09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread
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The earliest 093s were a lot louder than Sturgeon. They were only a little quieter than the last 091s. The biggest changes in 093 class happened across the entire lifetime.
The first would've started construction late 90s when precision machine tools basically didn't exist. The last 093A would've been started work probably early 2010s. The difference in machine tools and reactor tech from 90s to 2010s is immense. So in terms of noise level, we could've easily seen earlier 093A to be Sturgeon and it steadily improved to LA class by the last couple.
The first 093B would've started construction around 2019. By that time, China's CNC and reactor tech would've "caught up" to among latest commercially available CNC. Again, pretty big leap over even the last 2 093As. So, thinking that they have gotten to mid to later LA class is probably not unreasonable.
That's a bad comparison. And it would be good if people don't use these kind of comparisons.
One is a 9m diameter sub and the other is probably going to be 12m diameter sub. The capabilities are going to be different even if they come out at around the same time.
"mid" LA class has not been upgraded since 1990s. There is a vast gulf between it and 093B. Even "latest" LA has not been upgraded for a long time.
First 093 ever was essentially a 091 with more powerful reactor, but nearly no improvements otherwise. The improvements into (real) combat capability came in the following iterations. However, Sturgeon is a contemporary to the 091, its very dated. The earliest 093 was at its worst likely similar to the Sturgeon, but by the time they had their actual combat capabilities installed, were significantly more lethal and quiet, similar to the LA class that they're contemporary to.
In terms of acoustic silencing, there are some hard limits placed by pressure hull diameter, even if technology has advanced.
For example, the 09IIIB's overall pressure hull diameter is still a bit smaller than the likes of LA/improved LA (688/688i), so while it is reasonable to expect that the 09IIIB would have seen advances in technology (including relating to acoustic silencing), those technologies will still be operating within the limits of a slightly smaller pressure hull.
In terms of what that means for ultimate outcome of comparative acoustic silencing between say a modern 09IIIB and a 688i, that depends entirely on how much more sophisticated the acoustic silencing on the 09IIIB is to be able to make up for the deficiency of its smaller pressure hull. On balance, the idea that 09IIIB is about 688i in acoustic silencing or maybe a bit better on the surface of it seems reasonable and as a ballpark, large confidence interval estimate seems fine. But if people try to quibble at detailed comparisons it will be more difficult to justify.
(Of course other domains of technology have advanced too, but are a little less directly related to space constraints such as battle management, weapons sophistication, sensors etc, and that's not the topic of discussion which tphuang was talking about.)
As for "The earliest 093 was at its worst likely similar to the Sturgeon, but by the time they had their actual combat capabilities installed, were significantly more lethal and quiet, similar to the LA class that they're contemporary to" -- you should be a bit more specific.
If you are referring to the original two 09III hulls, it is very unlikely that they were extensively upgraded after service and their competitiveness would still be markedly inferior to the 688 class. If you are talking about the subsequent 09IIIA variant or even the most recent 09IIIB, then that could be a case made for greater competitiveness, however that is very different to "by the time they had their actual combat capabilities installed" when talking about "the earliest 09III".
That doesn't really make sense to me.
The 093B designers would have made the size large enough to fit exactly as much quieting technology as the design demands. A larger diameter does not confer a decrease in noise, it only makes it easier to fit quieting equipment. You're still capped at however loud your reactor + mechanical noise are.
I'd defer to the expertise of the designers, if they knew that the size they determined for the 093 will fit the necessary equipment, it's probably true. I don't think teams of dozens of professor and post-doc engineers would go "whoops we forgot to make room for quieting equipment on the sub".
There is no real barrier for them to make the sub larger. Russia has an equivalent nuclear sub industry and they've dabbled with massive designs.
Larger size mainly lets you fit VLS which we later realized is pretty damn useful. But 093 design era was around the LA/Seawolf period, where the convention was in subs as stealthy torpedo boats.
Asserting that 093 designers mistakenly did not add enough space for their own quieting equipment would be a very extraordinary claim. Is it backed up by any statements from anyone in the industry?
Wide confidence interval is all we will have. But I think generally the state of submarine industry can give us clues on what the upper bounds for how quiet a sub can be.
Virginia block 6 for example has 2020s US precision manufacturing tech, which is top 2-4 in the world, and top 1-3 reactor designs. And it was a hull/systems designed around 2010s.
So it is extremely unlikely to be worse than a base 093 that was designed with 90s precision manufecturing and late 80s reactor.
