China’s Submarine Fleet, Evolution & news

[onebyone]

Why Chinese submarines could soon be quieter than US ones

Top naval engineer says new propulsion system will put PLA Navy ‘way ahead’ of US


PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 04 July, 2017, 7:00pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 04 July, 2017, 7:00pm

The US Navy’s Pacific fleet used to mock Chinese submarines for being too noisy and too easy to detect, but that has largely been remedied in recent years and China is now on the cusp of taking the lead in a cutting-edge propulsion technology.
Naval experts said the new technology would help China build more elusive submarines, but might also prompt the United States to ramp up anti-submarine warfare measures.

In a recent interview with China Central Television, Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, a leading Chinese naval engineer, showed a component of a new Integrated Electrical Propulsion System (IEPS) for naval warships in a laboratory. He said the system, which turns all the engine’s output into electricity, and a rim-driven pump-jet had been fitted to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s newest nuclear submarines.

Does China’s deep-sea tech upgrade point to submarine signals network under Pacific?

“This is one of our work team’s first world-leading projects, which has been used on [China’s] next-generation nuclear submarines,” Ma said in May. “[Our technology] is now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”

Ma’s exalted status in the PLA Navy was highlighted by a photograph of then navy commander Admiral Wu Shengli holding an umbrella for Ma during an inspection of the PLA Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan, where Ma works, on a rainy day in June last year. The photo, posted on the social media website of the PLA’s Navy Magazine, sparked public curiosity about why the commander would give such “preferential treatment” to a rear admiral.

Ma told CCTV “the ultimate goal” of developing the new propulsion system “was aimed at solving the problem of deploying high-energy radio-frequency (HERF) weapons on board”, hinting that China was close to emulating the US in that regard.

HERF, a form of directed-energy weapon, can fire highly focused energy at a target, damaging it accurately and quickly. Directed-energy weapons require vast amount of electricity – something IEPS can deliver – and can counter the threats posed by fast missiles such as ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles. Besides China, the US, Russia and India are also developing them.

The CCTV report did not say which types of Chinese submarines would use the pump-jet propulsion system, but mainland military websites said they believed Ma had hinted at the new-generation, nuclear-powered Type 095 attack submarines and Type 096 ballistic missile submarines.

The Chinese acoustics research that might help shield submarines from sonar

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a submarine expert from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said Ma’s remark showcased the growing scientific and technological maturity of China’s submarine development.

“In the long term, if the pump-jet propulsion is declared fully operational and tested successfully ... future [Chinese] submarines would be equipped with pump-jet propulsion as a standard design feature,” he said, adding that the new technology would also benefit other naval shipbuilding projects, such as surface warships.

“The operational/strategic ramifications would be that China would muster stealthier submarines ... and this essentially broadens various options for Beijing where it comes to the peacetime use of its naval capabilities.”

A rim-driven pump-jet has a ring-shaped electrical motor inside the pump-jet shroud, which turns the vane rotor inside the pump-jet cavity to create thrust. The design reduces noise by removing the shaft and also creates fewer water bubbles, making it even quieter.

Modern American and British submarines already use pump-jet propulsion, but Koh said the technology had not been adopted more widely because its design was complex, and just a few countries could support the technology with “a good deal of funding and technical expertise”.

Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said China had put a lot of resources and encouragement into developing cutting-edge technologies, including the pump-jet, air-independent propulsion (AIP) for non-nuclear submarines and other measures as part of its efforts to make Chinese submarines stealthier.

“Both the ultra-quiet engine and AIP will help Chinese subs to elude foes as high concealment is very important to all nuclear attack subs,” Li said. “Quieter subs means stronger stealth capability, which will help them to conduct surprise attacks when necessary.”

South China Sea air strips’ main role is ‘to defend Hainan nuclear submarine base’

China has built Asia’s largest submarine base at Yulin, on the south coast of Hainan, near Sanya. The base features underground submarine facilities with tunnel access, shielding Chinese submarines that enter the South China Sea from the prying eyes of US reconnaissance satellites. That’s prompted American warships and aircraft to conduct more close surveillance operations in the disputed waters, which are claimed wholly or in part by mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Koh warned it was foreseeable that the US Navy would ramp up anti-submarine warfare measures to detect, classify and track Chinese submarines if they were harder to detect after being fitted with pump-jet propulsion and other stealth equipment.

