Recently, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been sending warplanes to disturb Taiwan. The Liaoning aircraft carrier formation is facing off with the USS Roosevelt strike group in the South China Sea. The U.S. media said on the 19th that four U.S. F-16s flew to the South China Sea with live ammunition on board to escort the USS Roosevelt, indicating that this is not a simple long-range training mission but may be a contingency operation to send a strong warning to the Chinese Communist Party.
Recently, the Chinese government has been sending warplanes and bombers to disturb Taiwan. At the same time, the Liaoning aircraft carrier fleet led several warships to break through the first island chain and sail from the Miyako Strait to the South China Sea via the Pacific Ocean for practice. At the same time, the U.S. destroyer USS Muscatine sailed from the waters near the mouth of the Yangtze River to monitor the Liaoning’s southward progress.
The USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier and the F-35C amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island met in the South China Sea for a military exercise intended to deter the Chinese Communist Party. After that, the U.S. destroyer USS McCain crossed the Taiwan Strait, and two U.S. destroyers responded in time in Taiwan waters, one east and one west, heating up the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
The USS Roosevelt and USS Makin Island sailed to the Taiwan Strait after a drill in the South China Sea. “The USS Liaoning ended the drill hastily and headed north.
On April 12, 14 J-16s, 4 J-10s, 4 Boeing 6K bombers, 2 Carrier 8 anti-submarine aircraft and 1 Air Marshal 500 early warning aircraft were deployed to enter Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone.
On the same day, four U.S. Air Force F-16s flew from Japan to the South China Sea to support the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt strike group.
USS Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier.
On April 19, U.S. media The Drive magazine reported that while the Roosevelt strike group was cruising the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait was faced with 25 Chinese military aircraft nuisance activities in the waters southwest of Taiwan, a record number in the past year.
The four F-16s belonging to the U.S. Air Force Misawa base departed from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, and four KC135 air refueling planes showed up in the Bus Strait, supposedly to refuel the F-16s, which then flew over the Roosevelt battle group in the South China Sea.
The report said that all weapons were live-fire, a rare occurrence, especially over Japan. This suggests that the trip was not just a simple long-range training mission, but a signal to the Chinese military, perhaps even a contingency operation.
Previously, it was reported that a formation of Chinese military aircraft simulated an attack on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier formation in the South China Sea.
A set of photos taken by a Japanese photographer and posted on Twitter show that at 3 p.m. on the 17th, F-16s were spotted returning from the South China Sea at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo; the F-16s landed at Yokota to refuel and then took off again at 5 p.m. to return north to Misawa Air Base.
The photos show that each F-16 carries five AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) with over-the-horizon strike capability and one AIM-9 Rattlesnake tactical missile.
Each aircraft also carries a new generation of electric warfare pods “AN/ALQ-184” under the belly of the aircraft developed for the F-16 and other models, which can fully automatically scan and jam the radar and missile signals of enemy aircraft in the air, and can also receive a variety of radio signals, as well as eliminate airborne clutter, identify and detect the source of the signal and other functions.
The F-16s are obviously responding to the provocative behavior of Chinese military aircraft in the region, and are apparently cooperating with the USS Roosevelt strike group, which is present in the South China Sea.
The presence of F-16s with live ammunition in the South China Sea underscores the U.S. military’s ability to conduct defensive air combat patrols in the vicinity of Taiwan and regional hotspots during major crises. The U.S. military has also demonstrated through its operations how it can project land-based air combat power to areas including Taiwan’s periphery during a major crisis.
Brig. Gen. R. Scott Jobe, former head of the U.S. Air Force’s 35th Fighter Wing, has described the F-16 as “small, powerful and extremely agile, and can compete with any active combat aircraft.”
The 35th Fighter Wing of the U.S. Air Force has two squadrons of F-16s stationed at Misawa Air Force Base and is responsible for surveillance of the Chinese Communist Party, Russia and North Korea.
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