CDR Salamander - Have You Completed Your ASW PQS?

The Chinese are not playing games.

Great graphic by HI Sutton over at Naval News on the state of play in the submarine world.

Wake up everyone.

Conventional non-nuclear submarines remain a key pillar of China’s submarine force, but the focus is changing to nuclear boats. Until very recently the sole shipyard building nuclear submarines was at Huludao in the north of the country. Now two shipyards on the Yangtze River, the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan and the JN yard in Shanghai, have joined. Wuchang appears likely to focus on the Type-041 Zhou class ‘mini-nuke’ while JN has begun construction of much larger boats. The first nuclear powered boat launched at JN was a new class of attack submarine, known for its very small fin (sail), which is as-yet unnamed. An identical submarine was launched in Huludao just days apart. Exact details of the new class, and how it relates to the also new Type-095 have yet to emerge.

Given the three yards now building nuclear submarines, the focus of construction is expected to shift to nuclear boats. China can already launch several each year, which a reasonable estimate now increasing to around six per year. This is triple the rate the United States is aiming for.

At the same time, China’s yards in the south of the country seem focused on uncrewed submarines. Although conventional submarines will remain a major force component for at least a decade, they are likely to become smaller and less emphasised part, displaced by more nukes at the top end and large uncrewed platforms at the lower end of their remit.

One little detail that keeps bugging me a bit. When you combine known phenomena, with the rapidly expanding capabilities of quantum computing and … he11 … quantum sensing…we may wake up sometime soon and have to completely rethink undersea warfare.

As expected, Brent is feeling the same thing.

Our SSN cannot/will not be able to do the job all by themselves. Air and surface ASW will have to be ready to play when the whistle goes. If we think, like we do with MIW, that our allied nations can step in to help in warfare areas we’ve neglected, we’re fooling ourselves. Allies are nice, but as the recent Iranian conflict proved…they have agency and may not be where you want them, when you want them, with the kit you need.

As a side note: a lot of people have, rightfully, been concerned about our missile inventory. Last year I had a chance to speak to an officer of one of our NATO allies who works in the ASW world. I have an inkling about how many days of ASW weapons we have ourselves in a contested environment (using Royal Navy expenditures on false contacts etc during the Falklands Conflict), and I won’t comment further on this net on that topic, but if we are going to rely on our NATO allies in a pinch, we are deluding ourselves.

Let me just say, it may have ASW LWT launch capabilities, but that does not mean it carries them, or may even have some on the base they are flying out of. When some say, “Well, we have some depth charges…” they are not making a joke. That being said…well…best not discussed on this net…as with most things ASW.

In closed hearings and in the SCIF, people need to be asking hard questions in this warfare area.

The PRC is going to contest it—their build rate makes that clear.

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