The UK’s fearsome aircraft carrier group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth is turning out to be a joke as it is in the last legs of its power projection trip. The carrier group not just chickened out in South China Seas by skirting the artificial Chinese islands but also was tailed by two Chinese Shang class submarines.
As per British daily ‘Express,’ the carrier group detected two Chinese Shang class submarines (Type 093G) while on the way out of the South China Sea to the Pacific. HMS Kent and HMS Richmond detected them and are the ships tasked to detect submarines.
“The Royal Navy had expected activity from Chinese submarines and Beijing’s intelligence gathering spy ships, and the carrier was shadowed for a short period before being located by sonar radar.
”Operators aboard the frigates, which were working together in a sweep pattern, ‘pinged’ – naval terminology for locating a sub-surface contact – within six hours of leaving the South China Sea, an area over which Beijing insists it has sovereignty of the sea lanes after it built several artificial islands,” writes Marco Giannangeli, the papers defence editor.
In addition, the paper claimed the accompanying Royal Navy Astute class submarine had detected a third Shang boat patrolling ahead of the task force.
The 7000 ton Type 093 Shang-class submarine is a second generation nuclear-powered attack submarine operated by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). PLAN operates 6 boats of the class.
Counter view
While it is not known that the Chinese intentionally wanted to get noticed or it is the prowess of the British equipment to detect the nuclear submarines and classify them. If the British equipment could pick up the secretive Chinese nuclear submarines, then it says a lot on Chinese Nuclear Submarines.
The British Aircraft carrier group has helped the Chinese naval power projection worldwide.