09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread
- Thread starter SinoSoldier
- Start date
TBF that report appears to be largely sourced from this forum.
I do hope for the US's sake that the classified version of those annual reports differs vastly from the public ones.
Excerpt from this article: "The PLAN continues to close the gap with the U.S. Navy submarine force. China has been building new construction halls at the Bohai Shipyard at Huludao, the PLAN’s only nuclear submarine production facility. These new buildings are estimated to be large enough to allow construction of between four and five nuclear submarines at a time, including both ballistic-missile (SSBNs) and attack submarines (SSNs)."
I interpreted it as saying EACH construction hall can build 4 at a time. making for a total of 8 subs at a time. what do you guys think? Wikipedia says the original construction hall built in 2015 can build 4 at a time (source: Popular Mechanics). A new, identical hall was built in 2022 or 2023.
As a side note, the Wuchang Shipyard in Wuhan has also been expanded in recent years, it has two construction halls that can build a total of at least 4 AIP subs at a time. If not more. Together with the facility at Huludao, this is an absolutely INSANE amount of submarine building capability!
You can actually go on google earth and measure the rail tracks and the assembly hall widths, in context of known SSN dimensions in the world (both beam and length), then add in lateral and longitudinal clearance... which can give a good estimate for how many "SSN equivalent footprints" they have in total across both assembly halls.
I'm not going to directly post it here again (I've done so in years past), simply because I am aware some people these days will take what's posted and share it to other places lacking in context that we have here.
Thanks for the tip. I have done just that just now. I will share it for people who are curious. According to Google Earth, the construction halls at Huludao measure 290m in length, 130m in width. A 093B is 110m long, 11m wide (wikipedia). So it looks like it is big enough for 4 subs to be built simultaneously! HOLY JESUS!!!
Here is the original article from 2017. It says the halls are 430,000 square feet.
China, are you crazy??? EIGHT at a time. Hahaha
Actually, you can be a bit more specific and go back to previous images when the construction halls were under construction without the roofs, and look at the rail lines (which are the more important determinants of where a SSN would be "placed" relative to one another).
The eastern construction hall and the newer southern construction hall have similar floor space and similar rail track gauges but the number of SSN equivalents they can accommodate are different by design.
The popular science article wasn't great even at the time.
As for the number of SSNs they can simultaneously accommodate in total across the two assembly halls, it's probably a fair bit more than eight, let's put it that way. (tip: try counting the number of 7.34m gauge rail tracks and then consider how long they are in the assembly hall relative to an average SSN's length.)
LOLOL dude, I won't be able to sleep tonight.
lcloo
Captain
The older construction hall has 3 sets of rails, should be able to build 6 hulls at various stages of construction. The new construction should have at least 2 sets of rails, which means another 4 hulls (at various stages of construction) could be build here.
SO they could build 10 submarines at any one time after all construction halls are completed. However, full capacity production is usually reserved for war time or when the arms race get heated up.
SO they could build 10 submarines at any one time after all construction halls are completed. However, full capacity production is usually reserved for war time or when the arms race get heated up.
That accounts for the lateral positioning and spacing, but consideration of the true capacity requires longitudinal/length of the rail within the assembly halls as well relative to the amount of space that is needed to assemble a SSN.