Similarly I'd guess a 2010s era design 093B would anything but outclass a 688i who still has early 90s electronics and was built with 90s era precision tools. Although there is a confidence interval on who will win, like even a block 6 Virginia is not guaranteed to win against a 093B.
Is there any mod.0 093s sailing? Barely seen pictures, although that's true for all PLAN subs. I assumed they were all revamped to 093A standard, which is why there isn't footage of them in the 2020s era. I could be wrong though.
09-IIIB designers are working within the confines of an existing hullform, not designing a new submarine from scratch. They can't make the inner diameter any bigger than it already is to fit in more quieting equipment, they have to make do with what they've got.
The true showcase of modern Chinese submarine design capability will be the 09-V, just like the 055 and not the 052D is the real showcase of modern Chinese destroyer design.
The designers of the initial 09-IIIs were operating in a very different environment from designers today. They were not able to make a wider pressure hull and have the submarine maintain its structural integrity, so they compromised on interior volume and the room for future growth. That's the legacy the 09-IIIB designers had to contend with.
They did make the submarine larger. They went ahead and made a much larger clean sheet design, the 09-V. Accept that the 09-IIIB has limitations due to its lineage, that's not throwing shade on what China's capable of today.
I tend to be of the opinion that the 09-IIIB is appreciably better than a 688i because of the more modern production and design methods, but the hullform is fundamentally compromised.
Wait, hold on a second, what do you mean that the designers "would have made the size large enough to fit exactly as much quieting technology as the design demands"?
Reading this entire part of your reply, you're making it sound like the pressure hull diameter is something which can be modified at low cost?
You do realize that the configuration of the pressure hull of a submarine, but especially the pressure hull diameter, is arguably the most difficult characteristic of a submarine to change right? Changing the diameter of a pressure hull is tantamount to designing a whole new submarine class, in the same way that changing the beam of a ship's hull is tantamount to designing a whole new ship class.
If you are asking "why don't they just increase the diameter of the pressure hull to accommodate more quieting equipment and more subsystems" -- the whole point is that they can't do that without exceptional cost and effort, and that if they chose to do so it would be essentially designing a whole new submarine.
The technological barriers towards pursuing a larger pressure hull includes everything from metallurgy, to nuclear propulsion capability, to buoyancy demands. And all of that needs to be reconciled with the other design features of a submarine of course.
The 09III family is a double hulled submarine with an overall diameter similar to that of a 688 or VA submarine, meaning that the 09III's maximum pressure hull diameter is inevitably going to be smaller than that of 688 or VA submarine, which in turn places it at a disadvantage in terms of volume to install quietening equipment.
It is possible that 09IIIA and 09IIIB could have made minor adjustments to its pressure hull geometry compared to the original 09III, however the overall maximum pressure hull diameter on the ship is unlikely to have increased, and as a double hulled design without an overall hull diameter increase, the inevitable and overwhelmingly obvious conclusion is that 09IIIB's pressure hull diameter is still smaller than that of 688/i or VA.
The idea of 09IIIB having more modern quietening technology and better machined subsystems and components etc is all very reasonable -- but it still has an overall smaller space to put it in than a 688/i or VA.
Err yes, the state of a nation's submarine industry (and overall industry advancement in general) can help to guide speculation as to how advanced or capable a submarine designed and constructed in a given era can be.
I'm not sure what Virginia Block 6 has to do with a base 09III, I haven't compared those two at all.
"Who would win" -- I assume you are talking about quietening rather than some sort of "death match" or "conflict scenario" because the latter two are much more complex than mere acoustic silencing and is far beyond the scope of what can be speculatted on in public.
Overall you are going into the weeds too much and broadening what can be reasonably speculated on.
Look, the point which I am trying to make is that the extent of quietening that can be achieved with 09IIIB will be limited by its smaller pressure hull relative to the 688/i or the VA class.
Putting it another way, even if we assume that PRC and US nuclear submarine quietening technology is of equal stature for the era in which the 09IIIB was redesigned and constructed (late 2010s to early 2020s), the fact that the 09IIIB has a smaller pressure hull than a US SSN like a late 2010s/early 2020s VA class, means that the 09IIIB will be at an inherent disadvantage in quietening capability.
Or to simplify it even more, you can think of the function roughly like this:
Quietening capability of a given submarine = (pressure hull diameter and volume of a given submarine) x (advancement of relevant technology and manufacturing precision applied on a given submarine)
That should explain why 688i submarines from the 1990s have had acoustic silencing capabilities that variants of the 09III family have had yet to compete with until recently, because yes newer 09III variants like 09IIIA and 09IIIB may have better silencing technology, likely better machined parts, etc, however the 09IIIA and 09IIIB still suffer from a smaller pressure hull diameter and volume, meaning it would be reasonable to expect that 09IIIB's acoustic silencing is about that of a 688i (maybe even slightly better if one really wants to push it) by virtue of more advanced silencing and manufacturing technologies to make up for its pressure hull deficiency.
