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

[Blitzo]

View attachment 136666
This is photo from June 15th. Looks like the other side's floating section is still there and got another floating section with red, white and blue containers to the right.
I just don't see any sign of a major accident here.

I don't see how that refutes my point.

I never claimed that the pier being moved was due to a "major accident" (see my post 3810) considering we do not know what constitutes a "major accident" for a pier in relation to the primary question of interest -- whether a submarine had sank or not.

I am however saying that we can't rule out the pier was affected or not, and we do have evidence that the pier was moved.
Whether the moving of the pier was due to a "major accident" or not, or whether that is consistent with a submarine sinking, we cannot say.


All of which goes back to my overall point, which is weird cannot use the imagery we have as a basis to rule out or rule in whether a hypothetical submarine sinking may have occurred or not.

 

[broadsword]

I saw a satellite picture of the Wuchang Shipyard area. Around it is quite densely built up and a vehicular bridge is nearby. If the sinking happened at night, maybe hardly anyone knew, otherwise, motorists on the bridge could have witnessed it. Regardless, there was no escaping the spectacle of 2 or 3 barge cranes working on the salvage. You have workers on the barge and cranes.

Before the barge cranes could begin their work, divers had to assess the damage. How many days or weeks had to pass before the decision to begin the operation could be given? During the operation, opportunities to take pictures and videos with handphones ought to be plenty. That area is not a sealed-off area like an airbase or Area 51.

So why didn't we get the chatter on Weibo and others after the purported sinking?

 

[Maikeru]

I saw a satellite picture of the Wuchang Shipyard area. Around it is quite densely built up and a vehicular bridge is nearby. If the sinking happened at night, maybe hardly anyone knew, otherwise, motorists on the bridge could have witnessed it. Regardless, there was no escaping the spectacle of 2 or 3 barge cranes working on the salvage. You have workers on the barge and cranes.

Before the barge cranes could begin their work, divers had to assess the damage. How many days or weeks had to pass before the decision to begin the operation could be given? During the operation, opportunities to take pictures and videos with handphones ought to be plenty. That area is not a sealed-off area like an airbase or Area 51.

So why didn't we get the chatter on Weibo and others after the purported sinking?

I think you're referring to the old site, the current site is south west of Zhangdu Lake and quite a way out of town with no nearby bridges. Your other points are well made, however.

 

[Godzilla]

Hmm, so dumb question, doesn't the ships/subs all get launched at that skidway area in front of the office just to the west of the floating piers? (i.e. gets moved via SPMT from the sheds / dry docks to the launching area.)
The yard does not look like it keeps too many lines of SPMT around judging by where it parks its construction equipment, and would probably source it externally when required.
So if anything new needs to be launched, it'll take a day or 2 for all the trucks or barges to come and unloaded the SPMT, plus a few hours for the SPMT to set up and travel to the skidways. I would imagine that would show up on the satellite no?

The other thing is, you could probably track that floating dock (Wuchuanhao CCS6072) down the Yangtze as well via AIS or whatever China uses in its internal waterways, whenever the sub is mechanically complete at Wuchang. I don't think they go under their power down the river into the sea lol.....

So if no new launches were detected in that time frame, and the floating dock is tracked somewhere between Wuchang and Jiangnan in that time frame, then it would be pretty conclusive that those barges were there for basically infrastructure upgrades/ maintenance while the floating dock is gone, especially with the floating piers relocated?

 

[snake65]

It seems that the yard has it's own SPMTs (two of them), parked near transbording launch area (1). There seems to be two docks - launch dock (2) and transport dock (3) in the area.

 

[Godzilla]

It seems that the yard has it's own SPMTs (two of them), parked near transbording launch area (1). There seems to be two docks - launch dock (2) and transport dock (3) in the area.View attachment 136678

Yeah those 2 SPMTs would be for running the blocks from assembly area to paint shops mostly. For a 3,500 tons sub you would need around 96 lines of SPMT at least. (I assume 2 rows so around 68m @1400 per line, and the sub sitting on some kind of saddle, 2 boggies per line, 20 ton per boggie.) These SPMTs are in high demand and they would not have trouble putting them to use at other CSIC/CSSC yards so I doubt they will have many sitting at this yard unless needed.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

One interesting convo on Twitter WRT the recent "nuke sub accident at Wuchang" that caught my eyes:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1840699409786650688

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1840702184607850643

While building a "mini-nuke" SSKN in Wuchang (if the rumors/claims up till this point is true) can be quite risky and dangerous - Having the entire hull of the SSKN built and launched at Wuchang (but without nuclear fuel loaded onboard) before getting moved to other shipyards that are closer to the coast for nuclear fuel-up (either by the sub's onboard emergency diesel/battery power, or ferried onboard floating drydocks/SPMTs) is indeed a viable solution/alternative.

There is also the possibility that the SSKNs are designed to be refueled more easily and more frequently, which actually permits the usage of the more widely-available LEU or MEU.

However, differing from the opinions in the above Twitter thread discussion - Instead of having to go all the way to Huludao, having the SSKNs fuel-up at Jiangnan would be a more logical choice. This is because instead of having to combat the varying rougher sea states of the ECS, the Yangtze is relatively calmer, and thus safer (plus easier to deal with emergencies during the ferrying process).

This is also in light of the following:
1. Future CVNs hinted for construction at Jiangnan (apart from Dalian's Dagushan);
2. SSKNs rumored for construction at Jiangnan (apart from possibly Wuchang); and
3. There have been reports on visits and exchanges in the nuclear marine propulsion system domain between Jiangnan and Huludao in recent years.

 

[gelgoog]

Their arguments keep getting more convoluted. Occam's Razor anyone?

 

[siegecrossbow]

During an archaeological dig for Warring State era artifacts SeeSeePee archaeologists accidentally dug up an Ancient Alien UFO that caused the nuclear submarine to capsize. My source in Wuhan just confirmed this last night.

 

[hkvaryag]

Twitter 上的一個有趣的事件引起了我的注意，最近的「武昌核潛艇事故」引起了我的注意：

[媒體=推特]1840699409786650688[/媒體]
[媒體=推特]1840702184607850643[/媒體]

在武昌建造「迷你核武」SSKN（如果到目前為止的謠言/說法屬實）可能相當危險 - 在武昌建造並發射 SSKN 的整個船體（但船上沒有裝載核燃料） ），然後再轉移到更靠近海岸的其他造船廠進行核燃料補充（透過潛水艇的船上緊急柴油/電池電源，或透過船上浮動乾船塢/SPMT）確實是一個可行的解決方案/替代方案。

還有一種可能性是，SSKN 的設計目的是更容易、更頻繁地補充燃料，這實際上允許使用更廣泛使用的 LEU 或 MEU。

不過，與上述 Twitter 貼文討論中的觀點不同，SSKN 不必一路去葫蘆島，而在江南加油將是一個更合乎邏輯的選擇。這是因為長江不必應對東海的各種波濤洶湧的海況，而是相對平靜，因此更安全（而且更容易處理渡輪過程中的緊急情況）。

這也是考慮到以下幾點：
1. 未來的CVN暗示將在江南興建（大連大孤山除外）；
2. 據傳將在江南（可能除了武昌）建造SSKN；和
3.近年來江南與葫蘆島在核動力船舶推進系統領域的互訪交流不斷有通報。

If the reactor is small enough, it can be directly installed in Jiangnan, which means Wuhan Shipyard can concentrate on building the hull.