09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread
- Thread starter SinoSoldier
- Start date
You have to be careful about comparing the missiles along just one dimensional parameter. The M51 (12m long with 2.3m diameter) is volumetrically the largest missile (around 50 cubic metres), followed by the Trident II (13.41m long with 2.11m diameter) at 47 cubic metres, followed by the JL-2 (13m long with 2m diameter) at 41 cubic metres. Being "skinny" is a very undesirable trait in a missile given that volume scales quadratically with diameter.
Yes, there's a reason a larger JL-3 wouldn't fit in a Type 09-IV launch tube - if the tube could fit a bigger missile, the JL-2 would be a larger missile.
Nothing useful can be gained from any such reports, and you won't find any worthwhile analysis of it given the secrecy of everything involved. If the group was actively pinging then any submarine close to it would have been found, even if it were emitting zero decibels. Also, I wonder if submarines use an enhanced noise emission during peacetime (like stealth fighters use Luneberg lenses to enhance radar emissions) to mask their true acoustic signature.
No offense, but who cares with Minnie Chan thinks.
She needs to claw back some credibility first before her articles can be viewed without any kind of substantial caution and skepticism.
In this specific case, we have not had history of the PLA in general reassigning numbers for the purposes of bolstering perception of its fleet sizes before. If there is an renumbering going on (which I'm not sure if there is), then it's likely secondary to some kind of administrative change.
I can believe this for fighters since they are indeed impossible to properly track and catalogue if the intention to use the same serial number is repeated but it's impossible to do this for submarines. They take years to build and fit out while the whole time being visible to satellites.
