In the secluded but eerie underwater world, a huge submarine slowly moves down the water at a speed of 4 knots. She is the PLA Navy's Type 039A air-propelled submarine, which plays the role of the submarine that is regarded as an "enemy" in the anti-submarine warfare subject of this RIMPAC joint military exercise.

Even when China participated in the RIMPAC exercises, China's participation in the program did not reflect much of a friendly attitude, but almost all of them, except for the maritime transportation and replenishment projects, were clearly confrontational. This also shows that Western countries still have a strong sense of distrust of China, and perhaps the more important factor is that they want to know the true combat strength of the Chinese navy, and hope that through joint training with China, which has many ties with the Soviet Union, they can master more means to deal with the Soviet Red Navy.

So this 039A submarine is actually playing the role of the Kilo-class conventionally powered submarine that has not been in service for long in the Soviet Union. The Kilo-class, known as the black hole of the ocean, was a major Soviet advance in submarines, and was said to be related to the processing equipment that Japan had secretly sold to the Soviet Union for the Batumi embargo, and the previous Walker leak also showed that the Soviet Union used stealing American intelligence to make breakthroughs in its own equipment.

Regardless of how the Kilo class came from, this thing would be quite a headache for the Americans and their allies in the near-shore coastal zone, both as an underwater guard to protect Soviet strategic nuclear submarines, and as a way to seriously disrupt the NATO bloc's maritime supply lines through performance and numerical superiority in the event of a real war.

039A is undoubtedly more BT than the Kilo class, if 039A can be dealt with, the United States will not have to worry about the Kilo class making trouble in the future.

On a sunny day, Pedersen, the captain of the Forrestal-class aircraft carrier CV-61 Ranger, stood on the bridge and scanned the magnificent sea with a telescope, and the captain was quite relaxed at the moment, as if he was on a camping trip. The Ranger was at the front of the fleet, a grand fleet of nearly a dozen Allied warships, with the Ranger at its core. In the center of the fleet are two warships with significantly whiter liveries, the Shenzhen and the Jiaxing, who play important merchant ships. The course is supposed to simulate an entire fleet escorting two merchant ships of particular importance, and this area is a carnival hunting ground for Soviet conventionally powered submarines.

Two British frigates, the Amazon and the Beaver, are directly in front of the fleet, one on the left and one on the right, and they are clearing a lane for the fleet with their bulbous sonars. The ships of Australia and New Zealand are on the left, a few kilometers away, on the right are the anti-submarine destroyers of Canada and Japan, and in the rear are large American destroyers. In Captain Pedersen's view, this is an impregnable iron bucket array.

In the sky 60 kilometers away, the S-3 fixed-wing carrier-based anti-submarine aircraft that took off from the Ranger were the outermost layer of defense, and then the SH-60 Seahawk and other anti-submarine helicopters were released by the destroyers on the outside. In the words of Captain Fiore: "Even if a needle falls out of the sea, we will find out." ”

It was at this time that Pedersen received a message from the Australian frigate HMS Darwin that the sonar buoy dropped by their anti-submarine helicopter had spotted an unknown sound source signal and was cruising outward, as if trying to escape the fleet's large anti-submarine net.

Pedersen smiled and said: "Although the Chinese's submarines can not need to float for a long time, but in such a cramped anti-submarine formation, it is absolutely not easy to avoid us so intensively search and destroy the target merchant ship, maybe they may choose to fix the depth in a position, and then ambush us, but the choice of the channel is ultimately what we say!" ”

He ordered: "Order the Darwin to enter combat mode immediately and knock her out!" ”

Ordered to pursue the submarine that seemed to have been aware of its exposure, the Darwin made a panicked attempt to break through.

"Good chance!" Captain Bentley's eyes were bright, but because the opponent was not slow, and their anti-submarine aircraft were unable to lock onto the opponent, the Darwin immediately stepped forward to break away from the formation and chased in the direction of the submarine's escape.

Pedersen has no objection to the departure of the Darwin, it is unrealistic to plan to knock out the advanced submarines of the Chinese with just one SH-60, and if all the torpedoes of the Sea Hawk fail, then the professional anti-submarine frigate Darwin can make up for it.

Sure enough, two Mk46 torpedoes were fired in a row but neither of them hit the ship that escaped at high speed, and Bentley also sighed on the Darwin: "The speed of the Chinese submarine is very good, I wonder if we can also ask China for their power system to build Australia's own AIP submarine." ”

But before he could finish his thoughts, he suddenly felt his battleship shake a few times, and the navigator shouted, "Watch out for the impact!" ”

There was no strong explosion, it was like being lightly touched by a lover, but everyone on the ship looked ugly to death, because this was an exercise, and all the units were using simulated bombs, if it was a real battle, then just a few light touches were likely to lift the battleship of more than 4,000 tons into the air.

