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

[Blitzo]

Now I re-read what I wrote and it makes no sense. I meant to say you cannot use natural circulation at those highest speed that your attack subs would need to go sometimes.

Yes, that makes more sense and is consistent with my understanding as well.

As for coolant pumps, my understanding is that it's also in the engine room next to the steam generator. So just one of the many items your passive noise absorbers need to handle.

I have not seen too many places that said reactor itself (not the coolant pumps) is a major noise generator. See HI Sutton piece here

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Doesn't seem to me the reactor itself needs to be raft mounted. Although, it looks like the control spaces and living quarters are even mounted now so that all the noise from machines gets absorbed also.

I think this all depends on how one defines the "reactor". I would view the main coolant pumps and steam generator as part of the reactor, while bits like the main turbines, electric motor, reduction gears are separate and more part of the overall drive train.

it dawned on me that we are finally seeing Chinese submarines expanding because the domestic industries are ready for it.

As seen here with the Royal Navy, all that fancy submarines can't leave the dock due to lack of domestic industries to support them.

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So if you ramp up production of nuclear submarines, you need the entire upstream supply chain for nuclear, which they have just recently built. They have also just recently gotten to the next level on precision manufacturing and material science. All things they didn't really have 10 years ago.

I feel like that was on the cards the moment that the first phase of the Bohai facility expansion became apparent.
Even at that time (2019), it was obvious the amount of production floor space they were sizing themselves up for, meaning it didn't make sense to have that much floor space if they didn't have (or plan to shortly have) the rest of the industrial chain able to scale up with it (not to mention have the requisite quantity of personnel, and requisite projected competitiveness of the end product) to make it viable.

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I'm going to move the SSKN discussion to a different thread.

 

[by78]

Type-093A, lead boat.

 

[Blitzo]

Type-093A, lead boat.

That's a great picture. To date we've only had one or two pictures of that 09IIIA with the "stepped hump" so distinctly (the variant 2 pic on this list):


I remember back in the early 2010s there were some dubious models and drawings of a new SSN with a hump and people were wondering if it was the 09V, and then considering if it was 09IIIB, and then only later everyone realized it was just one of many 09III/A subvariants and an early one at that as well.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

That's a great picture. To date we've only had one or two pictures of that 09IIIA with the "stepped hump" so distinctly (the variant 2 pic on this list):
View attachment 136052

I remember back in the early 2010s there were some dubious models and drawings of a new SSN with a hump and people were wondering if it was the 09V, and then considering if it was 09IIIB, and then only later everyone realized it was just one of many 09III/A subvariants and an early one at that as well.

What is the purpose of the stepped hump in the 2nd photo?

 

[Blitzo]

What is the purpose of the stepped hump in the 2nd photo?

We don't know. To this day we don't know. But we can see across the successive 09III/A variants a minor hump continues to be visible albeit smoothed out.

People initially thought it was for a VLS, which quickly got disproven when clearer pictures of the later 09IIIA variant emerged from the 2018 naval parade. Then some people wondered if it was for a change in the reactor, and some have speculated if it's for a towed array sonar housing.