09V/09VI (095/096) Nuclear Submarine Thread

[Biscuits]

Yes. I do think China pays around $400M per boat, whereas the $625M price for Pakistan includes support and local production.

If we compare the the Type-52/Type-55 versus the equivalent AEGIS destroyers from US/JP/KR - we can see Chinese ships have a significant cost advantage.

That should carry over into the realm of submarine construction. So Chinese SSKs should be much cheaper than Japanese SSKs.

Again PLA needs to provide support for their own submarines too, and probably to a higher standard.

There are "tricks" state owned companies can use to drive down the per piece cost for their own hardware (such as filing much of the costs under another category, or taking pay directly from the state budget instead of marking it as part of a purchase). China can technically pay 0$ for everything since all of the military contractors are state owned, they would just have to shift all the bills as national spending. This doesn't fundamentally change the real cost of the item in question.

Even if we arbitrarily shave off 225 million off the 041's price, it still won't be "much" cheaper than the Soryu, only marginally so. And it would still be more expansive than a Type 212.

If that carries over to SSN pricing, it would mean either slightly more expensive or about the same. TBH I need to correct my last post because it's not going to cost 6 billion like the Seawolf, since that was apparently due to some mismanagement leading to runaway costs, but 3 billion + like the Virginia could be expected.

An Astute is cheaper because it has no VLS. It's possible China could go all in on stealth and forgo the VLS, which could further bring down price to 1.5-2 billion.

 

[Deleted member 13312]

There is also the PPP of each individual countries to consider. Taking into account that China PPP is technically stronger than the US while its currency's worth is still lower than the dollar, a 095 will all the bells and whistles just like the Virginia might cost less than the latter but might be even more expensive for China to produce in its own terms.

 

[AndrewS]

An Astute is cheaper because it has no VLS. It's possible China could go all in on stealth and forgo the VLS, which could further bring down price to 1.5-2 billion.

Let's focus on this part.

The Astute (without a VLS) is $1.8 Bn. These are published figures.
So how can a Chinese SSN (without VLS) still be in your $1.5-2 Bn range?

The Astute has a small intermittant production run with boats produced every 2 years.

Yet we can see that China has a production rate of 1 boat per year and guaranteed orders for the next 20 years.
And the Pentagon has a rule of thumb that a doubling of the procurement rate results in a 20% cost saving.

That immediately takes the cost of a Chinese SSN from $1.8 Bn to $1.44 Bn, which is already below your low estimate of $1.5 Bn.

We also know that costs for materials, unskilled labour and skilled labour are lower in China (Bohai) than in the UK (Barrow)
The Barrow Shipyard is located literally in the middle of nowhere, so doesn't have a local population nor industrial base to draw upon.
In comparison, Bohai is located on the outskirts of a city with 3M people and also does commercial shipbuilding. That industrial base lowers costs further.

So taking that all of this into account, if Bohai has another cost advantage of 20%, that takes the cost of a Chinese SSN to approx $1 Bn.

 

[AndrewS]

If that carries over to SSN pricing, it would mean either slightly more expensive or about the same. TBH I need to correct my last post because it's not going to cost 6 billion like the Seawolf, since that was apparently due to some mismanagement leading to runaway costs, but 3 billion + like the Virginia could be expected.

An Astute is cheaper because it has no VLS. It's possible China could go all in on stealth and forgo the VLS, which could further bring down price to 1.5-2 billion.

A general question:

Why is there a $1 Bn ($1000M) difference between the Astute ($1.8 Bn) and the non-VPM Virginia ($2.8 Bn)???

Yes, the Astute doesn't have 12 VLS cells, but a VPM (with 28cells) only costs an extra $360M.
That implies that a Astute with 12 VLS cells would be an extra $150-200M, for a total cost of $2 Bn.

That is only a 10% difference between a VLS and non-VLS submarine.

 

[AndrewS]

There is also the PPP of each individual countries to consider. Taking into account that China PPP is technically stronger than the US while its currency's worth is still lower than the dollar, a 095 will all the bells and whistles just like the Virginia might cost less than the latter but might be even more expensive for China to produce in its own terms.

Well, let's say a Chinese SSN is $1 Bn.

Then at PPP, it is equivalent to about $1.8 Bn.

