New (not totally) sailless SSN (09X?) thread

[Blitzo]

You're giving them too much credit on this, if you've read Xiyazhou's post it'd be pretty obvious he'd been speculating (In fact rather optimistically looking back) much more than he had real information. On the other hand the trios never stated the purpose of the submarine and spent basically a good 40 minutes talking about the sailless design and expected performance because of it which is all now moot because none the design features talked about actually exists. Even if we keep the expectation that this is the next generation submarine, we still need to discard basically all of the performance analysis by the other side because it's all based on erroneous details about the submarine and lower expectation.

Even if we take their opinions at face value, we still don't even have a consensus between these people. Cute Orca after seeing the new depiction seems quite lost and said, "it looks almost like a SSBN but smaller", Ayi said before it was a special mission submarine and Xiyazhou is adamant before the new info that it is the next generation SSN.

I'm giving them their credit more based on historical track record than anything.

The fact that none of them fully knows what this new submarine is meant to be or its specific design features, is about right, but the specific question is whether anyone had been expecting a new capability SSN of some sort to emerge to begin with, especially from JN, and on that note the answer seems to be yes.

IMO, we should wait and see what happens and whether anyone on the Chinese side retracts or changes their claims based on this newly discovered detail.

This I agree on.

 

[Temstar]

In tonight's stream Ayi/Shilao/Yankee did talk about Sutton's update with the small sail, showing his new drawing and all. However they neither retracted what they said earlier nor did they say they agreed or disagreed with Sutton.

The topic was oversized torpedo and subs using them. Interestingly they spent a bit of time going over how Sutton makes his drawings and they used his work on subs carrying Status-6 nuke torpedo as example, here are some screenshots I took:


The modified Kilo class sub Sarov. Notice it's unusual shape with lumpy bits everywhere


Photo of Sarov parked next to a regular Kilo. Sutton would see that door on the front of the Sarov and arrive at the idea that it must be a test vehicle capable of carrying a single Status-6.


Sutton's take on Sarov and by extension how he imagines Khabarovsk would work. He figures that since the single Status-6 is carried above the pressure hull the protrusions around the side must be miniature pressure hulls for buoyancy reasons. By extension he figures Khabarovsk would carry six Status-6 and also have two flank hulls.


Khabarovsk under construction. Obviously this must be the front end of the pressure hull.


His updated drawing of Khabarovsk, taking into account the under construction photo showing the front. Here the flank hulls are gone.

Yankee "how come he's so sure there's six Status-6 in there across multiple iterations?"
Shilao "maybe from the name? Whatever it is he must know something."


Later drawing of Khabarovsk, now with regular torpedo tubes in the middle and three Status-6 on either side of it.

Ayi points at this and asks "what is the purpose of those two hatches right above the reactor room?"
No one can think of a good reason and Shilao uses this to point out that we know Sutton gets high quality photos and probably closed source information sources so he's probably on the money when it comes to parts that could reasonably be seen. But it doesn't mean when he draws the inside of boats that he has no way of knowing he doesn't just make things up. Here he would have photographic sources showing Khabarovsk has three hatches behind the sail so those should be correct. But Sutton judged that around there should be the reactor and that logically conflicts with why you would have hatches there.

I was hoping they would give a definitive statement from their chair on the sail status on the new sub but they left it at that.

 

[tphuang]

Ayi points at this and asks "what is the purpose of those two hatches right above the reactor room?"
No one can think of a good reason and Shilao uses this to point out that we know Sutton gets high quality photos and probably closed source information sources so he's probably on the money when it comes to parts that could reasonably be seen. But it doesn't mean when he draws the inside of boats that he has no way of knowing he doesn't just make things up. Here he would have photographic sources showing Khabarovsk has three hatches behind the sail so those should be correct. But Sutton judged that around there should be the reactor and that logically conflicts with why you would have hatches there.

My impression from past conversation with some people (who I will not mention name here), Sutton does not have access to classified info but he is quite connected to the full sub community.

