COMMENTARY & OPINION

From the desk of

Bill Ramey

6/22/17

COMMENTARY & OPINION

June 22, 2017

Trump Prepares For Retaliation After USS Fitzgerald “Collision” Ruled “Act Of War”

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A grim Ministry of Defense (MoD) urgent action bulletin circulating in the Kremlin today states that the Federation has received notice from the US Pacific Command (PACOM) that “hostilities are likely to soon occur” throughout the entire Sea of Japan region—and that the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) states is “directly related” to North Korea hacking the autopilot controls of a massive container ship, then crashing it into a US Navy destroyer killing, at least, 7 American sailors. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]  

 

According to this bulletin, early on 17 June 2017, the US Navy destroyer DDG-62 USS Fitzgerald collided with MV ACX Crystal, a Philippine-flagged container ship, 104 kilometers (64 miles) southwest of Yokosuka and 19 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the city of Shimoda—both cities being in Japan.

MoD analysis of sea and weather conditions existing in the collision area at the time this incident occurred, this bulletin continues, shows the waters having a Douglas Sea Scale rating of 2 for State of Sea (0.10–0.50 meter wave height [Smooth]) and a 1 rating for Swell (Very Low-short or average and low wave) and a US Department of Defense rating (PDF) of 9 for excellent visibility (over 50 kilometers/30 nautical miles) with a Beaufort scale weather rating of “B” (Blue Sky/0-2/8 clouded).

With neither sea or weather conditions having any contributing factor in this collision, this bulletin states, MoD analysts then began an Automated Identification System (AIS) analysis of both the USS Fitzgerald and ACX Crystal—with it being quickly discovered that the USS Fitzgerald was operating without their AIS, but the ACX Crystal being able to have its entire course analyzed.

AIS, this bulletin explains, is a tracking system that has become the “Internet of Ships” and is a tool for nearly anyone to identify and track ships traveling around the world through websites and mobile applications—with many AIS receivers connected directly to the Internet via serial port servers that are carried aboard ships, buoys, and other navigation markers.

The MoD’s analysis of the ACX Crystal’s AIS tracking data, this bulletin notes, showed that the cause of this collision was due to it radically altering its course by making a “U turn” on the open sea and then heading directly towards the USS Fitzgerald and ramming it.

AIS tracking log of ACX Crystal on 17 June 2017

Audio recordings from the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald, this bulletin continues, reveal that its US Navy sailors feverishly tried to avoid the ACX Crystal, but to no avail as this 10-story tall container ship had greatly accelerated its speed—with no one on the USS Fitzgerald being able to fully comprehend that they were under attack.

USS Fitzgerald bridge audio begins around 9:30...collision with ACX Crystal at 12:40......

Critical to note about the ACX Crystal’s radical departure from its course, this bulletin notes, is that two days before its ramming the USS Fitzgerald, on 15 June, the same type of “incident” occurred when a Federation registered yacht named the Katalexa, that was sailing from Taiwan to the Russian city of Vladivostok, was hijacked by North Korea with its frantic crew desperately radioing that they had lost “all control” over their vessel.

MoD and SVR “assests”, this bulletin continues, quickly secured the release of the Katalexa from North Korea—with the SVR reporting that an examination of its onboard electronic systems showed that its autopilot had been hacked and  was the cause of it’s being “steered” into North Korean waters in the Sea of Japan.

Important to note, SVR analysts in this bulletin state, is that the Katalexa was equipped with a NAVIPILOT 4000 Marine Autopilot system that receives its orders from the Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine ECDIS, and that ACX Crystal was equipped with a more sophisticated version of called the Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine VisionMaster FT Integrated Bridge System (IBS), both being manufactured by the British based company Sperry Marine Northrop Grumman.

The most striking similarity to the hijacking of both the Katalexa and ACX Crystal, this bulletin notes, is that they both occurred during the night hours “when everyone was asleep”.

Though some American sources are claiming that the Chinese hijacked the autopilot of the ACX Crystal in order to ram it into the USS Fitzgerald, this bulletin continues, SVR and MoD analysts, instead, attribute this “act of war” to Unit 180 of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB)—who just this past month, terrified the world with its WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack that infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries, and is linked to last year's $81 million cyber heist at the Bangladesh central bank and the 2014 attack on Sony's Hollywood studio too.

With US aircraft carrier battle groups CVN-68 Nimitz, CVN-70 Carl Vinson and CVN-76 Ronald Reagan rapidly being redeployed to the Sea of Japan, this bulletin grimly says, President Trump, yesterday, Tweeted a not too subtle “warning of war” stating that China had failed in trying to ease the threat posed by North Korea (and that was fully supported by his Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis) thus creating a “high noon” situation for war that North Korea responded to by “overtures of peace” no one expects the US to accept.

To what is expected should President Trump, indeed, retaliate against North Korea for attacking the USS Fitzgerald, this bulletin concludes, one need look no further than the massive US military war exercise called “Northern Edge” conducted last year in Alaska with America’s entire integrated force structure involved to know what will happen—and one of whose participants, Mr. Rickey Smith, US Deputy Chief of Staff, G-9,Training and Doctrine Command, detailed exactly how to take care of North Korea’s hacking by his stating: “If you want to stop a cyber-attack, put a 120mm tank round through the server and the operator of the cyber attack will stop”.

American battle tanks on the border of North Korea

June 22, 2017 © EU and US all rights reserved.  Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.

 [Note: The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.]