That is the same as the Astute. And would demonstrate that PPP is a valid measure in this case.

 

[Biscuits]

Let's focus on this part.

The Astute (without a VLS) is $1.8 Bn. These are published figures.
So how can a Chinese SSN (without VLS) still be in your $1.5-2 Bn range?

The Astute has a small intermittant production run with boats produced every 2 years.

Yet we can see that China has a production rate of 1 boat per year and guaranteed orders for the next 20 years.
And the Pentagon has a rule of thumb that a doubling of the procurement rate results in a 20% cost saving.

That immediately takes the cost of a Chinese SSN from $1.8 Bn to $1.44 Bn, which is already below your low estimate of $1.5 Bn.

We also know that costs for materials, unskilled labour and skilled labour are lower in China (Bohai) than in the UK (Barrow)
The Barrow Shipyard is located literally in the middle of nowhere, so doesn't have a local population nor industrial base to draw upon.
In comparison, Bohai is located on the outskirts of a city with 3M people and also does commercial shipbuilding. That industrial base lowers costs further.

So taking that all of this into account, if Bohai has another cost advantage of 20%, that takes the cost of a Chinese SSN to approx $1 Bn.

Because that is assuming it has the exact same loadout as the Astute. The 041 doesn’t have the exact same stuff as the Soryu. Since it is slightly more expensive, it either means that some systems are higher quality or some systems are less efficient in production, or most likely a bit of both. That could apply to the case for the 095 as well.

UK and China doesn’t build submarines after the same standards. If they did, your comparison would be valid, but they don’t. Both countries have different goals, techniques and requirements.

Since the submarines haven’t arrived yet (afaik) it might be better to discuss when the costs are made public, or at least when the cost of the 093Bs are made public.

 

[Bhurki]

Putin has publicly said that the $3.5 bn cost for the second Yasen is a joke.

Also, look at the Royal Navy Astutes which are $1.8 Bn each, which is comparable to the $1.6 Bn for the 1st Yasen.

And the CNO has been on record as saying the Astute is quieter than the Virginia SSN.

So if China has lower costs (say 20%) and a higher production rate with long term stability (another 20% saving), that's why I think they can produce SSNs for around $1 Bn

Putin is a politician, its his duty to subvert attention from his state's inabilities( in this case, MIC not being efficient). I'd rather believe the tab provided by the manufacturers than the state.
Also, another example for highly expensive sub being Seawolf class.
The fact is, a specialized attack submarine designed to primarily hunt for other quiet subs will always cost more than a general purpose sub like the Virginia. The Virginia was designed with cost of production in mind and it was deemed sufficient because there wasn't any other nation that could assume aggressive SSN posture against the US at that moment.
In the future however, US,China and Russia will need to one up each other in the race to dominate the SSN class hunting tech, so it'll be more expensive than just settling for a set of general requirements.

 

[AndrewS]

Because that is assuming it has the exact same loadout as the Astute. The 041 doesn’t have the exact same stuff as the Soryu. Since it is slightly more expensive, it either means that some systems are higher quality or some systems are less efficient in production, or most likely a bit of both. That could apply to the case for the 095 as well.

UK and China doesn’t build submarines after the same standards. If they did, your comparison would be valid, but they don’t. Both countries have different goals, techniques and requirements.

Since the submarines haven’t arrived yet (afaik) it might be better to discuss when the costs are made public, or at least when the cost of the 093Bs are made public.

The cost of the 093B will likely never be made public, hence we have to estimate the cost.

The subs don't have to be exactly the same as you're just nitpicking.
Broadly speaking, they all have the same mission, which is to be as quiet as possible, whilst sensing the opposition first, then launch missiles or torpedoes.

So rough cost estimates should be valid, irrespective of the exact details.

Remember that you're trying to argue that a Chinese SSN somehow cost more than a British SSN, which just sounds wrong.
Look at the huge difference in costs for equivalent surface warships between the UK and China for example.

 

[Anlsvrthng]

This estimate is not valid, check the cost difference between the Virginia and the Seawolf.

 

[Anlsvrthng]

Thinking a bit, the cost of submarine exponentially increase with the next parameters :
- diameter
-diving deep
-speed

The standard pressure vessel equitation gives good starting point .