As such, he is a good source and I'm sure he has access to quality photos, but there is only so much you can infer from overhead satellite photos even with wide discussions with others in the sub community (without classified access).

It is also important to note that the 3 CHH guys are not submariners. That is not their background. However, they do have a lot of people in China that they can talk to on this topic. They have been very open in the past about what they do know and don't know.

I can say from first hand that people are more excited about this sub than the one we refer to as 09V. What does that mean? I guess we will find out.

 

[Maikeru]

Reasonably clear image posted by Koratsu (@type36512) on X:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2065075591385420177

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Reasonably clear image posted by Koratsu (@type36512) on X:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2065075591385420177

Posting the photo directly:



(Also yay, am able to post photos directly on mobile devices again!)

 

[burritocannon]

Seems unlikely. if it has a tail of this size, we should see a shadow at the water. The light comes from the direction of red arrow.
View attachment 176478

the lighting is fairly near zenith so its reasonable the entirety of the shadow would be cast on the hull. the curvature of the hull itself would diffuse the shadow quite quickly as well.
hi sutton is an accomplished artist with a good eye for proportion and solid understanding of visual fundamentals. i would not dismiss his visual analysis out of hand.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

I would agree with what @Tomboy is saying here about the Chinese side. It's entirely possible that they know something, or that they don't. But the way the information is being conveyed doesn't seem as concrete as many of the other useful rumours. So while I do acknowledge that they are credible, I also think their claims should still be taken with more caution.

No comment on Sutton.

 

[para80]

HI sometimes jumps to some conclusions same as everyone else (including myself). That said, I think he's more cautious these days and this sailless-episode is another case of how we need to be careful in what we see, what we think we see, and what it all means. Thats the last I will say on these ruminations.

Re the new picture, it illustrates well, despite the relatively low resolution, how the myriad of fitting out equipment makes it very difficult to discern particular details (such as whats a VLS, whats a hatch etc).

As usual, its wait and see for more detailed imagery before we can say or guess more. Also, I think the imagery on Type 09IIIB illustrates IMO very well how we even with decent shots from the ground still dont know all that much about certain design details. What we know about its armament comes from the images we saw of the boats with open casings etc. I fear with the finished product we may even have to wait for official pictures before we can make sense of every last nook and cranny.

 

[hmmwv]

Frankly I find it almost comical that someone can flip flop their opinion 180 degree just because it went from a tiny sail to a small sail. That's one of the defining features of the sub but absolutely not the only thing that mattered. And no I'll take the trio and info from the grapevine over Sutton any day, as we have seen it's not always just someone leaking info to them, but more of having the technical and political sensitivity to pick up bits of info from open source intelligence. Sutton has some expertise in naval matters and access to somewhat high quality satellite images, but he lacks basic understanding of PLA and China in general, some of his latest writings are outright lousy.

 

[AndrewS]

Frankly I find it almost comical that someone can flip flop their opinion 180 degree just because it went from a tiny sail to a small sail. That's one of the defining features of the sub but absolutely not the only thing that mattered. And no I'll take the trio and info from the grapevine over Sutton any day, as we have seen it's not always just someone leaking info to them, but more of having the technical and political sensitivity to pick up bits of info from open source intelligence. Sutton has some expertise in naval matters and access to somewhat high quality satellite images, but he lacks basic understanding of PLA and China in general, some of his latest writings are outright lousy.

Going from a tiny sail to a small sail doesn't change the overall conclusion, if a 09X has been launched from both Jiangnan and Huludao.

These are first-in-class boats for a likely successor submarine, which from a hydrodynamic perspective, is optimised for high underwater performance, which should be quieter and faster than any other submarine in the world.

And if the 09X diameter is around 12.5m, that is close enough to the Type-095 that it makes sense for both to share the same nuclear reactor design and therefore the same hull diameter. And it may be that Huludao produces the [reactor and propulsion module(s)] and ships these to Jiangnan.

So the 09X might actually turn into the Type-095A?