Miss. sub plays cat-and-mouse

One of the Navy’s most advanced nuclear submarines, USS Mississippi, was 400 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean in August near Hawaii when a sonar operator detected the thumping sound of the seven-blade propeller on a Chinese attack sub that the Pentagon calls a “Shang”. Within seconds, SSN-782 had banked right and hit its nuclear-powered propulsion system for one of the Navy's most difficult moves: Sneaking up on and shadowing an enemy sub without being detected. In the end, Mississippi was actually chasing a phantom – not a real Chinese sub – during a deep-sea training exercise. These cat-and-mouse training events are the unseen effects of the White House’s decision to send more of the Navy’s fleet into the Asia-Pacific Region in the past four years as part of its strategic rebalance that is intended to reassure partner-nation allies’ nerves about China's military aggression. (Source: LA Times 09/25/15) Gulf Coast Shipbuilding Note: USS Mississippi was commissioned at the Port of Pascagoula, Miss., in June 2012.