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

Quickie

Quickie

Colonel
If the picture is a photo-shopped job, whoever did it paid a lot of attention to details. The submarine shadow looks real and is in the correct direction as the shadows of the other objects in the picture.
 
FORBIN

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
About SSBN 094/Jin and their SLBM JL-2

US. Says Chinese Sub That Can Hit U.S. on Patrol Soon

A Chinese nuclear submarine designed to carry missiles that can hit the U.S. is likely to deploy before year’s end, the Pentagon said, adding to Obama administration concerns over China’s muscle-flexing in Asia.
China’s navy is expected this year to conduct the first patrol of its Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine armed with JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said in a statement. It declined to give its level of confidence on when the new boat will be deployed, or the status of the missile.
“The capability to maintain continuous deterrent patrols is a big milestone for a nuclear power,” Larry Wortzel, a member of the congressionally created U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said in an e-mail. “I think the Chinese would announce this capability as a show of strength and for prestige.”
The submarines are part of an effort to modernize China’s military under President Xi Jinping, who will be in Washington Thursday and Friday for a state visit with U.S. President Barack Obama. U.S.-China defense cooperation and competition will be among the topics discussed by the two leaders. The Pentagon and DIA
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previously predicted the patrols would start in 2014.
‘Threat Inflation’
“Don’t discount the likelihood of threat inflation by the Pentagon because of the shift toward the Asia-Pacific in the revised maritime strategy,” said
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, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
China set out its ambitions for a bigger naval presence far from its coasts in its 2015 defense white paper, released in May, saying it would add “open seas protection” to “offshore waters defense” to a list of core naval missions.
Wortzel said his commission’s 2015 report probably will include a comment from PLA Navy Commander Admiral Wu Shengli, who said the submarine-missile combination is “a trump card that makes our motherland proud and our adversaries terrified.”
China’s increased naval strength, coupled with its claims to territory in the contested South China Sea and East China Sea, has helped spur the region’s largest military buildup in decades and caused disquiet in the U.S. about its role as the region’s peace keeper.
China’s deployment “will further shift the Sino-American military balance and impose more demands on our own submarine force,” Representative Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s sea power panel, said in an e-mail. “This milestone in Chinese naval
development should remind U.S. policy makers of the need to strengthen American sea power, particularly in the Asia-Pacific,” Forbes said.
Missile Range
“The United States is a Pacific power,” U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in a
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on Sept. 21. “We’ve been the guarantor of stability in the region for the past 70 years. President Obama has made it clear that we have vital interests in Asia and the Pacific, and a good part of our foreign policy has been focused on our rebalance to Asia.”
China currently has at least four Jin-class submarines. Fifty-one years after the country carried out its first nuclear test, patrols by the new submarines will give Xi greater agility to respond to a nuclear attack, according to analysts.
“Of all the PLA strategic deterrence capabilities, the sea-based link is the most closely guarded secret because it is meant to be the most secure of the deterrents for China,” said Koh, who studies China’s naval modernization.
Sending the submarines on patrol is a significant step because JL-2 missiles have a range of about 4,600 miles (7,403 kilometers). The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has said the missiles could reach Alaska if launched from waters near Japan, and all 50 U.S. states if launched from waters east of Hawaii.
Troop Cuts
“The chances of getting a submarine east of Hawaii at a time when tensions are high, would be relatively low,” said
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, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. “But it’s not a possibility you can completely discount.”
Xi earlier this month announced plans to cut 300,000 troops and vowed never to seek “hegemony or expansion.” While the move represents, the largest cut to the People’s Liberation Army in almost two decades, it may only accelerate the arms buildup in the Asia-Pacific region.
The move will speed the PLA’s transition from a large, land-based army built over decades of invasions, civil war and border conflicts, to a modern, mechanized force able to defend China’s territorial integrity and growing interests abroad.
“The more modern their weapons, the fewer personnel needed,” said June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami political science professor, who served as a commissioner on the
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. “Less money spent on personnel means more money for airplanes, submarines, frigates, missiles.”
Still Testing
The JL-2 “has nearly three times the range” of China’s current sea-launched ballistic missile, “which was only able to range targets in the immediate vicinity of China,” the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence said in an
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on China’s Navy. The JL-2 “underwent successful testing in 2012 and is likely ready to enter the force,” it said. “Once deployed it will provide China with a capability to strike targets” in the continental U.S., it said.
Koh said reports indicate the PLA may still be conducting JL-2 tests. “If the missiles aren’t operational yet, there is no reason to send them out on patrol,” he said.
There is also speculation that China is developing a new 096 Tang class nuclear-powered submarine that may be able to carry as many as 24 ballistic missiles, twice as many as the Jin-class 094 submarines, Koh said.
“So the most likely scenario is that the JL-2 is likely to be in the final stages of testing, and has been deemed successful, otherwise they wouldn’t be going ahead with the development of the 096,” said Koh.

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FORBIN

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
I am waiting to see the first reliable pics of the new Type 096 Tang Class
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You can wait long time i think yet we have many difficulty for know for surface ships, remember two 054A comm. the same day for one we had a breakaway for several months same thing for a 052D in service, yes, no finaly yes :) then for black boats without hull number visible ...

