China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
Coming back to the South China Sea. If this area really does become an epic battlefield between China and the Quad navies (USN, JMSDF, RAN, and IN), would PLAN submarines and sea mines play an underrated, but pivotal role in the conflict? The USN is obsessed about the shiny stuff like the DF-21Ds, DF-26s, J-20s, H-6Ks, and the Type 055s. But submarines and sea mines are old, and still formidable menace for enemy navies.
China should enjoy a local submarine force superiority using its vast fleet of conventional subs to create all kinds of chaos for the Quad navies. They are silent enough (on batteries or AIP) to rival the stealth of the best nuclear submarines of the USN. And they can outnumber the submarine fleets of the others. They can perform conventional submarine raids on enemy ships and lay mines at key areas.
The aim is not to destroy the enemies' naval assets just by submarine force. But to keep the enemies' navies busy with sub-hunting and guesswork. The mines would also play an important role in area denial, forcing the enemies to be extra careful with fleet movements. All of this is should be happening while the PLAN surface force and PLAAF are performing waves of conventional attacks on the same enemy ships. Not to mention a plethora of PLARF missiles flying about the SCS. A constant wave of coordinated attacks above and below the surface could give the enemy a really hard time. Even if enemy ships are not damaged, this constant wave of heightened tensions would degrade their personnel battle effectiveness and sap their morale. Off course the enemy navies could do the same, but China has the local numerical superiority here to push an advantage.
Needless to say, sea mines left behind after the war is going to be a major headache for reopening the SCS. But all wars are ugly. And China is in an intensely unfair 1 on 4 fight here.
China should enjoy a local submarine force superiority using its vast fleet of conventional subs to create all kinds of chaos for the Quad navies. They are silent enough (on batteries or AIP) to rival the stealth of the best nuclear submarines of the USN. And they can outnumber the submarine fleets of the others. They can perform conventional submarine raids on enemy ships and lay mines at key areas.
The aim is not to destroy the enemies' naval assets just by submarine force. But to keep the enemies' navies busy with sub-hunting and guesswork. The mines would also play an important role in area denial, forcing the enemies to be extra careful with fleet movements. All of this is should be happening while the PLAN surface force and PLAAF are performing waves of conventional attacks on the same enemy ships. Not to mention a plethora of PLARF missiles flying about the SCS. A constant wave of coordinated attacks above and below the surface could give the enemy a really hard time. Even if enemy ships are not damaged, this constant wave of heightened tensions would degrade their personnel battle effectiveness and sap their morale. Off course the enemy navies could do the same, but China has the local numerical superiority here to push an advantage.
Needless to say, sea mines left behind after the war is going to be a major headache for reopening the SCS. But all wars are ugly. And China is in an intensely unfair 1 on 4 fight here.
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Not sure is this part is true. Chinese subs are traditionally the weakest part of the navy.
He's sort of right in some ways while you are probably not aware of the complexities here. Yes Chinese subs are considered by some to be the weakest part of the PLAN since the PLAN seems to have modernised to the highest standards and technology, at least the surface fleet. PLAN subs are widely reported to be excessively noisy. However, this has usually been the description for nuclear powered submarines. One of the greater sources of noise with the nuclear powered submarines are inherent to its propulsion while diesel electric submarines can be louder or quieter depending on the mode of operation.
For example if the batteries of the diesel sub are being charged by the engines, then that source of noise typically is supposed to be louder than the noise in the transmission on a nuclear sub. The key here is DE subs can be quieter with AIP technologies that allow for longer battery only operation so in many ways PLAN DE subs are quieter than some of the best nuclear subs because they use AIP and can stay submerged for longer durations than in the past, all in complete total silence save for any flawed propeller design (more ways of detecting subs btw). Strategy also favours the DE subs because they are laying in wait around the SCS, the position of such a confrontation is in favour of those DE subs since it is the USN's subs that need to be moving in and around.