“This more intensified cat-and-mouse game would also result in the risk of underwater accidents ... between submarines or with surface ships,” he said. “The quieter the submarine is, the greater the likelihood of such navigational safety hazards and, potentially, they could cause diplomatic incidents in the context of those maritime disputes and of course, the persistent Sino-US divergence in views over foreign military activities in coastal states’ exclusive economic zones. ”

The Chinese navy is likely to begin construction of the Type 096 submarines, which will be armed with 24 JL-3 intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles, in the early 2020s, according to the Pentagon’s annual report to the US Congress this year.

US and India discuss anti-submarine warfare in latest move to keep China in check

Ma, 57, became a household name in 2011 when he announced during a speech to accept a national technology award that his team had successfully developed a Chinese electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).

Ma, a PLA deputy to the National People’s Congress, has since been asked by the media at the annual sessions of the national legislature when his EMALS will be fitted to China’s next-generation aircraft carriers.

“I am very unhappy because I have no power to decide when my EMALS will be used,” a frank Ma told reporters on the sidelines of this year’s NPC session in Beijing in March. “But I dare to tell you that the EMALS developed by my working team is more advanced and reliable than the US system to be used on their Ford-class aircraft carrier.”

The first of America’s Ford-class carriers, the first US vessel to use EMALS, completed sea trials in May.

Sources close to the navy told the South China Morning Postearlier this year that Ma’s EMALS might be fitted on China’s third-generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Type 003. However, the Central Military Commission, chaired by Xi, has not decided when the Type 003 will be built, and construction work has not yet started on the second-generation Type 002.

The PLA Navy has two aircraft carriers, the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet carrier commissioned in 2012, and the domestically built Type 001A, which was launched on April 26. They are both conventionally powered platforms featuring ski-jump take-off ramps.

‘Blatant hypocrisy’: Why China is being criticised over its opposition to Australia buying stealthy Japanese submarines

Xi has urged the PLA to pursue a “strong army dream”, but when asked by the Post whether he hoped to see his EMALS fitted to a Chinese aircraft carrier one day, Ma said he “never has any dreams” and was focused on finding practical projects for his team that would release its potential.

“Whether the new technologies will be used never bothers me, because I’ve found that my task is to cultivate talent, meaning I have to create more opportunities for them and help them solve problems,” Ma said. “For example, compared with the US, China couldn’t devote as much funding to developing the electromagnetic aircraft launch system and advanced arresting gear (AAG) system, but I understood that our valuable resource was that I could mobilise my hundreds of talented students.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...nese-submarines-could-soon-be-quieter-us-ones

 

[grey boy 2]

094A

 

[hassamun]

With better technology, the PLAN's undersea fleet would go on the offensive

Word has it that China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has staged a breakthrough in submarine propulsion. At any rate, that’s the word from marine engineer Rear Adm. Ma Weiming, a specialist in electromagnetic systems.

Adm. Ma recently reported on state-run CCTV that shipwrights are installing shaftless rim-driven pumpjets in China’s “next-generation nuclear submarines,” meaning attack or ballistic-missile boats. Ma crowed that Chinese engineers are “now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”

If Adm. Ma is playing it straight — rather than hyping promising but yet-to-be-proven gadgetry — then the PLA Navy is poised to overcome a technological and tactical defect that has plagued it since its founding. American submariners long lampooned Soviet and Chinese nuclear boats for being noisy and easy to detect.

PLA Navy boats remained backward long after the Cold War. Ultraquiet propulsion, though, would put an end to unquestioned U.S. acoustic supremacy, opening up new operational and strategic vistas before the PLA Navy while ushering in a deadlier phase of U.S.-China strategic competition.

