Hmm,
hard things are said here…
Personally I wouldn’t try to get my SSNs near China… These guys have LOTS of SSKs out there. These subs might be old, but if operated in group, they might pose a Wolfpack-threat. Also, these old Mings are being complemented now by 8 Songs, 4 Kilo’s of which soon there will be 8 extra and something that can be seen as a modified Kilo now. The area around China is not that hard to defend and up to Singapore, they might be able to put their SSKs out.
Aiming at ships under Chinese flag??? I wouldn’t do that, since you then have to get close enough to the ship to determine the flag (which merchies evidently don’t carry except for holidays). So how do you know you have a Chinese-flagged tanker in front of you?
Laying in front of the strait of Malacca and shooting the tankers coming out might also **** off Japan and Australia quite a lot, since their tankers pass there too.
Detecting subs by visual is impossible except when they are on the surface or two meters below it.
Chinese helicopter forces are increasing, now they have about 8 Kamov-28s, but I think a large order might follow, otherwise all their new ships wouldn’t have this especially high helo-hangar, which is certainly not meant for the Z-9 only. And 8 Kamovs isn’t enough for all these new ships.
RN will not be capable of harming China, well harming it, yes, but killing it: no. RN simply lacks everything for that. Their force is just too small nowadays to do anything like the Malvinas, let alone attack China. These very few SSNs they have are not enough to stop the massive merchant fleet entering and returning from China. Also, if other countries do not really support UK, their companies will not accept the loss of all this economic profit, hence won’t make their ships return from China and stay out. This on its turn will make it very hard for RN to choose its targets.
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