Re: PLAN submarines Thread II
In addition to what manoverbored said, I believe the Hans and the Xia were not tropicalized until this decade. Before this decade, much of their patrols seem to be only in the northern and colder areas. The base in Sanya is significant because everything that goes there has to be tropicalized by now, including the improved Hans.
The concept of fleet subs going to deliberately engage enemy combat forces proved to be a total flop in World War II. We are not talking of the Germans here, who choose to go with the commerce raiding doctrine, or the Americans, who use an expeditionary littoral warfare concept on their subs, which is to choke off points of Japanese shipping and transits.
I am talking of the IJN here, and the Japanese arguably built the best subs in the world at that time if best means big, speed and firepower. They got the fastest and sleekest subs, armed with the most effective--both speed, range and reliability wise---torpedo in World War II, the Long Lance.
And yet the result is a most mediocre sub combat record compared to the Germans and the Americans. The problem is that the Japanese attach their subs into fleet functions, covering their main fleets or in an attempt to engage the enemy fleet. Many subs didn't even find their targets during their careers.
If diesel subs are used in a manner where they ambush choke points, they are seriously effective. Note the number of warships American diesel subs managed to torpedo out of the IJN.
In the Falklands War, the British nearly lost a destroyer because one of the Argentinian Type 209s managed to torpedo it. The torpedoes turned out to be duds. Actually in hindsight, the British felt they could better support their operations in the Falklands if they had diesel subs to operate in the littoral waters like in deploying special forces. Expeditionary littoral warfare is one reason why diesel SSKs are being studied again closely.
Another example of a choke point strategy is what the British originally planned to do with their Upholder class SSKs. These are fairly large SSKs, over 2200mt surfaced, got flank sonars for their hunter killer purpose. They are meant to ambush Soviet SSBNs by patrolling choke points like the gap between Iceland and Greenland, or to head directly to the artic sub bases north of Russia and sink the SSBNs along choke points or in waters heading in and out of the bases. Of course, it never happened, the subs got sold to Canada.
The Soviets had a bastion strategy of their own, where a large number of diesel subs, mainly Foxtrots which are among the largest SSKs ever built, would patrol these choke points as well as in the areas where their SSBNs would roam.
Open water fleet warfare can still be difficult for a nuclear sub if the nuke lacks the top speed for it. The Russians consider having a speed of 30 knots minimum as a necessity for carrier hunting. Their Victor IIIs can go like 33 knots, and the Alfas have been observed going at 40 knots under NATO convoys. SSBNs for the most part can go at most 25 knots, and many SSNs including the original Han, and the French subs like the Rubis, will go up to 25 knots.