Bentley picked up the ship's communication phone with a dark face, and a message from the exercise director came inside: "The FFG04 Darwin has hit a mine, and it is judged to be heavily damaged, and it is out of battle." ”

The same news also reached the ears of Captain Pedersen, who was originally full of confidence, and his eyes widened, and he said repeatedly: "That's impossible, the Darwin has obviously received an audio signal from the enemy!" ”

The combat staff officer next to him coughed lightly and reminded: "It is very likely that it is a self-propelled underwater acoustic decoy launched by the 333 boat, this thing artificially created by the Chinese has a long range and can send jamming information, which will be mistaken for a submarine sailing, and the Soviets have also put a lot of effort into this before." ”

"Damn it! The Chinese may now be anywhere! ”

The combat staff officer denied: "No, even if the range of the self-propelled underwater acoustic decoy is very long, but it will not exceed a few kilometers, the Chinese are in our anti-submarine net, and it must be on our left flank, we should order the New Zealand ships to go out and scan this sea area again." ”

Pedersen nodded and said: "One is not enough, the telegram ordered the HMS HMS HMS Amazon and our USS Berkeley to move to the left, and we must catch this mosquito!" ”

After receiving the order, the warships of the three countries immediately assembled, formed a standard Y-shaped anti-submarine formation, and through their own sonar and the sonar buoys of the anti-submarine helicopters, they opened a large submarine hunting net on the left side of the fleet's voyage as if digging three feet into the ground. The experienced destroyers and frigates, on the other hand, adopted a relatively roundabout trajectory in order to avoid a sneak attack by a torpedo fired by a submarine that attacked at close range.

"Where the hell is it? Where the hell is it? "Captain Li Pete of the Amazon can be regarded as holding back a bad breath, and he has to catch this 039A submarine, expose the weak nature of the Chinese Navy, and prove that no matter how good the warship is to a group of farmers, it can't change the sad fact that their combat power is broken.

It's just that the more anxious he is to find this submarine, the more he can't find her. Like an assassin in the middle of the night, Boat 333 hid itself in the shadows, waiting for its next chance.

More than 20 minutes later, the three anti-submarine ships still did not find the mischievous Chinese submarine, and their anxiety became more and more obvious, and they tried to capture the 333 boat with a finer net, but still found nothing.

"Where the hell is it?" Pedersen also sweated on his head at this time, it was obvious that the Chinese submarine not only had a good level of silence, but also did not look like a novice at all in terms of tactical use, by launching a hydroacoustic decoy to attract the Darwin to chase, and introduced it into the mine array that had been arranged before himself, the anti-submarine ship is not a minesweeper, its own magnetic characteristics are too obvious, and it was immediately broken after being triggered.

When they came up, they successfully killed an escort ship, which made Pedersen and the others feel a pressure, like a thick dark cloud over their heads.

Just as they were about to give up, the enemy appeared on his own!

Four anti-ship missiles suddenly burst out of the water, forming a fan, and flew directly over the Ranger from a height of less than 10 meters above the sea to the core of the fleet.

"Prepare for the impact!" The XO (executive officer, chief staff officer) on the aircraft carrier shouted, because the four anti-ship missiles were fired almost simultaneously, and the flight altitude was so low that even the Phalanx on the aircraft carrier did not have time to react, and it was not even possible to aim at such a low anti-ship missile.

At the last moment, these missiles suddenly exploded in the air, but one flew too close, and some fragments still hit the hull of the aircraft carrier after the explosion, but the impact force was very small, except for a little scratch.

But this is a simulated bomb!

"The CV-61 Ranger was hit by four ASM (anti-ship missiles) in the waterline position, the flight deck was shattered, the port side was heavily flooded, the hull tilted, it lost its combat capability, and its speed was reduced to 11 knots." The people in the director's department seemed to have trembling voices, because the scene unbelievable was unbelievable in front of them. A lone submarine first laid mines and lured out a frigate, and then actually hid in the blind spot of the sonar echo, hid itself and parked on the seabed, until several anti-submarine ships went far away before it slowly surfaced, followed the fleet, and touched the position so close to the aircraft carrier.

Pedersen slapped the table: "Bastard, your target should be the merchant ship behind us!" Why is it attacking us? For what!? ”

However, his reason has not yet relaxed, he knows that just now because of the light enemy, there was an irretrievable gap in his left flank, and it also gave the Chinese space for submarine activities, and finally the Chinese completely close to the actual combat chose a more suitable target - an aircraft carrier.