Navies like the US do not bother with DE submarines because the USN is a purely offensive force. They need to travel vast distances quickly to make war. If your posture is more defensive and your subs aren't designed to sail around the world with unlimited range to launch attacks, DE submarines offer a greater bang for buck value since they can often be effectively quieter (given the strategic positions and operations), much cheaper, simpler, smaller (without much limit to firepower compared to nuclear attack), and built at a faster rate due to those reasons. Most navies build and acquire/import only DE submarines for more reason than familiarity. In fact there's only US, China, Russia, UK, and France who still operate nuclear attack submarines. Actually India also operates rented Russian nuclear attack submarines too and have been developing their own Type 091 level nuclear attack sub for many countless decades now without success or completion anywhere in sight.
The rumours surrounding PLAN's next generation nuclear attack and nuclear powered ballistic missile subs (095 and 096) will soon replace the second generations of PLAN nuclear powered submarines. I think any remaining "weak parts" that were not already corrected by improvements to those second gen subs like 093B, would surely be overcome with these soon to arrive submarines. Chinese rumours vary from they've already reached service to they are delayed by very novel leapfrog technologies such as shaftless EM drive etc. It's worthwhile to note that the first gen of these nuclear subs were technology trials and stepping stones towards managing nuclear sub tech. The second gen are operationally valuable despite lagging well behind the absolute latest American counterparts (and European/Russian ones too which are nearly as good). None of the PLAN's second gen even featured pump jet shrouds but then again these Chinese subs were developed well before that technology became a benchmark. The next gens certainly will attemp to take a step further and if shaftless EM drive rumours are true, then that surely satisfies.
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
Yes, the Chinese SSK will absolutely play a massive part, but they will, by their nature, work as ambush predators rather than active hunters as SSNs can.
But all PLAn subs have sun launched AShMs, meaning they have a far larger threat radius than subs with just torpedoes.
If any Chinese asset detects enemy warships within a few hundred KM of a PLAN SSK, it could communicate that locational data to the SSK to launch a missile attack using co-operative engagement.
But I think one of the key roles of the PLAN SSK fleet would be to lock down key routes to limit enemy movement of both surface and subsurface vessels.
This will also help with Chinese efforts to find enemy fleets, since it knows where it has SSKs deployed, so would not need to focus too much effort looking in those areas since it’s SSKs would report any enemy ships operating in those areas.
The SCS is a theatre where the PLAN’s full spectrum capabilities can be brought into place, including the bulk of its 056 and 022 fleets. It will honestly be a tougher fight to try to take those islands from China than to attack the mainland itself.
The only viable military option for the US in the SCS that doesn’t risk massive loss of life and humiliating outright defeat would be a long range hit and run with cruise missiles. Gambling that the minimal damage done would temper any Chinese retaliation. So Trump hopes it will be a bit like Trumps Strike on Syria and Iran’s retaliatory strike on the US for the assassination of their general. Where both sides telegraph their attacks (Giving them other plenty of time to get people to bunkers and assets out of bases etc) and take extra care to target areas away from the main compounds to minimise risk of loss of life.
That’s the kind of military action Trump has an appetite for to score some cheap electoral points. A bloodbath in the SCS to seize some islands the US knows it cannot hold is not what anyone in their right mind would want if they were in Trump’s shoes.
To be honest with regards to SCS sub warfare only, it's quite possible the best submarine is the upgraded Yuan classes which are basically sinocised modernised "improved Kilo class" (vastly superior to the non-AIP Russian systems only "improved Kilo class"). The 093 is noisy, the 093B isn't supposed to be that much better acoustically and these nuclear attack subs aren't more modern than the latest Yuan class and they are certainly more expensive and complex. This explains why the PLAN has limited 093 to 6 units in total (only upgrades made to them and no more production) while the 039A to 039C numbers at 17 and is still being built!
