Four surface ships were sunk, resulting in a total of 163 deaths (including missing persons) and a major demoralization blow to the British task force.

In the Falklands War, the British army only lost more than 200 casualties, but the war expected by the British had not officially begun, and their casualties had reached half of the Falklands War, and the loss of fighters and ships was not inferior to the Falklands War.

Captain of the USS Ark Royal? Weatherall, who was also the core commander of the fleet, immediately ordered the anti-submarine aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters in Diego Garcia to begin a more extensive and intensive investigation, making sure that nothing went wrong before the main fleet arrived.

Weatherall also immediately brought in a record of the performance of Chinese submarines in last year's RIMPAC exercise, which was the only detailed information they had that could help them understand the combat strength of the submarine force in the south.

It took several hours to almost crumple this not thick information, Weatherall is still trembling, according to the analysis of naval insiders in various countries, the performance of Chinese-made absolute propulsion submarines has been close to the level of first-class nuclear submarines, and American experts even believe that compared with the Los Angeles-class attack nuclear submarines of the main force of the United States, the quietness of the Chinese-made 039A conventionally powered submarines is superior.

Li Chun, a master of submarine warfare in the Chinese Navy, who is already well-known in the world's naval circles, has been used by naval academies of various countries to continuously analyze and lecture on the combined fleet, and is regarded as a model of combining strategy and tactics with the advanced nature of equipment. Even if it was not the first time that Weatherall had heard of this case, after studying it in detail, he was still impressed by the Chinese submarine captain he had never met.

"It has excellent concealment, and if it is more patient, it can ambush our task force at any position in the water, but when did the Chinese find out the hydrological situation under the Indian Ocean?" Weatherall was quite troubled, and many British soldiers did not regard their opponents as a liberation organization like rebels, but stubbornly believed that they were Chinese, at least it would not seem too cold to call it, especially if their side suffered losses one after another, so as not to lose face too much.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, in the name of anti-piracy, the Chinese Navy has repeatedly dispatched escort fleets in the Gulf of Aden, coupled with the plan to build a chain of pearls in the Indian Ocean, the hydrological characteristics of the sea area around the Indian Ocean have long been clear. Naturally, these materials came into the hands of the PLA Navy and the PLA Navy and the PLA Navy along with Qi Yiming's database.

The staff officer of the Royal Navy suggested to Weatherall: "The enemy's submarines pose a serious threat to our fleet, and this time it is not like the RIMPAC exercise, they have sent more of these advanced submarines, we are under a lot of pressure, in addition to allowing the anti-submarine aircraft to increase their reconnaissance efforts, we should also send two nuclear submarines in our fleet to counteract, even if their conventional submarines are good, firepower and speed and other indicators are not comparable to our nuclear submarines." ”

Weatherall nodded, convinced that although the task force didn't bring a lot of nuclear submarines, one Trafalgar-class and one Fast-class were enough to deal with four or five Chinese submarines, at least Weatherall and his comrades thought so.

Another staff officer advised: "According to the intelligence we have, the Chinese-made AIP submarines have very diverse capabilities, not only can launch heavy torpedoes and submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, but in the RIMPAC exercise, they have also demonstrated strong and efficient mine-laying capabilities, and our naval strength near the Diego Garcia base is not enough to detect the enemy's moves, and it may be appropriate to send minesweepers to clean up before our fleet moves in." ”

This suggestion was quickly adopted, and the British fleet brought two minesweepers, small in size and not very fast, and had been dragged behind the fleet, at which point Weatherall was careful and had to wait for the auxiliary ships to catch up.

Soon he was glad for his decision, because when the two minesweepers arrived at the perimeter of the Diego Garcia base, they actually swept nearly 100 mines of all kinds, ranging from drifting mines to deep-depth anchor mines, and even a new type of mine that the British army had never seen before. In order to sweep away these terrible things, one minesweeper even suffered a loss, and when carrying out the detonation operation, it did not anticipate its powerful impact and almost sank the ship.

Weatherall cursed vigorously: "The Chinese are too vicious!" ”

However, after some twists and turns, the British army finally arrived at the port of Diego Garcia, but 4 of the 22 main combat ships have been removed, even including the only Type 82 destroyer, fortunately, after the naval battle, the Nanyang News Agency of the Southern Liberation did not report on it again, and the British were even more reluctant to expose the scandal, and the reporters accompanying the ship were controlled and not allowed to release news. Hehe, saying that Western countries pay attention to freedom of the press and the like, in fact, it is decided according to their own interests.

