From the surface of its flight deck, in the waters between Malaysia and Indonesia, HMS Prince of Wales is a vision of deadly splendour, the most advanced warship in the history of the Royal Navy.
Its radars can detect an object as small as a tennis ball 15 miles away. Its laser-guided Phalanx gun stands poised to blast out of the water any enemy who gets too close. Its fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter jets fly at supersonic speeds and land vertically like helicopters on its 280m-long deck.
