Most recent
, the first thing they did is to debunk the rumour about 054A forcing US nuclear subs to the surface. Mr Su assures everyone that it did not happen. He also offers the following argument that why it couldn't have happened from first principle:
1. A Virginia-class can sustain 25knots+ under water with no endurance limit. A 054A has top speed of 27 knots and at that speed the fuel will not last long. If a Virginia really is in danger it could choose go damn the noise, pedal to the metal and make a run for it and 054A may not be able to chase it down
2. Related to above, SSNs are very unlikely to run at top speed on the surface, even if for some reason they were forced to the surface. Afterall SSN are designed to run at high speed submerged unlike WW2 subs. If you can run that fast why wouldn't you do so under water? Running at max speed on the surface is only done in safe areas for things like sea trial etc.
3. Even if a sub was forced to the surface, it won't stay there for long, It's extraordinarily unlikely to capture the ship on the surface via random satellite image
4. It takes a fair deal of money to get an account to open source satellite image libraries (something like 1,000 USD per month) and it takes even more money in terms of manpower to comb through satellite image to find what you're looking for. This is generally only done by big organisations like big news houses, state agencies or operations relying on AI assisted image recognition. To find transient targets like a sub you have to already know more or less the exact location and time of the event before you even start buying images, it's astronomically unlikely for a busy body to stumble upon this
In Mr Su's opinion this particular rumour is dangerous in that it could cause a "tail wag the dog" situation. No doubt as we speak this rumour is being picked up by western sources and people are asking USN if it's true or not. If there's misjudgement or lack of trust in any of the people along this chain (say, someone over state side think USN is trying to keep this one down to avoid embarrassment) they may ask USN to be even more aggressive to make up for this perceived loss of face, thus cause an effect in the real world.
Mr Su judges that the original source of this rumour "TG战斗力5" has also spread plenty of rumours previously (he said PLAAF have already overflown Taiwan and that PLAN managed to sink a SSN and recover body of US sailors last year). Mr Su thinks his MO has a certain "Taiwanese" smell about it and he has earned himself a spot on Mr Su's watch list.