sank, the currents flowed north to south and shifted direction from south to north after 9:40 p.m.," said military expert Kim Byung-ki. "There is the possibility that a North Korean sub was lying in wait and used the northerly current to return to North Korea after the attack." Once it infiltrated waters near Baeknyeong Island, it could have fired a torpedo around 1 km to 2 km away from the Cheonan in deeper waters. And a mid-sized torpedo, weighing more than 200 kg rather than a small one weighing between 50 kg to 80 kg, is being cited as the probable weapon, judging from the huge damage the Cheonan suffered. A lingering question is why the Cheonan's radar system was unable to detect a torpedo attack, if that was indeed the cause of the sinking. The Defense Ministry says the sonar aboard a South Korean warship like the Cheonan has a 70-percent chance of detecting submarines or semi-submersibles around a 2 km radius. But retired naval commanders say the chances are actually only 50 percent, so sonar officers could have been unaware of an approaching torpedo.
April 25, 201016 yr Author From Yahoo News Torpedo blast likely sank warship: SKorea minister By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 49 mins ago SEOUL, South Korea – An explosion caused by a torpedo likely tore apart and sank a South Korean warship near the North Korean border, Seoul's defense minister said Sunday, while declining to assign blame for the blast as suspicion increasingly falls on Pyongyang. Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said an underwater explosion appeared to have ripped apart the vessel, and a torpedo blast seemed the most likely cause. Investigators who examined salvaged wreckage separately announced Sunday that a close-range, external explosion likely sank it. "Basically, I think the bubble jet effect caused by a heavy torpedo is the most likely" cause, Kim told reporters. The bubble jet effect refers to the rapidly expanding bubble an underwater blast creates and the subsequent destructive column of water unleashed. Kim, however, did not speculate on who may have fired the weapon and said an investigation was ongoing and it's still too early to determine the cause. Soon after the disaster, Kim told lawmakers that a North Korean torpedo was one of the likely scenarios, but the government has been careful not to blame the North outright, and Pyongyang has denied its involvement. As investigations have pointed to an external explosion as the cause of the sinking, however, suspicion of the North has grown, given the country's history of provocation and attacks on the South. The Cheonan was on a routine patrol on March 26 when the unexplained explosion split it in two in one of South Korea's worst naval disasters. Forty bodies have been recovered so far, but six crew members are still unaccounted for and are presumed dead. The site of the sinking is near where the rival Koreas fought three times since 1999, most recently a November clash that left one North Korean soldier dead and three others wounded. The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Also Sunday, investigators said a preliminary investigation of the front part of the 1,200-ton ship — retrieved the day before — pointed to an external explosion. Chief investigator Yoon Duk-yong told reporters that an inspection of the hull pointed to an underwater explosion. He appeared to support the bubble jet effect theory, saying, "It is highly likely that a non-contact explosion was the case rather than a contact explosion." But he, too, said it was too early to determine what caused the explosion. Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Chung Un-chan said South Korea will take "stern" action against whoever was behind the explosion as the country started a five-day funeral for the 46 dead and missing sailors. Makeshift alters were set up in Seoul and other major cities to allow citizens to pay their respect. "We will remember all of you in the name of the Republic of Korea to let you keep alive in our hearts," said Chung, clad in a black suit and tie. The 46 sailors will be promoted by one rank and awarded posthumous medals, he said. In Pyongyang, the North marked the 78th anniversary of the founding of the country's military Sunday with a vow to "mercilessly" punish any hostile moves by "the imperialist enemies," a term it uses when referring to the U.S. Pyongyang routinely accuses the U.S. of plotting to invade the North, despite the repeated denials by Washington. "If the imperialist enemies intrude into" the North's territory, "its army will beat them back at a stroke by mercilessly showering bombs and shells on them," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. It didn't mention the ship sinking.
April 28, 201016 yr Author A good host of photos of the raised bow section of the Cheonan can be found here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2499651/posts Good discussions at IRC lately about this whole affair, btw.
April 28, 201016 yr This topic remember me about the whole fiasco of the Kaiten as effective weapon: its value as a weapon was probably inferior to a normal Type-93 torpedo On the whole, though, they were a miserable failure, and their war record certainly did not justify the expenditure of over a hundred kaiten pilot's lives during the last months of the war From http://combinedfleet.com/ships/kaiten
April 28, 201016 yr Author I think the Sango (Shark) submarine theory is probably more likely than the suicide attack. Moreover, if it was a torpedo, the Chinese Yu-3 does seem to fit the bill, as some are postulating. It has the appropriate size warhead (around 205 kg) and influence fuzing (rather than impact). Its passive acoustic homing guidance system doesn't make it a great choice for shallow waters like these (only 20-40 meters deep by all accounts), but I suppose it doesn't rule it out either. Though its a rather cold and calculating way to look at it, I have to give some credit to the DPRK if they actually were able to pull this off. They got in, did the job (nasty as it was), and apparently got away clean.
May 3, 201015 yr I guess one other option to explain it (not saying its likely only possible) due to the damage done would be an accident in an ammo magazine. Most (if not all) ships would be destroyed by such an event.
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