For PLAN assets to detect enemy warships within a few hundred KM or a PLAN SSK that asset would have immense detection and comm capabilities. Sub comm is mysterious and kept secret but assuming all that is achievable, what is this asset? High altitude drones or satellite most likely but what will guide those sub launched AShM? The SSK itself cannot guide them but they have had AShM capability for about 2 decades now so clearly there's some CEC. During this detection and CEC targeting phase, the USN will be working at destroying and blocking those assets and surface vessels. They'll be launching their own anti-sub attempts and it's all pretty difficult to keep the chain running for the PLAN. I would think those SSKs are more likely going to be launching torpedoes at those targets instead of AShM. The only case I can think of is some networked swarm/saturation attacks using AShM which means SSKs launching will add to those numbers. Presumably all those launching vessels are within range for AShM.
There are plenty of different ways for the PLAN to deny wartime access. SSKs are definitely the frontline and perhaps the most effective and threatening. The US will need to be conducting ASW while contesting surface, air, and digital domains and defending against direct attacks. Their answer in doctrine is air superiority and outranging everything while knocking each prioritised target down in a kill sequence. I'd imagine PLAN SSKs and China's resistance in the air are at the frontline of access denial. Those ballistic missiles and HGVs are more "assassin's mace" type weapons to add to the effort.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Traditionally subs needed to launch a comms antenna or surface to periscope depth to get radio communications. But there was an article posted on this forum a while back on an award being issued for a break-through in underwater radio communications, so PLAN subs may no longer need to do that and can get some comms while fully submerged. Unless I am vastly underestimating Chinese tech, and they have actually operationalised quantum entanglement communications, I think this will be a low bandwidth comms means, probably enough for text messages only, which would be enough.
Remember that the sub only needs to know what direction to launch the missile. After that it will be down to the missile seeker or an off board asset to datalink course updates to it.
This would be a new technology, because even though the PLAN has operated sub launched AShMs for decades, it is only in recent years that they have moved beyond the old sub launched C801/2, which only had a range of around 50km, which was most likely limited to such because they would have been relying on purely the missile seeker for guidance, so there would be no mid-course updates. Hence to try a shot like that from much further away would be too much of a low probably shot as the odds are good the target ship would have moved enough that the missile seeker won’t be able to acquire it once it has reached its initial launch target destination.
The kill chain for such a shot could be fairly robust, with AWACS, AEW drones, satellites and maybe even OTH radar and passive EW could all be capable of giving updates enemy fleet location data, that can be data linked to missiles for mid-course update.
You need to remember that one of a carrier strike groups primary defences is not being detected, which means very strict emissions management. Problem with that is that unless the carrier thinks it might be in danger, it will be limited to passive sensors, as blasting away on full power with shipboard radar is a great way to let the enemy know where you are with EW signals analysis.
As such, if it was a drone with passive EO sensors that spotted the carrier, it may not know that missiles are coming at it until the seekers on them goes active.
That is one of the key threats of lurking SSK with long range AShMs - they can threaten enemy fleets when they still think they are far from danger zones.
Submarines can already receive radio signals when fully submerged, but only down to 20 meters. However, being at shallow depth is dangerous, as you will be vulnerable to ASW assets, especially those equipped with MADs.
I haven't read the paper you are referring to but it's probably referring to short-range communications (we're talking meters, not even kilometers.) Radiowaves do not propagate well in salt water, because it's a conducting medium which dissipates EM energy. (Fun fact: Pure H2O is an insulator). Basically, this is a physics problem. No amount of engineering can overcome it. Humanity will need to discover new physics in order to solve this problem, and that would be a nobel prize level discovery. Until that happens, submarines will not be able to use radiowaves for long distance comms while submerged at their operational depths.
p.s. Entanglement isn't really relevant for any of this. Entanglement is for encrypting light based comms. The underwater version of that tech will be laser based, also over very short ranges, because light also propagates horribly in water (unless the platforms are tied together with long fiberoptic cables or something, but in that case you wouldn't need encryption anyway.)