CV-17 Shandong (002 carrier) Thread I ...News, Views and operations
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
- Status
plawolf
Lieutenant General
It’s actually pathetically hilarious that this British ‘show of strength’ vast waste of taxpayer money PR stunt probably did more to create the perception of the SCS as a Chinese lake than anything the PLAN might have actually done, which to be frank, was unlikely to have been much to start with.
China has never expressed any misgivings about foreign warships transiting the SCS (or indeed any Chinese territorial waters) under true innocence passage as defined under UNCLOS. It just has a problem with thinly veiled American gunboat intimidation tactics trying to use UNCLOS as a cover.
The British seemed to have managed to somehow have a full on diplomatic fight with itself over the issue and came out with two black eyes without even seeing hair or hide of any Chinese. A truly remarkable accomplishment.
On the one hand, the American plants and useful idiots in the UK wanted the RN to do American style military intimidation on China and massively talked up both the significance and intended mission of the carrier in the SCS and beyond to make it seem like it was going to the SCS purely to get its dong out and wave it in China’s face, and then to piss in China’s pool to flex.
On the other hand you had the likes of the chancellor drooling about Chinese cash money and seem to think that will be the magical mcguffing that will dig them out of the ridiculous covid wasteful spending binge they have indulged in without having to suffer the crippling and prolonged austerity needed to pay for it all.
In the middle you probably have the military trying to find a way to point out to the wannabe Americans in the UK that the British military dong is actually pretty tiny and flaccid these days, and they would get absolutely annihilated if China decided to swing back, without utterly de-masculinate themselves in the process.
The end result is that the British managed to make the SCS seem like a Chinese lake by tucking tail and fleeing out before China even got a chance to challenge their presence there. No wonder the Americans told them to just fuck off back to Europe and stay there. In the process the British still managed to offend China with all the trash talk before hand. Truly remarkable to manage to spend all that money and effort only to piss off both the Americans and the Chinese at the same time.
I would not put it past the BBC to spin this fiasco as some sort of next level 13D chess move by arguing that the only thing that China and America can agree on these days is how stupid and useless the British are, thereby creating common ground to paving the way for diplomacy.
Couple of points…
1. It was telegraphed long before she set sail that she would not needlessly upset China by transiting the Taiwan straight.
2. As the CSG group was entering the SCS, Lloyd Austin suggested that perhaps the UK should focus our limited resources in the North Atlantic.
We are off topic.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Which is why we are not talking about Taiwan but the SCS. The British made a huge song and dance about how they were going to show China by sailing through the SCS, which everyone understood as them wanting to sail close to China’s island bases, since free navigation through the SCS was never ever in doubt or dispute.
Are you suggesting the current US secretary of defence only realised that the British wanted to sail their carrier to Asia as said carrier was entering the SCS? Or are you suggesting the Americans would not know the planned British route well in advanced given the fact that said British carrier has US aircraft and pilots onboard, and is escorted by US warships?
Come on mate, why did you think the Americans waited so late to send such a message? Was it because they wanted to purposefully embarrass their British allies for shits and giggles, or could it possibly be because the British Boris government did yet another flip flop and bottled out of their original, pre-agreement plan with the Americans to do FONOPS (hence the American fighters and warship escorts) at the 11th hour?
The fact that such a message was delivered publicly instead of behind closed doors; and the blunt, unambiguous wording and timing of it; should give some indication of the strength of feeling in Washington about how disgraceful a shitshow they viewed that performance as.
That’s not how I would interpret those facts, talk about putting worlds in someone’s mouth.
I might suggest that the deployment was planned with the Trump administration, and the new one wants the UK to focus on Russia not China.
The timing and he content of the message might have persuaded a previously planned SCS island 12 mile transit to be abandoned.
Again, off topic.
Go to world military and search for this Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
That's the appropriate place for you to post or ask anything Indian military related news and information etc..
Propulsion system...
Intrepid
Major
Classic system, eight boilers, eight condensers, four turbines and four screws. The system for the outer propellers in the front compartment, for the two inner propellers in the rear compartment. But that was already known for Kuznetsov / Liaoning / Shandong.
- Status