09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread

[Blitzo]

I am basing my assumptions on Virginia class construction speeds, it's not just guessing. The dates of laying down, launching and commissioning are all listed in the Wiki page I linked.

Yes, i could tell you based it on the Virginia class.

I'm saying that the idea they would take that amount of time to assemble as a Virginia is a significant assumption.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is a somewhat optimistic one.


We should really not throw around such extreme assumptions for future build rate just yet so early on.

 

[Blitzo]

I was wondering how he could tell that Huludao launched a new SSN, I think he is posting based on low-res Sentinel photo taken today.

Drydock filled with water with a blackish thing on the same blue platform.

So it takes Huludao to launch a new SSN 8 months after the previous one, and I am just how to tell whether it is a 093B or 094. Some one checked it on the ground by drone?

View attachment 104860View attachment 104861

Probably based on deductive reasoning based on how many 09IIIBs they have on order and are likely working on.

It's also possible they have some additional information we lack.


If this is a new submarine being launched, and if all I had to go off was that picture, I too would guess that it most likely would be a 09IIIB.

 

[tphuang]

The comment about 10 SSN a year is a hypothetical comment based on the building halls that can accommodate 20 subs. Of course, in reality there are many other considerations like staffing, money, supply chain and ability to crew new subs that will affect procurement decisions. Is it great to have the ability to build 20 subs simultaneously, sure! Maybe in a state of emergency (like war), you can ramp up to that much, but they are clearly far from that right now. It takes time to ramp up producyion. I have estimated 8 launches by 2025. Depending on how capable 093b is and how far along 095 is, they may order more 093b after that.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Just to chip in a little.

There is a French submarine expert called Eric Genevelle. He had a long article about the 09-IV. He deleted it since then. There he argued there were 7-9 09-IV classes in service. He could identify 4 different variants using photo evidence from holes in the outer hull.

Let's take the middle figure, i.e. 8x 094s currently in service with the PLAN.

Now, let's tabulate.

SSN: 5x 091s & 9x 093/As
SSBN: 1x 092 & 8x 094/As
Total number of nuclear submarines constructed from 1974 until 2019: 23
Time elapsed from 1974 until 2020: 47 years

This means on average, from 1974 until 2020, China has a production rate of 0.489 boats per year.

Compare this to what we do know of China's plans regarding the nuclear submarine fleet for the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) - 8x 093B SSNs, 1x 095 SSN and 2x 094B SSBNs. That would be 11x nuclear submarines in total.

(Once again, I use the designation 094B to refer the aforementioned 094As with larger SLBM launch tubes.)

11 nuclear submarines in 5 years would equate to a production rate of 2.2 boats per year.

From 0.489 to 2.2 - That's a massive jump for sure.

However, for myself, I think this production rate may have been a little low, considering the PLAN's immediate need for such boats in light of the geopolitical scenario in the WestPac, and given the newly expanded and upgraded construction capabilities thanks to the many new facilities being added to Huludao.

There are several possible explanations for this (or any combination of):

1. Huludao is still lacking significantly in the manpower, facilities, resources and budget that can be utilized for a mass-scale construction of nuclear submarines. In other words, Huludao is having the problem of 力不从心;

2. Huludao is still training up its workforce and setting up the construction facilities for an even larger nuclear submarine production in the 15th Five-Year-Plan period (2026-2030). To put it simply, Huludao is still in warming up its muscles;

3. The PLAN is still working on, but close to, finishing the final touches on the designs and engineering of the 095 SSN and 096 SSBN. Which means, they do not intend to rush the procurement of newer SSNs and SSBNs until they are absolutely confident that the 095 and 096 are ready;

4. What we do publicly know regarding the number of nuclear submarines which Huludao plans to build within the 2021-2025 timeframe is not the complete picture. In short, this 局座 guy is doing his thing.


"You thought you already knew everything about future Chinese nuke boat procurement? Sike, think again!"

Just in case anybody's wondering - I didn't include the rumored "mini-nuke" submarines into the calculation. This is because we have:
1. No confirmation on whether the "mini-nuke" sub is an actual thing or just an inflatable decoy;
2. No viable estimation on the number of procurement for these subs available; and
3. No confirmation/denial on whether Wuchang would be involved in their construction, apart from Huludao -
In order to justify their inclusion.

 

[Blitzo]

Just to chip in and lay it wide open.

Let's take the middle figure, i.e. 8x 094s in service with the PLAN.

Now, let's tabulate.

SSN: 5x 091s & 9x 093/As
SSBN: 1x 092 & 8x 094/As
Total number of nuclear submarines constructed from 1974 until 2019: 23
Time elapsed from 1974 until 2020: 47 years

This means on average, from 1974 until 2020, China has a production rate of 0.489 boats per year.

