Chinese Submarine News

TomS said:
I've long wondered why no one has seriously tried this approach, with a small reactor tied to a generator to trickle-charge a large battery. The big challenge must be to come up with a compact reactor that does not require the large crew of a full-sized system. Probably we are looking at something akin to the new commercial small modular reactors.
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Probably because you need pretty much the same weight of shielding whether it's a sub-megawatt reactor or a gigawatt reactor.

The gamma and neutrons spit out by the reactor all take the same amount of shielding thickness to stop because they're all the same energy. All a bigger reactor does is make more counts per minute, which means the shielding is stopping more things but they all still take the same depth of shielding to stop individually.


Hood said:
Would such a plant be noisier than a Sterling engine?
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Depends on design.

It'll have a tonal from the generator, but a reactor designed the right way doesn't need pumps in the primary or in the secondary. The primary uses natural circulation (convection currents), and the secondary uses scoops to ram water through the steam condensers as the ship moves forward. Size your scoops right and you can creep along at bare steerageway without needing pumps. You'd only need seawater pumps while tied up at the pier. I'm pretty sure there's a way to design the secondary loop to not require condensate pumps, it may require the steam lines to be elevated above the steam generators.

Which leaves the only noise the plant makes is water boiling in the steam generators.

Also, most Diesel-Electric boats will have that generator tonal even when operating on batteries. Batteries store DC, all the electronics are fed AC. So subs have motor-generator sets to make many kilowatts of AC, and may have two different AC frequencies as well: 50 or 60 hertz for most things, and 400 hertz for things like radar and sonar (or anything else that needs super smooth power).
 
Scott Kenny said:
Which leaves the only noise the plant makes is water boiling in the steam generators.
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Well, you'd still need main feed pumps, lubricating oil pumps, and auxiliary seawater pumps at the minimum, although the latter two of course apply for any submarine regardless of propulsion. In regard to motor-generators, these days (Virginia/Astute and later) nuclear submarines are switching to solid-state power conversion.
 
Vepr157 said:
Well, you'd still need main feed pumps, lubricating oil pumps, and auxiliary seawater pumps at the minimum, although the latter two of course apply for any submarine regardless of propulsion. In regard to motor-generators, these days (Virginia/Astute and later) nuclear submarines are switching to solid-state power conversion.
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I think you can skip feed pumps with proper design, mounting the reactor as low as possible in the hull and putting the steam generators at the same level as the condensate trays.

Auxiliary seawater pumps can likely get away with scoops as well (with the caveat about needing pumps while pierside), I don't remember there being any on the Ohios.

Lube oil pumps are often driven directly off the item they lubricate, with only a backup electrical pump for coastdown.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I think you can skip feed pumps with proper design, mounting the reactor as low as possible in the hull and putting the steam generators at the same level as the condensate trays.
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Condensate pumps you could theoretically do away with (although that would be dicey on a submarine designed to pitch), but feed pumps are always going to be necessary to get the condensate/feed back up to boiler pressure. No way around it in the Rankine cycle.

Scott Kenny said:
I don't remember there being any on the Ohios.
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I'm pretty certain they do. It would be pretty hard to cool anything otherwise.

Scott Kenny said:
Lube oil pumps are often driven directly off the item they lubricate, with only a backup electrical pump for coastdown.
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Typically there is one AC LO pump for normal operation with a backup DC pump, no? I've never heard of a turbine or shaft bearing geared to an LO pump. (Granted the Virginia SSTGs don't need LO because they use magnetic bearings.)
 
Vepr157 said:
Condensate pumps you could theoretically do away with (although that would be dicey on a submarine designed to pitch), but feed pumps are always going to be necessary to get the condensate/feed back up to boiler pressure. No way around it in the Rankine cycle.


I'm pretty certain they do. It would be pretty hard to cool anything otherwise.


Typically there is one AC LO pump for normal operation with a backup DC pump, no? I've never heard of a turbine or shaft bearing geared to an LO pump. (Granted the Virginia SSTGs don't need LO because they use magnetic bearings.)
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It's honestly been way too long, it's been more than 20 years since I set foot on a boat.

But IMO the most important part of silencing this SSPn does is not have reduction gears attached to the prop. Electric motor drives screw at whatever speed directly. call it a 0-500rpm motor.
 

First Chinese Type 09V Nuclear Powered Attack Submarine Appears At Bohai​

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/02/chinese-type-09v-next-generation-ssn-appears-at-bohai/
Illustration by H.I. Sutton, reporting by Alex Luck based on higher resolution images that isn't cleared for publication. (yet)
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Relevant discourse published today by Blitzo/Rick Joe but with un/fortunate timing

https://thediplomat.com/2026/02/what-we-know-about-chinas-secretive-nuclear-submarine-fleet/
 
EmoBirb said:
So this is the Chinese equivalent for Virginia and Yasen-M?
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Physically its closer to a Seawolf, ~110m length x ~12m beam.
Operationally, it should be more of a Seawolf style ASW focused vessel instead of a cruise missile vls truck.
Acoustically, obvious caveats here but personally it wouldn't be absurd for it to be somewhere around a Seawolf or a bit better.