The rim-driven pumpjet is an electrically driven “propulsor” that simplifies and thus quiets an engineering plant. Older technology typically uses gears to connect the elements of a drive train. Steam spins the innards of high-speed turbines. Turbines spin far too fast for any main propulsion shaft or propeller, however, so ships outfitted with traditional engineering plants have “main reduction gears” that step down the speed of rotation drastically, to speeds useful for the shaft that turns the screw and impels the hull through the water.
The design also reduces cavitation — bubbles churned up when a propeller turns rapidly underwater, leaving low-pressure zones behind the blades where water can boil. Cavitation emits noise that enemy sonar operators may hear. Thus it can alert hostile anti-submarine-warfare forces, helping them find, track and target the emitter. Hence the allure of novel technology that suppresses cavitation.


A Chinese Type 094 ballistic missile submarine. Photo via Chinese Internet

Now, there are ample grounds for skepticism toward Adm. Ma’s claims. New technology remains a hypothesis until tested out in real-world operations. But at the same time it’s doubtful Ma was simply showboating for Chinese T.V. viewers.

Rising competitors have caught up with established navies before, or even leapfrogged them in certain areas. The Imperial Japanese Navy defied expectations, devising the Long Lance torpedo that it deployed to devastating effect at Pearl Harbor. The Soviet Navy concocted anti-ship missiles and torpedoes that give the U.S. Navy fits to this day.

Thus it behooves us to ask what if — what if China pulls off a technological leap of similar magnitude?

Set aside the question of whose submarines are quieter than whose. Boastfulness — the urge to be the biggest, best and most of everything, and to have others acknowledge it — forms a strand in China’s cultural DNA. Ma is indulging in it. But no one is going to hold a contest to measure noise given off by U.S. Navy and PLA Navy boats, and award victory to the quietest fleet.

Combat is the true arbiter of military effectiveness — and undersea combat hinges on whether “hiders” or “finders” prevail. It pits a sub’s capacity for silent running against the acuity of ASW sensors and operators trying to ferret it out.

In other words, if American hiders remain quiet enough to evade Chinese finders, they hold the advantage of stealth. If acoustics has befriended the PLA Navy, then American finders have a problem. And if both submarine services can elude ASW hunters, then both they and surface fleets are in dire peril.

“Peer” submarines could engage one another at close proximity in the deep, or strike against surface vessels without warning. Indeed, the surface of embattled oceans could verge on no-go territory. That prospect makes this thought experiment about the future of subsurface warfare worthwhile.


A sonar technician aboard the destroyer USS ‘Howard’ tosses a sonar buoy into the Pacific. U.S. Navy photo

Suppose rim-driven pumpjet propulsors do pan out for China’s navy. How might commanders use newly elusive boats?

First of all, they might afford nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines — SSBNs, known to U.S. submariners as “boomers” — precedence when installing newfangled propulsion hardware. The PLA Navy already operates a sizable fleet of diesel-electric attack subs that satisfices for anti-access/area-denial purposes. They can make shift until silent-running nuclear-powered attack subs, or SSNs, join the fleet.

SSNs can wait. By contrast, the navy stands at the brink of fielding its first effective SSBNs.

Fabricating a new capability would seem to take precedence over improving an old but adequate one — especially if the nation’s nuclear deterrent depends on the new capability. If this logic prevails, how will the PLA Navy employ working boomers?

To all appearances, it envisions employing the South China Sea as an offshore “bastion” for SSBNs, much as the Soviet Navy of yesteryear made semi-enclosed waters into protected bastions for its missile boats. Undersea deterrence, then, probably numbers among the motives impelling the PLA to transform rocks and atolls into fortified outposts, acquaint itself with underwater hydrography, and so forth.

China’s Type 094 SSBNs or their pumpjet-equipped descendants could slip out of the sub base on Hainan Island, descend into South China Sea waters, lose themselves in the depths and dare rival navies to come into China’s “near seas” — expanses that fall under the shadow of land-based PLA missiles and aircraft — to hunt them.

Or if Chinese Communist Party leaders feel comfortable granting SSBN skippers the liberty to venture outside the near seas (though that’s a lot of atomic firepower to entrust to a naval officer whose loyalties might prove suspect), the Luzon Strait affords a convenient entryway to the western Pacific. Within the strait lies the Bashi Channel, a deep underwater thoroughfare into the Pacific.