Compare this to what we do know of China's plans regarding the nuclear submarine fleet for the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025) - 8x 093B SSNs, 1x 095 SSN and 2x 094B SSBNs. That would be 11x nuclear submarines in total.

(Once again, I use the designation 094B to refer to the 094As with larger SLBM launch tubes.)

11 nuclear submarines in 5 years would equate to a production rate of 2.2 boats per year.

From 0.489 to 2.2 - That's a massive jump for sure.

However, for myself, I think this production rate may have been a little low, considering the PLAN's immediate need for such boats in light of the geopolitical scenario in the WestPac, and given the newly expanded and upgraded construction capabilities thanks to the many new facilities being added to Huludao.

There are several possible explanations for this (or any combination of):

1. Huludao is still lacking significantly in the manpower, facilities, resources and budget that can be utilized for a mass-scale construction of nuclear submarines. In other words, Huludao is having the problem of 力不从心;

2. Huludao is still training up its workforce and setting up the construction facilities for an even larger nuclear submarine production in the 15th Five-Year-Plan period (2026-2030). To put it simply, Huludao is still in warming up its muscles;

3. The PLAN is still working on, but close to, finishing the final touches on the designs and engineering of the 095 SSN and 096 SSBN. Which means, they do not intend to rush the procurement of newer SSNs and SSBNs until they are absolutely confident that the 095 and 096 are ready; or

4. What we do publicly know regarding the number of nuclear submarines which Huludao plans to build within the 2021-2025 timeframe is not the complete picture. In short, this 局座 guy is doing his thing.

View attachment 104862
"You thought you already knew everything about future Chinese nuke boat procurement? Sike, think again!"

Just in case anybody's wondering - I didn't include the rumored "mini-nuke" submarines into the calculation. This is because we have:
1. No confirmation on whether the "mini-nuke" sub is an actual thing or just an inflated decoy;
2. No viable estimation on the number of procurement for these subs available; and
3. No confirmation/denial on whether Wuchang would be involved in their construction -
In order to justify their inclusion.

It should be obvious that Bohai's new facilities are only going to gradually start up their production rate -- the eastern new assembly hall only finished structural completion two or more years ago meaning they'd need to still fit it out and man it before they can even start assembly on the first boat, and even then it'll take them years to reach the full potential production rate.

For the rumour of 8 09IIIBs, 1 09V and 2 09IVs -- we do not know under what actual time period they would be launched over.
We speculate it is for the 14-5th year plan, but whether it would actually take five years to launch them is another matter.

We also do not have confident estimates as to how many 09IV SSBNs exist -- 7-9 being already in the water is a suggestion we can be open to, but not something we can take at face value without corroborating evidence.

As for everything else, I hope that you recognize many of your points are things that have been recognised and suggested multiple years ago.

Good on you for reaching some of those conclusions yourself, but I hope you can not state them and bold and number them as if they're a significant new discovery.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

It should be obvious that Bohai's new facilities are only going to gradually start up their production rate -- the eastern new assembly hall only finished structural completion two or more years ago meaning they'd need to still fit it out and man it before they can even start assembly on the first boat, and even then it'll take them years to reach the full potential production rate.

For the rumour of 8 09IIIBs, 1 09V and 2 09IVs -- we do not know under what actual time period they would be launched over.
We speculate it is for the 14-5th year plan, but whether it would actually take five years to launch them is another matter.

We also do not have confident estimates as to how many 09IV SSBNs exist -- 7-9 being already in the water is a suggestion we can be open to, but not something we can take at face value without corroborating evidence.

As for everything else, I hope that you recognize many of your points are things that have been recognised and suggested multiple years ago.

Good on you for reaching some of those conclusions yourself, but I hope you can not state them and bold and number them as if they're a significant new discovery.

Sure.

 

[AndrewS]

@ACuriousPLAFan

Just 2 points

1. An SSBN is roughly twice the size as an SSN, so you have to treat it as equivalent to 2 SSNs

2. And it's better to take the past 5 or 10 years as the previous production rate baseline, rather than start at 1974. You'll end up with something like 1 per year I imagine

 

[MarKoz81]

Past is a bad predictor of future choices, but past data can be used for extrapolation of possibilities. For example we can't predict how many submarines PLAN will choose to build but we can use the mass production of USN submarines fin the past as guide to determine what volume and scaling is technically possible. Submarine production is less about the work done in the yard and more about the entire cooperative chain and long-term planning of workloads. Submarines also become more complex so any improvement of manufacturing techniques might as well be partly lost to that complexity. Also improving production methods is likely to serve to keep costs under control. Being able to expand submarine fleet at lower cost is more preferable than greater expansion and significantly greater cost - see USSR's naval expansion.

