The system allows warships to be reloaded at sea, which is crucial to any future conflict in the Pacific, US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said.

A U.S. destroyer can fire dozens of cruise missiles within minutes, but reloading back in port can take two months. In a war against China, that could be a fatal weakness.

The US Navy is trialling a new system for reloading warships at sea because of the increasing threat posed by China.

The Philippine military has deployed a navy ship and air force planes to shadow a Russian submarine, which passed through the South China Sea off the country’s western coast last week

The US Navy has developed a new crane system to speed up the missile loading process on its ships, addressing concerns about ammunition depletion in potential conflicts. Defense analysts have warned that Navy ships could run out of missiles within days or even hours if conflict erupted in the western Pacific,

China’s military said Monday that a U.S. warship had “illegally” entered waters near the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed atoll in the South China Sea.