096 normaly more big as 094, 16 or + SLBM but definitely in service only after 2020 easy.
 
Last edited:
Blackstone

Blackstone

Brigadier
Interesting article from The National Interest discussing why Chinese nuclear submarines are loud.
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Over the past two decades, the People’s Republic of China has made great advances in its military capabilities. However, it still lags woefully behind in developing nuclear-powered submarines. The problem for the Chinese is that they lack the necessary quieting and propulsion technologies to build anything remotely comparable to an American or Russian nuclear submarine.

Even the newest Chinese Jin-class ballistic nuclear missile submarines and improved Shang-class nuclear attack submarines are louder than 1970s-era Soviet-built Victor III-class attack submarine or the Delta III-class boomer, according to the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence. In fact, even China’s forthcoming Type 95 will be louder than the Soviet Union’s Project 971 Shchuka-B-class submarines—better know by its NATO reporting name Akula I. Nor is it likely that the Type 96 nuclear-power ballistic missile submarine will be any better. Chinese diesel submarines are, of course, another matter entirely.

But why are the Chinese lagging behind in nuclear submarines when they seem to be advancing in leaps and bounds in almost every other field? I asked several of the best U.S. naval experts why that’s the case.

Jerry Hendrix, a former Navy captain, director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security had this to say:

It’s a two-part answer. One, noise-quieting technologies is one area where we have been particularly careful not to let out. Still, the Russians have not made any prohibitions against sharing some particular technologies and their export Kilos are pretty quiet so that leads you to the second answer: The Chinese maritime manufacturing techniques are not yet adapted to submarines. Their stuff is still pretty noisy. That’s all I can really go into.

Bryan McGrath is the deputy director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower and the managing director of the The FerryBridge Group naval consultancy. He’s also a retired Navy commander. He had this to say:

China's nuclear submarine program lags other areas of its naval prowess for two primary reasons. The first is that until twenty years ago, designing and building nuclear submarines simply was not a priority. The second reason is related to the first, and that is the fact that designing and building nuclear submarines is an extremely difficult technical undertaking. That they decided to feature nuclear submarines twenty years ago did not instantly result in the requisite skills to effectively and efficiently build them. These will take time, focus and very likely, a stepped-up industrial espionage program to attain.

Bryan Clark is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He was a special assistant to the chief of naval operations and was a Navy submarine officer. He offered his take:

Nuclear submarines have not been a priority for China, since the advantages they offer over diesel or air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarines (greater endurance, speed, and capacity) are not as significant for the missions they have used their submarines to do, such as coastal defense against enemy surface ships and surveillance. Current Chinese diesel submarines like the Song are not as advanced as their European counterparts, but they are effective in this role and appear to be reliable enough for those missions; China's Kilo-class submarines are able to carry the very lethal SS-N-27 anti-ship cruise missile. China's newest AIP submarine, the Yuan, is reported to have modern combat systems and be able to deploy missiles, torpedoes, and mines as well. The recent increase in emphasis on nuclear submarines is coming as China attempts to increase its reach and role in geopolitical affairs. Today, they are developing an SSBN and a new class of nuclear attack submarine in line with their effort to deploy a “blue-water” Navy and desire to have a second strike nuclear capability on par with other great powers.

Andrew Erickson, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College and frequent TNI contributor, summed it up succinctly: “One word: propulsion!”

“Submarines suitable for comprehensive blue water operations must be nuclear-powered, energy-dense, and quiet,” Erickson wrote recently for TNI. “China has struggled in these and related areas. And it can’t simply draw on its burgeoning civilian nuclear industry because the technologies and skill sets are so different.” China can’t use the lessons learnt on its civilian land-based high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) because those systems lack the energy density for naval applications.
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W

weig2000

Captain
Blackstone said:
Interesting article from The National Interest discussing why Chinese nuclear submarines are loud.
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The comments from these experts are all more or less valid. The most important reasons can be summarized as two: 1) priority, 2) related industrial infrastructure. They're the same reasons why other strategic weapons/platforms have been lagging such as Aircraft Carrier and Strategic Bomber, compared with other more "conventional" platforms.

In the '80s, when China had finally mastered the ICBM (DF-5) and SSBN (092 + JL-1). The national focus had started to shift to economic development. Deng Xiaoping deemed that World War III was not to happen any time soon and China was so behind economically (it realized so after opening up). So all strategic weapons/platforms development were put on hold including next-generation ICBM and SSBN.

Things started to change since '96 Taiwan Strait crisis, particularly since the NATO bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade in '98. The nuclear submarine program were revived since then after "three five-year plans" and the "retired experts were called back." It also helps, significantly, that Chinese economy took off and defense spending had started to increase substantially.

It is also true these strategic weapons had not benefited as much from the civilian technologies. I believe all these have changed: the nuclear submarines are priorities, funding is plentiful, and China has a booming civilian nuclear industry (40% of the nuclear power plants under construction in the world are in China). The civilian nuclear technologies are not exactly the same as those used in nuclear submarines, but the industrial infrastructure (people/equipment/production/education & research institutes) certainly are helpful, just like the civilian shipbuilding industry helps the surface combatant ships.

In ten years, we should see China will make substantial progress in nuclear submarines, and those pessimistic prediction will turn out to be quite off the mark.
 
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