For that purpose I made tables of dates of production milestones (order, laying down, launching, commission) for the two main USN submarine shipyards in Groton and Newport News.

Before Los Angeles came into production there were also other shipyards making SSNs and SSBNs and e.g. for Sturgeon they amounted to almost half of all boats but the purpose of this analysis is to approximate production volume and timeline for facilities which continuously build submarines to present day. Groton and Newport News are also the two largest shipyards by volume of production historically and by1972 they were the only two making submarines. The tables include boats built between 1958 and 1997 which includes all SSBNs and main SSN classes - Permit, Sturgeon and Los Angeles. I excluded Seawolf and Virginia because they are not relevant for the kind of production scaling that is relevant for Huludao.

In that time period Groton and Newport News share comparable workloads on all submarines except Ohio which was only built in Groton. The first 688s are built from laying down 1972 (G, NN) to commissioning in 1976 (NN) and 1977 (G) and because of the total production run of 62 boats in three variants which was done exclusively in those two shipyards and parallel to construction of Ohio - first built 1976-1981 it is the most relevant dataset. Previous parallel construction of first generation SSBNs ('41 for Freedom" program) and first SSNs (Skipjack, Permit) is not as useful because while SSBNs were built in Groton and Newport News the SSNs were built primarily in all the other shipyards.

I used "commissioned" instead of "delivered" because the latter was only available for Sturgeon and some minor classes on Wikipedia. The difference is mostly 6-12 months so it is negligible especially that the most difficult stage is before launching since that's when the reactor has to be put inside.

Groton


Newport News


Total


Between 1979 and 1986 the annual rate for launching is 4.6 and between 1990 and 1994 is 4.0 - of those 1 hull on average is Ohio and 3 - 4 are 688. Between 1976 and 1978 the launching rate is an average of 3 boats but there are no Ohio being launched, so the production of 688 is stable from the first boat. That is mostly due to problems with mass production being resolved during the building of Sturgeon class.

If we ignore 09V for the time being and assume that (based on Los Angeles and Ohio):

• mass production of 09IIIB is resolved, laying down of the first boats is in 2023 and the production time is 3 years
• 09VI will be produced at the same rate as Ohio with laying down of the first boat in 2024 (arbitrary choice) and production time is 3 years except for first boat which needs 4 years

then total numbers of new production 09IIIB and 09VI (up to 12) look like this:

2023 - 0/0
2024 - 0/0
2025 - 3/0
2026 - 6/0
2027 - 9/2
2028 - 12/3
2029 - 15/4
2030 - 18/5
2031 - 21/6
2032 - 24/7
2032 - 27/8
2033 - 30/9
2034 - 33/10
2035 - 36/11
2036 - 39/12

If we assume a modest 33% improvement of production capacity then we have 4 09IIIB per year and additional 09VI every three years:

2023 - 0/0
2024 - 0/0
2025 - 4/0
2026 - 8/0
2027 - 12/2
2028 - 16/3
2029 - 20/5
2030 - 24/6
2031 - 28/7
2032 - 32/9
2032 - 36/10
2033 - 40/11
2034 - 44/12

There's always the possibility that work on new submarines has already started in 2022 so the entire process - at least with regards to 09IIIB can be moved a year closer. 09V can probably be inserted at any date past 2025.

I really don't see the need for building 10 submarines annually. The bottleneck will always be crew training. With currently just 9 boats in service there's no way to reliably add more than 2-3 boats per year. Any additional submarines above this number are a waste of resources. As the size of the fleet increases 4-5 might become possible by the end of the decade but we should remember that new SSNs will also be tasked with more extensive missions as the fleet grows and subs become more capable.

All in all based on historical production data from two US shipyards which combined have smaller capacity than Huludao, but benefited from experience we have 30-40 new SSNs and 9-11 new SSBNs within a decade

This is comparable to US production capacity planned in the "30-year shipbuilding plan" from 2020:




39-49 SSNs vs 57 SSNs in 2033

Any increase in SSN production will crash against training capacity so if there's a conflict in late 20s it will be fought with what will be in active service in next 2-3 years. This scenario is rather well understood. After that there's a few unstable years as submarine fleet expands and US manages to build up its arsenal (especially munitions) and then it's essentially over because even with technological advantage for USN the numbers on their own will do their job for PLAN.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[Blitzo]

Past is a bad predictor of future choices, but past data can be used for extrapolation of possibilities. For example we can't predict how many submarines PLAN will choose to build but we can use the mass production of USN submarines fin the past as guide to determine what volume and scaling is technically possible. Submarine production is less about the work done in the yard and more about the entire cooperative chain and long-term planning of workloads. Submarines also become more complex so any improvement of manufacturing techniques might as well be partly lost to that complexity. Also improving production methods is likely to serve to keep costs under control. Being able to expand submarine fleet at lower cost is more preferable than greater expansion and significantly greater cost - see USSR's naval expansion.

