PORT OF DAGANG, QINGDAO, May 5 (ChinaMil) -- Chinese and Russian naval ships participating in the “Joint Sea-2019” exercise left the port of Dagang in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province for the designated drill area on the morning of May 1. This marks that the China-Russia joint drill has transferred from the joint preparatory phase to the joint maritime implementation phase.
Zhao Yao, deputy chief of the Operations Division in Navy Department of Staff under the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s Northern Theater Command, introduced that there are two breakthroughs worth paying attention to in the maritime live-fire drill.
First, it was the first time that the sub-mergence rescue vehicles of the two navies docked each other’s submarine and actually transferred the sailors out. Second, it was the first time that short-range ship-to-air missiles had been used in the live-fire drill.
On May 2, both navies of the China-Russia “Joint Sea-2019” exercise conducted a joint submergence rescue drill in waters of the Yellow Sea, aiming at improving that capability which plays an important role in the combat effectiveness of naval forces.
Carrying out in-depth military cooperation in the field of submergence rescue requires not only mutual-trust in each other’s rescue equipment and capability, but also a considerable degree of mutual-openness on the submarine performance parameters.
The Chinese Navy’s integrated submarine rescue ship Haiyangdao (Hull 864) and the Russian Navy’s search-and-rescue vessel Igor Belousov participated in the drill.
On May 4, both navies launched short-range ship-to-air missiles to attack incoming targets. This was also the first time for the Chinese Navy to conduct joint training with a foreign military on actual missile launching by surface ships.
The drill, involving live-fire sessions, was carried out on the joint air defense, joint anti-submarine, joint submergence rescue and other subjects.
Russian Pacific Fleet’s guided-missile cruiser Varyag, the anti-submarine warship Admiral Vinogradov, the anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Tributs and corvette Sovershennyy, as well as the PLA Navy’s guided-missile destroyers Harbin (Hull 112), Changchun (Hull 103) and guided-missile frigates Wuhu (Hull 539) and Handan (Hull 579), participated in the drill, according to news released by Russia’s news agency Sputnik.
