Russian sub doctrine is well established, since China still does not have any equivalent of Yasen or Borei subs. Are they stupid in your opinion?
Rumoured "mini-nuke/diesel" Submarine SSK-N(?) thread
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
The overall argument would have been better if Russia was never mentioned to begin with, and if Russia's mentioning was not responded to either.
Overall there is going to be some utility for relatively smaller displacement ~3000-4000t submarines for the PLAN that are optimized to operating around/within the first island chain distances without needing the full capability that a proper SSN needs.
That's just because the geostrategic environment of the PRC in its immediate periphery will still be populated by nations with their own potent naval and subsurface forces that will be operating in said immediate periphery. Having the ability to cost effectively maintain an underwater presence more optimized to such distances does have some use, and it is why the PLAN bought a large fleet of 056/As and will continue to operate them for some time (and in some ways even the 054As can be seen as being more optimized for regional open ocean patrols than being optimized to truly global distance blue ocean operations, even though it can do the latter albeit not as well as a larger ship).
The question for whether the PLAN would retain conventional SSKs to fill the "3000-4000t submarine" category, or if it is a mix of conventional SSKs and the rumoured SSKN, I think fully depends on how expensive the SSKN is to purchase and operate relative to conventional SSKs as well as what additional capability the SSKN can bring to the table.
The "3000-4000t submarine" role may be less important in future if the PRC immediate geostrategic environment becomes fully benign, but so long as there remains a handful of independent nations with moderately capable surface and subsurface forces that operate within 50-400km of the PRC coast, in a manner where they are either hostile or potentially hostile to PRC interests, I can't see the PLAN relinquishing a decent sized fleet of 3000-4000t submarines for that regional mission profile.
Russia's submarine strategy shouldn't even come into it, and it doesn't matter that they have Yasen and Borei submarines because the PLAN submarine composition is talking about a future where they have competitive SSNs and SSBNs of their own as well in meaningful numbers (09IIIB, 09V, 09VI etc).
This is a very strange thing to say.
The argument for a mini-nuke longer term is that you need fewer of them around to cover the same area. When we consider that regular SSN fleet will get significantly larger, a chunk of those crew members will like come from current conventional sub fleet. If PLAN can do the same defensive task with a smaller fleet, it should do so.
OK, let me rephrase:
To meet the challenges of the short-mid ranged littoral mission that China has due to its local maritime environment, China is likely to retain SSKs. This local maritime environment has commonalities with another country that has similar technical capabilities in the subsurface regime, if not some leads. That other country has retained its SSK capability while still fielding a large SSN fleet. And despite sharing similar sizes with SSKs and having superior capacity in mid-long endurance missions, SSKNs are likely to have costs higher than SSKs. This leads to a capability gap at the low end for the close littoral mission.
Since there is precedent for keeping SSKs even with a highly capable SSN fleet, it is not out of the question for China to retain a SSK fleet even with SSKNs and high end SSNs.
I consider both of the above to be better arguments imo -- ultimately I think it will come down to the relative costs (procurement and operating) as well as the relative capabilities, that SSKs versus SSKNs offer each other.
Without knowing what the relative costs and relative capabilities of the rumoured SSKN is (heck, we technically still aren't 100% sure it's real) compared to SSKs, I think the debate is one which can't even begun to be held, given there's no grounds to even consider a discussion about what the costs and capabilities of the SSKN will actually be!
You are still in Russia as a guideline for your argument. Can you make a proper argument without referring to Russia please?
What are China's requirements and do you see a way for mini-nukes to completely remove the need for conventional subs?
To start off, how are conventional subs being used right now and are they the best bang for the buck for that role?
How China is using SSKs right now, is there any reason China cannot replace that capability with larger UUVs in the future?
If it can be replaced with UUVs, does it make sense to have a mini nuke type in your fleet that can sustain 7 to 10 knots. Assuming of course that you can produce it cheaply enough at the existing shipyards that produce 039 series.
If it can be replaced with UUVs, does it make sense to have a mini nuke type in your fleet that can sustain 7 to 10 knots. Assuming of course that you can produce it cheaply enough at the existing shipyards that produce 039 series.
I'm just using historical precedence for the littoral mission.
You cannot communicate effectively with UUVs using RF, seawater strongly absorbs optical signals and sound is broadband and can be distorted. There's no other way to communicate remotely with an underwater craft even in theory.
Due to poor optical and RF propagation, the only possibility of sensing the environment is sonar. Because of the requirement to remain hidden, active sonar is unwise to use. Any undersea craft is essentially blind to anything that does not make noise. Note that not making noise does not mean it does not exist - see random underwater mountains or sunken debris.
Due to multipath propagation in the littorals and a noisy environment in the littorals due to presence of commercial shipping, it is also difficult to make an AI that can usefully make choices in the absence of human intervention. The AI will be further limited because it can't actually train on data, since there just isn't a large volume of publicly available subsurface hydrophone readings for obvious reasons.
This means that, in the absence of the possibility of both remote piloting and autonomous vehicles, you need at least 1 human to pilot the vehicle. But 1 human has low endurance and uptime, as 1 human tends to need to eat and sleep. You might want more humans on board for 24 hour uptime. Starts looking awfully like a SSK at this point.
I think the best answer is that we don't know to all of those questions and that speculating in too much detail is probably useless at this stage.
I think the most productive thing that has come out of this discussion is that at least there is a recognition that there is a need for a "regional underwater submarine force" of some sort, which is currently filled by 3000-4000t SSKs by the PLAN.
In the future whether it's made up by SSKNs, SSKs, large UUVs, or some combination of them, I don't think any of us have a basis to argue in confidence and it's probably healthier we don't even try.
That applies both for your argument and @FairAndUnbiased -- none of us know what the costs and capabilities of the rumoured SSKN will be (let alone what the characteristics of large UUVs will be into the future), so the best argument is to avoid making an argument.