The weather between Luzon and the southern tip of Taiwan often works against airborne ASW. Subs transiting the channel can conceal their whereabouts by diving beneath thermal layers that play tricks with sound. An ultraquiet SSBN, in short, could thrive in South China Sea patrol grounds — and beyond.


A Chinese boomer. Photo via Chinese Internet

Second, PLA Navy commanders doubtless salivate at the prospect of ultraquiet attack boats. They could merge new SSNs — presumably the Type 095s under development — into their anti-access defenses against the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They could package new with old units inventively. For example, they could station a picket line of diesel boats and older Type 093 SSNs along likely axes of approach from Hawaii or U.S. West Coast seaports.

Speedy but quiet Type 095s could act as “skirmishers,” operating forward of the pickets. SSNs could snipe at the Pacific Fleet’s flanks during its westward voyage while scouting for the rest of the fleet, and for shore-based PLA defenders. They could mount piecemeal attacks against the American fleet, or even try to herd it toward the picket line for additional punishment.

PLA commanders thus could use ultramodern platforms to wring new value out of legacy platforms. Such an approach would harness the latest technology while staying true to China’s Maoist tradition of “active defense.”

Active defense — which, as Chinese military folk remind us, remains the “essence” of Chinese military strategy decades after Mao Zedong’s demise — envisions luring foes deep into Chinese-held territory. PLA defenders stage tactical actions to weary enemies as they come. They fall on isolated units and try to smash them. Successive small-scale attacks enfeeble enemy forces, setting the stage for decisive battle on Chinese ground.

Think about the options that may become available to Chinese skippers as propulsor technology matures. Diesel boats could act as western Pacific pickets, or congregate in wolfpacks to concentrate firepower from multiple axes. Relatively noisy Type 093s could act as decoys, distracting American ASW hunters while Type 095s spring ambushes at opportune moments. And on and on. Commanders could combine and recombine forces in limitless ways — in keeping with China’s way of war.

Call it undersea active defense.


Sonar technicians aboard the destroyer USS ‘Howard.’ U.S. Navy photo

Third, the advent of quiet-running SSNs would let the PLA Navy play submarine-on-submarine games reminiscent of those once played by U.S. and Soviet boats.

To date, lacking a peer to U.S. Navy Los Angeles– or Virginia-class SSNs, the PLA Navy has employed its submarine fleet mainly as an anti-surface force. It waits offshore for hostile forces to approach, then does its best to pummel them with missiles or torpedoes.

American submariners, by contrast, will tell you the best ASW weapon is another submarine. They view hunting subs as their chief contribution to high-seas warfare. Chinese submariners might follow suit if their boats ran quiet enough, and boasted sensors sensitive enough, to make sub-on-sub ASW an option. Or they might incorporate ASW into their operational portfolio while retaining the emphasis on anti-ship missions.

Either way, PLA submarine operations would take on an intensely offensive hue. No longer would the sub force be a mostly static force lofting anti-ship missiles toward adversary surface task forces. It would seek out adversary subs as well — and, if successful, project China’s anti-access defenses into the depths in a serious way for the first time.

No longer could the United States’ silent service prowl Asian waters with impunity. Indeed, if both fleets were comparable in stealth, cat-and-mouse games might predominate. This would be a dangerous business. Reaction times would be minimal if boats could only detect and track one another at intimate range. Proximity would magnify the prospect of collisions, accidents of other types, or even inadvertent exchanges of fire.

Both navies and their political masters must think ahead about how to manage close-quarters encounters in the deep.


The carrier USS ‘Nimitz’ in the Pacific. U.S. Navy photo

And fourth, the debut of pumpjet-equipped SSNs would empower Beijing to mount a standing presence in faraway recesses of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean for the first time.

Diesel boats have ventured into the “far seas” in recent years, but they must put into port at regular intervals to refuel. This exposes them to detection. SSNs can remain at sea, and undersea, as long as their food and stores hold out. The crew — not the engineering plant — thus constitutes the limiting factor on a nuclear-powered boat’s at-sea endurance.

The Indian Navy has taken notice of PLA Navy forays into India’s home region, and grasps the implications of high-tech Chinese SSNs cruising the Indian Ocean. Indeed, some Indian mariners deem such a presence a red line for competition between the two navies.

