US 'armada' threat to North Korea was steaming in opposite direction

US President Donald Trump's 'armada' of warships were heading away from North Korea, despite his claims he was sending them to the peninsula.

In a move aimed at showing force against escalating rhetoric from North Korean leader Km Jong-Un, the president said he had deployed a fleet headed by supercarrier USS Carl Vinson.

"We are sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you," Trump said.

It has now emerged that the 'armada' was making its way to the Indian Ocean to take part in exercises with the Australian Navy.

While Jong-Un paraded his nation's new ballistic missiles and carried out a failed missile test, the US warships were 3,500 miles away.

A photograph of the USS Carl Vinson sailing between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java appears to have alerted people to discrpencies in the Navy's location.