(Edit: I'm not saying the 09III family have been explicitly using 688i as a benchmark, just as a figure of speech to demonstrate the gap in performance between two specific SSN class/families)
We barely have any regular pictures of nuclear submarines to begin with to establish any kind of continuity.
However given the extent of modifications that the 09IIIAs are thought to have had relative to the original 09IIIs (primarily internal subsystems, with some external shaping changes), I would be highly surprised if the original 09IIIs were amenable to being modified to 09IIIA standard. That's like the idea of modifying 052Bs to 052Cs. Just not worth it.
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You misunderstand then.
Or maybe they won't do it because the sub already fits every system they envisioned? What is more likely?
And these are not limits for a country that leads on most of these categories.
A country like Russia can make 50 000+ ton displacement subs. (nothing wrong with Russia, but they are peer or near peer at best). Or hell, even China itself makes 094s that are much larger than 093s. Also countries of weaker industry base like UK and France making fairly large subs, especially SSBNs.
Making the hull larger makes the project more expensive and makes it a different sub, no one is disputing with you on that. However, said cost and technology limit is not something China experiences.
Quieting hardware is not some limitless upgrade point you can add the larger your sub is... That equation is absurd, or the ocean would be dominated by Russians with fat Typhoons and Yasens. Virginia class at ~10 000 would be obsolete to any larger diametered SSBN that can in your theory sneak up on it.
You need a hull just big enough to fit the quieting hardware your platform demands, not more or less.
Did anyone involved or with industry insight on 093 say it has a "pressure hull deficiency"? Without knowing what amount of quieting hardware is needed for the sub, you can logically not speak of "deficiency" in quieting systems.
In terms of absolute size yes a 093B has a "pressure hull deficiency" relative to 688i. Which means nothing. A Virginia has "pressure hull deficiency" relative to Borei. It's meaningless unless we have a reason to believe the designers were not able to fit the quieting systems they needed to fit.
Sure, it's very possible that the pressure hull already fits every system that they have envisioned for it. And doing so means that the envisioned capability for 09IIIB would be inferior to that of contemporary VA submarines, and likely be competitive with 688i approximately instead.
I never said those were "limits" to the PRC.
The entire discussion up to this point has been specifically about the 09IIIB.
You seem to be conflating my position about the 09IIIB towards the contemporary PRC nuclear submarine industry as a whole.
Let me be clear -- I fully expect the 09V to be a clean sheet nuclear submarine design that is either a single hull or hybrid hull design, with a pressure hull diameter that is larger than that of the 09III family, and to have a pressure hull diameter that is at least as large as that of 688i or VA class, or even larger possibly as large as that of Seawolf. And I fully expect 09V to be able to take advantage of that space with PRC 2020s era design and quietening technology and machining precision.
However, it is also simultaneously the case that the 09IIIB is limited by its pressure hull diameter as virtue of being a double hull design, compared to other peers such as the 688i or VA class, and that seeking to be more competitive in acoustic silencing performance requires its technological advancement and machining precision to make up for its smaller pressure hull (deficiency of pressure hull diameter and volume). Considering the era of technology that 09IIIB is designed and produced from, as well as its pressure hull limitation, a safe guesstimate is that its acoustic silencing may be about that of a 688i.
The 09IIIB is not a clean sheet design, and is limited by the original characteristics of the class design which was in turn limited by technology and industry of the late 1980s-1990s when the original pair of 09IIIs were first designed and constructed. The fact that they are able to squeeze more capability out of the design with new subsystems and new internals while retaining a similar double hull design and overall dimensions is already very impressive.
As for "pressure hull deficiency" -- yes, that is the case for 09III family relative to other submarines of a similar role (SSNs). Including but not limited to 688/i, VA, maybe Seawolf, as well as Trafalgar, Astute, and Akula, Yasen, among others.
Obviously I won't be comparing 09III to a SSBN given their very different roles.
If you are opposed to the idea of "pressure hull deficiency" for 09III family variants relative to its peers, then you need to first establish the idea that the 09III family are competitive in acoustic silencing to its equivalent SSN peers which have larger pressure hulls while being of a similar technological generation/advancement.
That is something which is very much not the null hypothesis and would require extraordinary evidence to support such an extraordinary claim.