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

[AndrewS]

You literally said "post-nuclear apocalypse world" lol

As I said, this would be a "tertiary" use case.
Not a primary, nor even a secondary use case

Again why do you think those assembly halls are empty, and why do you think that explanation is more plausible than those assembly halls being in active use?

Mostly empty, but not completely empty of activity.

If they were in full use, we should be seeing 14+ SSNs per year. Can't really reconcile that with the numbers of submarines we're seeing.

 

[antiterror13]

Odds of 10% for a US-China war to happen in 2026.
Due to an "accident" or a moment of recklessness takes over Trump or Xi.
And of the two, Trump is far more reckless. Just look at Iran or Venezuela as examples.

---

But in 2035, I reckon the odds drop to less than 5%.
If you model the military balance in 2035, it shifts significantly in favour of China beating the US in the broader Western Pacific, and this should be obvious to everyone involved

Thanks. I think the odd of the war is ~10% in the next 10 years, not only in 2026

I don't think Trump wants to have a big war, he is actually TACO. Trump and his wider family are very wealthy people and he knows what the war would impact them

Okay war with Venezuela, I predicted that because Venezuela can't hit back .. I don't think Trump will have a war with a country that can hit back, even with Iran he was kind of "scared"

You don't need to worry with somebody who talks and threaten a lot, you need to worry to somebody who rarely talk and threaten

 

[iewgnem]

As I said, this would be a "tertiary" use case.
Not a primary, nor even a secondary use case



Mostly empty, but not completely empty of activity.

If they were in full use, we should be seeing 14+ SSNs per year. Can't really reconcile that with the numbers of submarines we're seeing.

Have you considered that China might consider it beneficial to make it hard to see the submarines?

 

[Tomboy]

If they were in full use, we should be seeing 14+ SSNs per year. Can't really reconcile that with the numbers of submarines we're seeing.

Submarines are not constructed all at once but sequentially, so that there is a continuous cycle of submarine being launched each year instead of launching 14 submarines at once every 3-4 years.

 

[Blitzo]

As I said, this would be a "tertiary" use case.
Not a primary, nor even a secondary use case



Mostly empty, but not completely empty of activity.

If they were in full use, we should be seeing 14+ SSNs per year. Can't really reconcile that with the numbers of submarines we're seeing.

The number of submarines we are seeing is consistent with the shipyard capacity operating at a decent workup pace.

Launching a peak of 3ish SSNs per year for a new shipyard which only launched its first SSN in 2022, is about expected.


It takes 2-3 years for a submarine to be assembled and then be ready for launch (with additional 1-2 years for fabrication prior to assembly, but that doesn't necessarily take up construction slot space), so if you want a consistent yearly output of submarines, you will partially stagger your total launch capacity, so at any one year it looks something like this:
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: early assembly for SSN
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: mid stage assembly for SSN
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: late stage assembly for SSN/launch readiness
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: post-launch and retool to be ready to receive early stage assembly for next boat

That is about reasonable for something like 12-14 construction slots likely being active at Bohai, considering some of the other construction slots may be in workup for constructing a new SSN class like 09V, or they may be slowly working on a SSBN like 09IVB or 09VI, not to mention possibly serving as a dryland maintenance role as well.
(Not to mention the more southern assembly hall was only completed in 2021-2022 meaning it would've taken a couple of years to come online)

If you want to see "14+ SSNs produced per year" then you will need to multiply that number by four to get the total number of assembly slots needed to produce SSNs.
You'd need a shipyard with over 56 SSN sized assembly slots and the requisite subsystem and hull fabrication capacity to do so.

 

[ismellcopium]

Yeah.. why are people expecting annualized launches to be equal to slot count? A sub isn't built in 1 year....

 

[leibowitz]

As I said, this would be a "tertiary" use case.
Not a primary, nor even a secondary use case



Mostly empty, but not completely empty of activity.

If they were in full use, we should be seeing 14+ SSNs per year. Can't really reconcile that with the numbers of submarines we're seeing.

What? It takes 5 to 7 years to build a single submarine, with at least 3 years of that in the assembly hall

Edit, I see @Blitzo already outlined it above

 

[Maikeru]

What? It takes 5 to 7 years to build a single submarine, with at least 3 years of that in the assembly hall

Edit, I see @Blitzo already outlined it above

Virgina class SSN earlier boats after the 1st averaged about 18 months construction time before launch but this seems to have increased considerably since Indianapolis to around 3 years:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Note this is with older yards, not a brand new facility like Huludao which is apparently designed with mass production in mind.

 

[AndrewS]

Virgina class SSN earlier boats after the 1st averaged about 18 months construction time before launch but this seems to have increased considerably since Indianapolis to around 3 years:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Note this is with older yards, not a brand new facility like Huludao which is apparently designed with mass production in mind.

We can be a lot more granular on the [assembly and launch] durations

At Groton:

Block 1
Boat 1: 48 months
Boat 2: 22 months

Block 2
Boat 3-6: 10,14,18months

Following Boats:
Increased to almost 36 months

 

[AndrewS]

The number of submarines we are seeing is consistent with the shipyard capacity operating at a decent workup pace.

Launching a peak of 3ish SSNs per year for a new shipyard which only launched its first SSN in 2022, is about expected.


It takes 2-3 years for a submarine to be assembled and then be ready for launch (with additional 1-2 years for fabrication prior to assembly, but that doesn't necessarily take up construction slot space), so if you want a consistent yearly output of submarines, you will partially stagger your total launch capacity, so at any one year it looks something like this:
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: early assembly for SSN
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: mid stage assembly for SSN
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: late stage assembly for SSN/launch readiness
- 1/4 of shipyard capacity: post-launch and retool to be ready to receive early stage assembly for next boat

That is about reasonable for something like 12-14 construction slots likely being active at Bohai, considering some of the other construction slots may be in workup for constructing a new SSN class like 09V, or they may be slowly working on a SSBN like 09IVB or 09VI, not to mention possibly serving as a dryland maintenance role as well.
(Not to mention the more southern assembly hall was only completed in 2021-2022 meaning it would've taken a couple of years to come online)

If you want to see "14+ SSNs produced per year" then you will need to multiply that number by four to get the total number of assembly slots needed to produce SSNs.
You'd need a shipyard with over 56 SSN sized assembly slots and the requisite subsystem and hull fabrication capacity to do so.

The assumption here is that it takes 2-3 years to assemble and then launch a SSN.

But we can see that Virginia-class Block 2 boats (which I think are the most comparable to the Type-093B ramp) range from 10-18months, so I think the Type-093B would be down to 12 months now, given the urgency and more modern equipment and facilities.

At 12 months, that implies only 3 slots occupied.
With an 18 month assembly time, that is 4.5 slots occupied.