South China Sea incident

The South China Sea Incident, was the turning point in the Eastern front for naval warfare during World War 3. While the Western Front was a land battle, the Eastern Front was naval due to most of the fighting in the South China Sea.

The fighting led to strained tensions between the 3 big powers for the CSTO, Russia, China and Belarus when their biggest ships fired at each other due to hacking of the guns by Australian and New Zealand forces, which led to China and Russia's biggest battleships to sink in just 5 hours.

Naval Fighting in the South China Sea
Naval fighting in the South China Sea was brutal, especially since most NATO warships were fighting the Mediterranean Sea, and couldn't aid the Pacific Coalition in the Eastern Front. The naval fighting was in favor of the CSTO, especially due to Russia's stealth battleship, which had nearly destroyed all of Taiwan's navy, and had sunk nearly 1,000 ships on its own, a reason it was imposable to beat, which the fact it would mostly fight when visibility was obstructed, mainly during the typhoon season, as the stormy weather made the ship almost undetectable, which gave it a major advantage during the fighting.

By 2045, the war in Asia was shifting, mainly due to the Western front changing for NATO, as the Battle of Berlin and Warsaw led to a full on retreat, along with the botched Invasion of Finland, made the naval war slowly shift, and a Korean reunification, it got worse.

A Friendly fire incident, or was it?
On July 6th, 2045 during the battle of Malaysia, the stealth ship had sunk 2 scout ships near the coast of Malaysia, which led to 400 deaths, was on its way back to Vladistok, when it was suddenly rammed into by a U.S ship. The collision disabled power to the ship, as it began to list as crew were evacuated. the U.S ship was noticeably empty, which was strange, but no one really pay attention on that, as it had it's bridge underwater in just 20 minutes. The crew on the stealth ship couldn't get help, but when a Chinese air patrol came, it contacted their warship, which was their biggest in the Sea, along with several Russian ones to come to the scene.

By the time they arrived, both ships were gone, but most of the crew were in lifeboats, ready to board the ships, when they suddenly fired at each other. a third ship from Belarus, was also struck. At first, it seemed that they betrayed each other, which was the obvious accusation after they sank, and nearly caused one of the two to switch sides, but knowing that they relied on each other, tried to put it past them and continue fighting.

But after the war, the wrecks were discovered, and so was something else, small trackers on the controls at the bridge. This discovery was traced to a patrol boat that had been hidden from the ships and had controlled the guns, to make it seem like it was an intentional case of friendly fire to try to make one of them major powers of the CSTO join NATO, which didn't work.

Aftermath
After discovering the trackers, cyber warfare had become popular in future wars where incidents similar to this incident became common, as it soon led to an insane amount cyber attacks, like the hacking drones, to even using civilian cars as traps for politicians and led to paranoia for things like T.Vs and automatic doors.