Blue Star Chronicles

Bangladesh and Myanmar are in a naval standoff in the Bay of Bengal. Its about oil and gas. Read about it below and see a map and video of the Bay.

Bay of Bengal - Map

There is a naval standoff happening in the Bay of Bengal. Myranmar and Bangladesh are at odds over who owns the rights to search for and extract natural gas and oil along their maritime boundaries.

The Bay of Bengal conflict has been building for years. Officials from both countries have been in talks for years over who owns the Bay and therefore the rights to resources that are discovered there. At this point official from Bangeldesh are reporting that the South Korean firm, The Daewoo-Myanmar company, hired by Myranmar to search for oil, is starting the process of withdrawal from the area as conflict between the two countries is escalating. The Myranmar government is stating that they are only stalling temporarily while the two countries sort out their differences.

Both countries are public saying they are searching for a peaceful solution to the problem and both have approached China, an ally of both countries, to mediate. However, both countries have put their armies on alert and have deployed naval war ships to the area.

Neither of these nations is a naval superpower. Both fleets are largely composed of patrol boats, many armed with those ubiquitous Chinese anti-ship missiles. Each nation is believed to have a frigate or corvette sized ship at the scene, as well as some missile armed patrol boats. If it came to violence, the C802 missiles could make quick work of ships on both sides. The older missiles, less so.

The last time the C-802 was used in combat, was two years ago, against an Israeli warship. Two C-802s were fired at an 1,100 ton Israeli corvette off the coast of Lebanon. One hit the helicopter hanger, but the warhead failed to go off. The fire on the Israeli ship was caused by the half a ton of missile crashing into it, and unburned rocket fuel. The other C-802 homed in on a nearby Egyptian merchant ship, and sank it (the warhead on that one did detonate). The Israeli anti-missile system was not turned on because it was found to interfere with the electronics on Israeli warplanes operating in the vicinity. This is also an increasing problem in modern warfare. There are so many electronic gadgets transmitting, that there are more cases of signals, literally, getting crossed.

The C-802 is a 20 foot long, 360mm, 1,500 pound missile with a 360 pound warhead. The Israeli warship carries electronic defenses against anti-ship missiles, as well as a Phalanx auto-cannon. This systems is supposed to be turned on whenever the ship is likely to have an anti-ship missile fired at it. The Phalanx radar can spot incoming missiles out to about 5,000 meters, and the 20mm cannon is effective out to about 2,000 meters. With incoming missiles moving a 250 meters a second, you can see why Phalanx is set to automatic. There’s not much time for human intervention. The Bangladeshi and Myanmar ships don’t appear to have any missile defenses.

The C-802 needs to work with a radar that can track the target. The C-802 fired in Lebanon apparently used Lebanese government coastal radars for this. The Bangladeshi and Myanmar ships warships have radar on board for this. The C-802 is 30 year old technology, and many of them are quite old. With age comes reliability problems. Bangladesh has many older models of Chinese anti-ship missiles (like the half ton SY-1 Silkworm), and these have been unused for quite some time.

The world is an unstable place right now. We have a naive and ill prepared president. The world sees this and begins to vie for their own places in the new pecking order.

God help us all.