‘We beat them to the draw’: Tense moment sailors on Royal Navy’s flagship Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier realise Chinese attack submarine is hunting them in the South China Sea – before they turn the tables and send the sub packing

• HMS Queen Elizabeth was operating in the South China Sea in summer 2021
• Footage shows how the Russian-built Chinese sub tired to follow the carrier 

A Chinese attack submarine stalking the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier was ‘beaten to the draw’ after being detected by HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The tense encounter took place as the mighty £3.2billion warship sailed with her battlegroup on her maiden mission to the Far East  in the summer of 2021. 

Dramatic footage, revealed for the first time today, shows the Russian-built boat being caught red-handed lurking beneath the waves, attempting to shadow the state-of-the-art carrier. 

But the Kilo-class sub was promptly sent packing by Queen’s Elizabeth’s battlegroup, with one sailor declaring: ‘We beat them to the draw; 1-0 Queen Elizabeth.

The Kilo-class submarine was first pinged by frigate HMS Richmond, which was bodyguarding Queen Elizabeth as the 65,000-tonne behemoth sailed through the South China Sea. 

HMS Queen Elizabeth was shadowed by a Russian-built Kilo class Chinese submarine 

A BBC documentary crew were on board HMS Queen Elizabeth during the tense encounter

The tense encounter was captured by the BBC in its documentary The Warship: Tour of Duty, with the clash set to air on Sunday’s episode.

Under cover of darkness, a specialist submarine-hunting helicopter was scrambled to find the boat lurking under the waves south of the task group. 

The team, flying in a Merlin helicopter, dropped a series of hi-tech ‘sonobuoys’ – highly sensitive sonar devices used to hunt out enemy submarines. 

‘If there’s a sub down there, we will find it,’ says one of the Merlin’s aircrew, with the naval aviator later announcing: ‘We’ve identified one vessel down 20 nautical miles to the south of the force.’

Spotted by the British team, the Chinese submarine retreats away from the task group. 

‘If this had been in a different scenario, a conflict situation, it would have proven that we’d have detected something, in ample time [and] protected the main body of the carrier. 

‘Then you could have started a weapon chain against the submarine that was detected to neutralise the threat. 

‘So we beat them to the draw; 1-0 Queen Elizabeth.’  

Admiral Lord Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy, said the encounter was ‘incredibly impressive’ and demonstrated Britain’s fearsome reputation as one of the ‘best’ submarine-hunting navies in the world.

‘A carrier battle group – if its got its full supporting assets – is incredibly powerful,’ the retired officer told MailOnline. 

The carrier battle group worked together to locate and warn off the underwater threat

‘It’s very difficult to get amongst it cause damage. But the battle group is capable of causing damage and mayhem to enemies within 200 miles.

‘We are good at keeping areas santised. We’re probably best anti-submarine warfare navy in the world. The waters in South China Sea are hard to find a submarine in. It’s very impressive the carrier group managed to.’

The encounter came after months of sabre-rattling from Beijing over the carrier group’s mission to the contested waters of the South China Sea. 

The vast expanse of sea has been claimed by China’s communist regime in a move that has alarmed neighbours in the region, including Japan and the Philippines.

British political and military heavyweights insisted the UK flotilla’s mission to the region was about upholding ‘freedom of navigation’. 

But Chinese Defence Attaché Major General Su Guanghui issued a chilling warning ahead of the deployment, saying: ‘If the US and UK join hands in a challenge or violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China, that would be hostile action.’

HMS Queen Elizabeth, pictured in the Irish Sea went to the Far East on her first operational deployment

There she was tracked by the Russian-built Kilo class submarine that was operated by the Chinese navy (file photograph) 

Speaking to MailOnline ahead of the latest episode of the documentary following HMS Queen Elizabeth, Lord West suggested the Chinese threats were a sign of weakness, adding: ‘The more people like that that threaten something, the more it shows how frightened they are of it.’

During the carrier’s mission, it was reported that a number of Chinese submarines had been spotted, including two, 7,000-tonne Shang-class boats, armed with cruise missiles. 

The vessels were located by specialists in the operations rooms of HMS Kent and HMS Richmond, who worked together in a ‘sweep pattern’ to track the nuclear-powered attack submarines.  

Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commanding officer of the UK Carrier Strike Group, described it as a ‘cat and mouse type game’.

‘On a couple of occasions we were confident we knew where their submarines were,” Cdre Moorhouse told Sky News. ‘So we literally almost hold the submarine where it is using our frigates and helicopters and then we can move the carrier around it, literally side-stepping it, so we can continue on our way safely.’

He added adversaries were keen to follow the aircraft carrier, saying: ‘If you are a nation that may want to cause mischief, harm or disrupt – I think you’ve definitely sat up and watched what the Queen Elizabeth is all about.’

The Warship: Tour of Duty airs on BBC Two and iPlayer on Sunday at 9pm. 

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