Several large Hunter anti-submarine planes and some Bobcat anti-submarine helicopters cruised and searched the waters near the Diego Garcia base almost non-stop, so that the submarine forces of the Southern Liberation Army did not dare to approach this area again easily. The 12 S20 submarines in Qi Yiming's hands were placed on the route from Diego Garcia to Malacca, and 8 were placed on the route. Because the endurance of conventionally powered submarines is limited, Qi Yiming did not have submarine support ships to help with supplies, so he had to adopt a rotation system.

Within four days, two submarines returned from the front line to the naval base in Lumut, Perak, and two submarines were sent to the front line, and after another four days, two more submarines on the front line were almost exhausted, and then returned to the base for resupply. This results in a 16-day submarine cycle, which is also the mission time for the S20 submarine to normally remain non-afloat, and also the time for the supply of food and water at maximum load.

Having secured the security of the 100-kilometer area around Diego Garcia's base, Weatherall began to prepare for further exploration. Compared to the aggressive British Cabinet, Weatherall, as a real soldier, would not joke with his own lives and the lives of the seafarers in the fleet because of the decisions of politicians.

His choice is also more targeted, that is, the route to the Strait of Malacca to the northeast. Of course, this choice is also dangerous, if the search range is too narrow, the submarines of the Southern Liberation Navy that may be ambushed on both sides of the route can also give them a fatal blow. Weatherall knew that the task force could not afford any more losses, and that they had to achieve some decent results, or at least give an account to the government's brainless idiot politicians.

So with the cooperation of several destroyers, nuclear submarines and anti-submarine aircraft in the sky, the British army began the task of slowly clearing the shipping lane.

"Even in the face of the Germans' unrestricted submarine warfare, we have never been so cautious." Weatherall was a little sad, the sun really doesn't set in Britain now, and even the loss of one or two ships and planes will be extremely important.

On the first day of the expansion of the search area, the British were lucky when a Hunter anti-submarine aircraft with buoys picked up a faint hydroacoustic signal that they had never heard before.

"It must be a submarine of the Chinese, it must be!" The electric warfare officer on board shouted excitedly.

"Hurry up and cast the manta ray!" Unlike the P-3C, the Hunter had a larger range and search range, but could not carry anti-ship missiles such as Harpoons, so the only weapons against underwater opponents were deep shells and torpedoes. The Stingray is a 324mm light torpedo that has been in service in the UK since 1983, roughly on the same level as the US Mk46 and the Chinese Yu-7.

After the two manta rays were dropped, the personnel of the anti-submarine aircraft waited with anticrative anticipation for an explosion in the water, and a moment later a boom was heard through the earphones of the listening personnel, and the British clapped their hands in celebration: "Hit!" ”

A large anti-submarine aircraft naturally could not hover in a small area for a long time and check the results, so the hunter called a Leander-class frigate to come and check. It's just that what everyone didn't expect was that as soon as the frigate reached the periphery of the coordinate sea area, it made a splash along the side of its ship with a bang.

The captain of the frigate shouted: "It's a mine, pay attention to it!" ”

The officers and men on the ship couldn't help but scold: "Who the hell would lay mines in such open water, is your head broken?" ”

It is true that normal people would not lay mines in the middle of the vast sea, but the treacherous and cunning PLA submarine force used a small trick to make this kind of unreliable mine work. The strange underwater acoustic signal discovered by the hunter is indeed the hydroacoustic signal of the submarine, but it is the hydroacoustic decoy launched by the S20 submarine, which emits a hydroacoustic sound similar to that of a submarine to confuse the opponent. When the hunter dropped two manta rays, it caused an explosion in the water, in fact, it is possible that the torpedo was detonated by the magnetic drift mine in the water, resulting in the explosion sound.

The anti-submarine planes couldn't be sure whether the submarine had really been blown up, so they called a nearby frigate to come over to check the results of the battle, but they sent their comrades into the thunderstorm array thrown in this sea area. The British did not bring too many minesweepers, one was wounded and repaired in the waters near Diego Garcia, and the other also focused on defending the area around the base, and no one thought that anyone would use such a low-end, cheap and unartistic weapon with mines in such a wide sea area.

For submarine warfare, the emphasis is completely different from that of surface ships, and deception and camouflage are synonymous with them.

Just when the British were annoyed that they had fallen for the trick of the Nanjie submarine again, another of their nuclear submarines sent a distress signal more than 70 nautical miles away.

“…… Mayday, Mayday, our ship is surrounded by several enemy submarines! ……”