Chinese Navy’s ‘Blue 2018A’ fleet has been training in the East Indian Ocean for a “week or so”.
The 7500 tonnes Type 052D guided missile destroyer (Luyang-III class) boards a crew of 280 members. Land attack cruise missiles, as well as other projectiles which can target submarines, aircraft and hostile warships provide it credible firepower.
The Type 054A frigate (Jiangkai II) has a hard-to-pick stealthy design and good anti-ship and counter-submarine capability.
The Type 071 amphibious transport ship is geared for beach landing troops. An array of amphibious landing craft, assault vehicles and two back-up helicopters are used for sea-to-land deployment of around 800 troops, equivalent of an army battalion. “Overall, the
Chinese Navy is sending out an amphibious convoy fleet with strong regional air defence, anti-ship and anti-submarine capabilities and the ability to deliver rather large-scale amphibious troops quickly,” Sina observed.
More ships
The post highlighted that two additional naval groups, already deployed for anti-piracy escort missions of commercial ships, beef up the Navy’s overall deployment in the Indian Ocean at this time.
These include the 27th escort convoy comprising a destroyer, frigate and a replenishment ship that may have entered the south Indian Ocean, having crossed the southern tip of Africa, after completing its mission in the Atlantic more than 10 days ago.
It partners with the Navy’s third ship contingent in the Indian Ocean — the 28th convoy escort formation in the western Indian Ocean. “Just this time, 11 warships of the three naval formations have appeared in the east, west and south Indian Ocean at the same time. This reaction speed and mobilisation ability can be achieved by the few state navies in the world,” the article claimed.
Meanwhile, Indian defence sources said movement of Chinese ships was detected near the Maldivian waters. “The closest the Chinese ships came near Maldives was about 2,500 nautical miles away,” a defence source said on Tuesday.
A couple of weeks back, a Chinese naval task force has entered the Indian Ocean from the Sunda Strait for exercises in international waters closer to Australia and has since left via the Lombok Strait, the source explained.
Indian Navy Spokesperson Capt. D.K. Sharma said without getting into the specifics: “Indian Navy has a robust maritime domain awareness and we have a clear picture of the happenings in the Indian Ocean Region.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...s-emergency/article22815948.ece?homepage=true
India says its “deeply dismayed“ by
Maldives extending the State of Emergency for another 30 days. The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that the manner in which the Emergency was extended by the Majlis was in “contravention” of the country’s Constitution and was a “matter of concern.”
“It is important that all democratic institutions [in the Maldives] are allowed to function in a far and transparent manner in accordance with the Constitution,” the External Affairs Ministry statement added