For that purpose I made tables of dates of production milestones (order, laying down, launching, commission) for the two main USN submarine shipyards in Groton and Newport News.

Before Los Angeles came into production there were also other shipyards making SSNs and SSBNs and e.g. for Sturgeon they amounted to almost half of all boats but the purpose of this analysis is to approximate production volume and timeline for facilities which continuously build submarines to present day. Groton and Newport News are also the two largest shipyards by volume of production historically and by1972 they were the only two making submarines. The tables include boats built between 1958 and 1997 which includes all SSBNs and main SSN classes - Permit, Sturgeon and Los Angeles. I excluded Seawolf and Virginia because they are not relevant for the kind of production scaling that is relevant for Huludao.

In that time period Groton and Newport News share comparable workloads on all submarines except Ohio which was only built in Groton. The first 688s are built from laying down 1972 (G, NN) to commissioning in 1976 (NN) and 1977 (G) and because of the total production run of 62 boats in three variants which was done exclusively in those two shipyards and parallel to construction of Ohio - first built 1976-1981 it is the most relevant dataset. Previous parallel construction of first generation SSBNs ('41 for Freedom" program) and first SSNs (Skipjack, Permit) is not as useful because while SSBNs were built in Groton and Newport News the SSNs were built primarily in all the other shipyards.

I used "commissioned" instead of "delivered" because the latter was only available for Sturgeon and some minor classes on Wikipedia. The difference is mostly 6-12 months so it is negligible especially that the most difficult stage is before launching since that's when the reactor has to be put inside.

Groton
View attachment 104864

Newport News
View attachment 104865

Total
View attachment 104866

Between 1979 and 1986 the annual rate for launching is 4.6 and between 1990 and 1994 is 4.0 - of those 1 hull on average is Ohio and 3 - 4 are 688. Between 1976 and 1978 the launching rate is an average of 3 boats but there are no Ohio being launched, so the production of 688 is stable from the first boat. That is mostly due to problems with mass production being resolved during the building of Sturgeon class.

If we ignore 09V for the time being and assume that (based on Los Angeles and Ohio):

• mass production of 09IIIB is resolved, laying down of the first boats is in 2023 and the production time is 3 years
• 09VI will be produced at the same rate as Ohio with laying down of the first boat in 2024 (arbitrary choice) and production time is 3 years except for first boat which needs 4 years

then total numbers of new production 09IIIB and 09VI (up to 12) look like this:

2023 - 0/0
2024 - 0/0
2025 - 3/0
2026 - 6/0
2027 - 9/2
2028 - 12/3
2029 - 15/4
2030 - 18/5
2031 - 21/6
2032 - 24/7
2032 - 27/8
2033 - 30/9
2034 - 33/10
2035 - 36/11
2036 - 39/12

If we assume a modest 33% improvement of production capacity then we have 4 09IIIB per year and additional 09VI every three years:

2023 - 0/0
2024 - 0/0
2025 - 4/0
2026 - 8/0
2027 - 12/2
2028 - 16/3
2029 - 20/5
2030 - 24/6
2031 - 28/7
2032 - 32/9
2032 - 36/10
2033 - 40/11
2034 - 44/12

There's always the possibility that work on new submarines has already started in 2022 so the entire process - at least with regards to 09IIIB can be moved a year closer. 09V can probably be inserted at any date past 2025.

Good post overall regarding past historical cold war USN submarine procurement pattern.

Just regarding 09IIIB, the SSN launched from Bohai in May 2022 last year is thought to be the first 09IIIB, so the 09IIIB hypothetical production pattern can be adjusted as such by people reading it.

In the case of new 09IIIB production overall I expect the year on year new launch rate may end up being something like:
2022 - 1
2023 - 2 or 3
2024 - 3 or 4

And so on, simply because I don't think they would've started production multiple boats for 09IIIB (or any othe submarine) at the same time when they are starting to ramp up work at Bohai's new facilities, but instead would do it in a more gradual manner.
E.g. start on first boat, then in six months start on the second and third boats with a smaller gap between boats two and three, etc.

 

[Lethe]

This is comparable to US production capacity planned in the "30-year shipbuilding plan" from 2020:

View attachment 104867
View attachment 104868

39-49 SSNs vs 57 SSNs in 2033

I have replied to this in the US military thread here so as not to drag conversation off topic.

(The number of SSNs in this plan is significantly higher than in either previous or more recent plans.)