It can be no accident, then, that there’s an anti-submarine flair to this summer’s Malabar exercises among the Indian Navy, U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

All three navies dispatched aircraft carriers for maneuvers for the first time. The Japanese flattop JS Izumo is a euphemistically dubbed “helicopter destroyer” optimized for hunting submarines. What hostile subs may lurk in the Bay of Bengal, where the exercises are underway, apart from China’s? Hider-finder competition, it seems, has come to the Indian Ocean.

Does new engineering technology herald an age of Chinese maritime supremacy? Of course not. Carl von Clausewitz portrays martial strife as constant struggle between “wrestlers” striving to “throw” each other for strategic gain. That goes for acoustic one-upmanship as well.

One contender innovates; the other resolves to outdo it. It appears, consequently, that more equal undersea competition lies in store.

To prepare for it, U.S. Navy submariners must learn to think of PLA Navy subs not as prey to be devoured by American predators but as worthy foes, capable of some sub hunting of their own. The silent service must adjust to the new, old reality of peer competition beneath the waves.

The game’s afoot.

This article originally appeared at The National Interest.

https://warisboring.com/chinese-subs-are-a-deadly-serious-threat/

 

[Hassan Guy]

No admiral will have a cooler name than Ma Weiming

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

This is the 'holy grail' for the future nuclear submarines according to some western experts.

No admiral will have a cooler name than Ma Weiming

His surname Ma means 'Horse' in Chinese, many Chinese with this surname usually got some Muslim ancestry.

Maybe he got some Hui Muslim root traced back to his earlier ancestors.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

"The Chinese will state their last name first, followed by the given name (may be one or two syllables). For example, Liu Jianguo, in Chinese would be Mr. Jianguo Liu using the Western style. Never call someone by only his or her last name."

http://www.protocolprofessionals.com/articles_china_print.htm

Cool.

 

[Han Patriot]

This is the 'holy grail' for the future nuclear submarines according to some western experts.


View attachment 413558



His surname Ma means 'Horse' in Chinese, many Chinese with this surname usually got some Muslim ancestry.

Maybe he got some Hui Muslim root traced back to his earlier ancestors.

Ma surname actually came from the name Mohammad, it was sinized to give early Muslims surnames.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Ma surname actually came from the name Mohammad, it was sinized to give early Muslims surnames.

He says that most of his students are now better than him.

If this is true, then it is going to be a sleepless night for some country.

 

[C130]

https://warisboring.com/chinas-quest-for-super-quiet-submarines-is-still-just-a-dream/

China’s Quest for Super-Quiet Submarines Is Still Just a Dream
Rim-driven pumpjets are stealthy but mechanically tricky

WIB SEA July 7, 2017 Dave Majumdar

China24 submarines18
If China’s rim-driven pumpjet propulsion technology works, it would be a significant advance for the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s undersea force.

In a recent article that appeared in the South China Morning Post, Beijing claims to have developed such a silent propulsion system—which some have compared to the so-called caterpillar-drive in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October.

With vastly improved acoustical performance, a new generation of advanced Chinese nuclear attack submarines could add another dimension to Beijing’s anti-access/area denial capabilities.

Further, new Chinese ballistic missile submarines hiding inside their heavily defended “bastions”—like the Soviet boomer fleet before them—would be much more difficult to detect and eliminate, greatly enhancing Beijing’s strategic nuclear deterrence.

But that’s only if China can build an operationally relevant rim-driven pumpjet propulsor. American naval analysts are mostly convinced that the new Chinese silent propulsion system is a science project that may never make it to sea.

“If it is well-built, a rim-driven pump jet would be a quieter propulsion system than traditional propellers, and could be quieter than shaft-driven pump jets like those on some U.S. submarines,” said Bryan Clark, a retired U.S. Navy undersea warfare officer and analyst the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“The question is whether the Chinese can build one with the fine machining necessary to achieve the degree of quieting possible. The article doesn’t address that. The basic technology is straightforward, but building a good one is hard. Manufacturing precision equipment like turbines has been a challenge for China’s shipbuilding industry.”


