The U.S. Navy just deployed Boeing P-8 Poseidon submarine hunters to Japan to “increase the U.S. military presence around the disputed Senkaku Islands.”
Japan “controls” the islands but China “claims them.”
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the Poseidon is a “military version of a 737” with “advanced [equipment]” which enables it to “find and destroy enemy submarines and ships.”
To do this the P-8 carries “anti-ship missiles, submarine detecting sonobuoys, [and] torpedoes.”
The Navy plans to purchase 117 P-8s to replace the “fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3 Orions.”
P-3s have been in use since 1962. The current deployment to Japan marks the first time P-8s have been deployed. The plane “has been in development for nearly a decade.”
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