China and India Exchange Pings

Welcome to the neighborhood.

An Indian Kilo class submarine spooked Chinese warships that were sent to patrol pirate infested waters in the Gulf of Aden and the two navies engaged in an hour long game of 'hide and seek' in international waters last month, Chinese media reports have said.

In the first such incident involving Indian and Chinese warships that has come to light, media reports from China said that its warships 'forced' the Indian submarine to surface after over an hour of manoeuvres during which anti submarine choppers were scrambled from the Chinese destroyers.

Some Chinese news reports are claiming the Chinese forced the submarine to surface, but the Indian Navy official denies that report later in the article. I tend to believe the Indian story, unless China was actually shooting at the submarine I have a hard time believing the submarine would surface for any reason near two PLA Navy destroyers.

RockyMountainNavy has more details. I see this as falling into the context of expected behavior. The Indian Navy is monitoring the PLA Navy operate in the Indian Ocean? Of coarse they are.

The details suggest that the Indian Kilo is not as quiet as some folks claim, or that Chinese sonar is a lot better than most people claim.

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Update: Meanwhile, India denies the incident, suggesting it never happened at all. While potentially true, if true it says little about India, because they absolutely SHOULD BE shadowing PLAN destroyers while they are in the Indian Ocean.

I have no inside information, but I have no doubt that when the Russians came sailing into the Gulf of Mexico, we were watching.