Retired U.S. Navy submariner Thomas Callender, a senior research fellow for defense programs at the Heritage Foundation and former director of capabilities at the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy for Policy agreed with Clark’s assessment.

“I agree that if engineers can develop a shaft-less rim-driven electric motor pump-jet, it would reduce the noise signature of the host submarine since without large traditional shaft with multiple bearings along its length (shaft must be long enough to connect propulsion motor inside the engine room to screw or pump-jet at the stern) and only having one bearing per pump-jet, the noise associated with the shaft would be reduced,” Callender told The National Interest in an email.

Above and at top–the Chinese ‘Jin’-class ballistic missile submarine. Photos via Chinese Internet
“In addition, since the propeller is not driven by a traditional steam propulsion turbine, but by an electric motor, there is no need for large reduction gear which reduces RPM of steam turbine (in 1000’s of RPM at higher speeds) to more efficient and quiet propeller speed (for submarine typically less than 200 rpm max).”

The improved quieting would also likely more than offset potential drawbacks such as a greater magnetic signature.

“A rim-driven pump jet would use an electric motor that is installed in the rim around the propulsor. Like any electric motor, it would generate a magnetic field. Because it’s outside the hull, it might be easier to detect with magnetic anomaly detection, but it could be designed to shield some of the field,” Clark said.

“It again comes down to how well they build the propulsion system. In any event, magnetic anomaly detection does not work at long ranges, and is not useful as a search capability. It is generally used to target a submarine once it has been located and tracked.”

While there are advantages to a rim-driven pumpjet, there also some serious potential drawbacks. One problem is that such motors may not be able to generate the horsepower to drive a massive nuclear submarine. “If China can put a well-built rim-driven pump jet on a submarine, the next question is how much thrust it provides,” Clark said.

“With submarine propulsion, one of the tradeoffs is quietness versus speed. Most changes to the propulsion architecture that reduce noise also reduce sprint speed. One of the concerns I have heard from engineers is whether a rim-driven pump jet can deliver the horsepower needed to reach high sprint speeds for torpedo evasion or repositioning.”

Callender noted that a single rim-driven pumpjet would probably be insufficient. The U.S. Navy’s forthcoming Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine will incorporate a permanent magnet electric drive propulsion—eschewing the traditional steam-driven propulsion turbine. The new propulsion system will be much quieter, Callender said, but it will come at the price of being enormous.

“The electric drive motor with sufficient power to drive Columbia SSBN will be extremely large, partially contributing to its 43-foot hull diameter,” Callender said. “For example, similar sized Ohio Class SSBN produced 60,000 shaft horsepower. Virginia SSN produces 40,000 shaft horsepower to power a submarine.”

Because of the sheer size and weight of the electrical motors, there are some size constraints that are inherent to a rim-mounted pumpjet.

“Bryan is correct and I agree that the most critical technical issue with the rimless electric motor pump-jet as the main propulsion for an SSN or SSBN is delivering sufficient power in size and weight limitations of a stern pump-jet,” Callender said.

“As you can imagine, a 40-foot diameter rimless pump-jet would not be practical (current propulsors are less than 20ft in diameter) from both a size and weight standpoint. Having a huge and heavy motor and pump-jet at the extreme stern would also make hull stability near impossible.”

As such, the Chinese would have to use multiple propulsors to design and build a practical submarine. “A more likely solution to incorporate a smaller rim-driven pump-jet (and therefore less power) would be to have multiple pump-jets located on the stabilizing stern fins (2 or more likely 4),” Callender said.

“But the issue of size and weight is still a huge engineering leap and would likely not incorporate more mature but heavy permanent magnet motors.”

Clark points out another potential problem even if the Chinese are able to solve all of the other technical issues. A rim-driven pumpjet would draw an enormous amount of electrical power and it is not clear that the Chinese can generate that kind of energy onboard their submarines.

“An electric propulsion system will be less efficient than traditional steam or diesel propulsion because the reactor or diesel generator is powering a generator that then powers a motor, compared to a diesel motor or steam turbine directly driving the shaft,” Clark said.

If the Chinese were to successfully develop and build a rim-driven pumpjet, there could be wider strategic implications.


A Chinese ‘Shang’-class nuclear-powered attack submarine. Photo via Chinese Internet
“If they have developed a genuinely silent drive for SSNs, though, they could use those boats as a free-range element of their A2/AD network: SSKs could form a relatively static defensive cordon closer to shore while SSNs roamed ahead in an effort to detect, track, and target oncoming U.S. Pacific Fleet or Seventh Fleet task forces (and to notify A2/AD forces to the rear of U.S. forces’ whereabouts),” James Holmes, professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, told The National Interest.

“SSNs thus could comprise a forward defense of China’s forward, layered maritime defense. And that leaves aside all of the more offensive uses for stealthy SSNs, such as forward operations in the Indian Ocean.”

The new propulsion system could also be a boon for the Chinese SSBN fleet, which like the Soviet boomer fleet, uses the so-called “Bastion” strategy.

“Propulsion machinery is at its quietest when running slowly, while SSBNs crawl along on patrol. SSBNs based at Sanya and fitted with newfangled propulsion plants could get underway, dive quickly, and dawdle out to their patrol grounds–keeping their acoustic signature, and thus chances of hostile detection, to a bare minimum. That would make the anti-submarine challenge for U.S. and allied forces daunting indeed. We would be hunting Chinese subs in China’s extended neighborhood, in proximity to an array of PLA A2/AD weaponry.”

However, there are plenty of indications that the Chinese rim-power pumpjet silent propulsion technology is overblown. In the SCMP article, author Minne Chan quotes Collin Koh Swee Lean, a submarine expert from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University as saying that: “In the long term, if the pump-jet propulsion is declared fully operational and tested successfully … future [Chinese] submarines would be equipped with pump-jet propulsion as a standard design feature.”

To Callender, that is an indication that the Chinese technology is still in the lab. “To me this means that the rimless pump-jet is still very much in the Science and Technology phase of development and not a near-term mature technology,” Callender said.

Ultimately, only time will tell if the new Chinese silent propulsion system proves to be genuine.

But some U.S. naval analysts believe the rim-driven pumpjet is simply Chinese propaganda. “I read this earlier this morning and concluded that the PLAN propaganda machine was busy on July 4th,” explained Bryan McGrath, managing director of the FerryBridge Group naval consultancy.

“Yes, something … if genuine. And there is no question in my mind that the undersea advantage we enjoy will come under increasing pressure from PLAN capabilities. But quieter that U.S. subs? No.”

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

https://warisboring.com/chinas-quest-for-super-quiet-submarines-is-still-just-a-dream/

Just like China creating the EMALS and AGG from scratch is also a pipe dream.

Another groundless sour grape article.

 

[C130]

Just like China creating the EMALS and AGG from scratch is also a pipe dream.

Another groundless sour grape article.

comparing this to EMALS. that's funny.

 

[pzkilo]

This is the 'holy grail' for the future nuclear submarines according to some western experts.


View attachment 413558



His surname Ma means 'Horse' in Chinese, many Chinese with this surname usually got some Muslim ancestry.

Maybe he got some Hui Muslim root traced back to his earlier ancestors.

Surname Ma has existed long time ago before muhammad borns, I know u were joking, but this is not funny at all.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Surname Ma has existed long time ago before muhammad borns, I know u were joking, but this is not funny at all.

Many sinicized Muslims were given the surname Ma, but the original folks with the surname of Ma was definitely Han Chinese.

Ma Weiming was born in the city of Yangzhong, near the vicinity of Shanghai. He is typical Eastern Han Chinese. If he was born in the Northwest China, then the chance of his Muslim ancestry will get higher.

I was joking, just like Jack Ma looks like a typical dude from South China, I don't think he could get any Hui Muslim ancestry.

comparing this to EMALS. that's funny.

The Type 095/096 are using it.

 

[pzkilo]

Ma surname actually came from the name Mohammad, it was sinized to give early Muslims surnames.

Accurately, “Some” of surname Ma came from the name Mohammad.

 

[Han Patriot]

Accurately, “Some” of surname Ma came from the name Mohammad.

Yes, that would be more accurate since not all Ma's are Muslim in origin.