Blitzo's article, although speculative goes into a bit more detail and I defer to him.
 
vanishingelephant said:
Physically its closer to a Seawolf, ~110m length x ~12m beam.
Operationally, it should be more of a Seawolf style ASW focused vessel instead of a cruise missile vls truck.
Acoustically, obvious caveats here but personally it wouldn't be absurd for it to be somewhere around a Seawolf or a bit better.

Blitzo's article, although speculative goes into a bit more detail and I defer to him.
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I don't think it'll be as quiet as a Seawolf. 688i or Virginia Flt1, maybe.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I don't think it'll be as quiet as a Seawolf. 688i or Virginia Flt1, maybe.
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It should be much better, 093B already reaches 688i or better. 095 being a generational leap over any 093B with a turboelectric drive to eliminate reduction gearbox noise and a much larger hull than Virginia for more damping and being generally just a 20 year newer design should ensure parity to the latest US designs atleast if not better.
 
EmoBirb said:
Seawolf was quieter than Virginia?
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Yes, all the silencing is expensive. The Virginias were a lot cheaper to build.


Tomboy said:
It should be much better, 093B already reaches 688i or better. 095 being a generational leap over any 093B with a turboelectric drive to eliminate reduction gearbox noise and a much larger hull than Virginia for more damping and being generally just a 20 year newer design should ensure parity to the latest US designs atleast if not better.
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That only applies if the design, build quality, and crew training is up to par.

The design may or may not be there. As I understand it, there's a lot of black magic about how to really get something quiet. Stuff that is carried in the heads of the workers, not on the design documents.

The build quality has the potential to be there. There are Chinese companies that do really care to do the job right.

And crew training is not up to par. The Chinese finally have subs quiet enough that crew sound discipline is starting to matter. But they have not had entire chains of command serving on said subs for their entire careers constantly aware of sound discipline.
 
Scott Kenny said:
That only applies if the design, build quality, and crew training is up to par.

The design may or may not be there. As I understand it, there's a lot of black magic about how to really get something quiet. Stuff that is carried in the heads of the workers, not on the design documents.

The build quality has the potential to be there. There are Chinese companies that do really care to do the job right.

And crew training is not up to par. The Chinese finally have subs quiet enough that crew sound discipline is starting to matter. But they have not had entire chains of command serving on said subs for their entire careers constantly aware of sound discipline.
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Can't comment on the crew but the design is expected to be more advanced than Virginias at the very least. If not, there'll be little reason to design and build something like this.
 
Tomboy said:
Can't comment on the crew but the design is expected to be more advanced than Virginias at the very least. If not, there'll be little reason to design and build something like this.
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Gotta learn to design it somewhere.

I think you could get away with smaller pieces of equipment iterating on the diesel boats, but the big reactor stuff is only iterating on the nuclear boats.
 
Regardless, the point still stands, how can one possibly say the 095 will not be as quiet as whatever american sub when all you've seen is a grainy satellite image, and the 095 is not even in sea trials yet? That's just ridiculous.
 
lancer21 said:
Regardless, the point still stands, how can one possibly say the 095 will not be as quiet as whatever american sub when all you've seen is a grainy satellite image, and the 095 is not even in sea trials yet? That's just ridiculous.
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As I understood him he bases it off the fact that while the submarine itself may have reached a comparable point, a lot comes also down to practice, crew, reactor related things. Basically a lot of it is institutional and China had less SSN generations to iterate and perfect their nuclear propulsion unlike to US (or Russia I'd suspect), which had a lot of hands on experience.

But maybe I'm misinterpreting what he said.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Gotta learn to design it somewhere.

I think you could get away with smaller pieces of equipment iterating on the diesel boats, but the big reactor stuff is only iterating on the nuclear boats.
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That's literally the job of 093Bs, it's not simply just a stopgap but also service as testbed for 09V technology.
 
EmoBirb said:
How so? It could be a leap over 093B while still not being a leap over the latest Virginias. I personally think unlike their surface fleet, it's a lot harder to gauge where PLAN Submarines stand right now.
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It's strange for PLAN to commit to a design that will not defeat USN ASW for the foreseeable future. It's been a long time since a completely new SSN was designed for the PLAN, considering where Chinese precision manufacturing and nuclear technology are, it's very likely for 09V to be on parity if not better than Virginias which are a nearly 30 year old design by now.
 
Tomboy said:
It's strange for PLAN to commit to a design that will not defeat USN ASW for the foreseeable future. It's been a long time since a completely new SSN was designed for the PLAN, considering where Chinese precision manufacturing and nuclear technology are, it's very likely for 09V to be on parity if not better than Virginias which are a nearly 30 year old design by now.
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I understand your point, but you're also suggesting that the Virginia didn't evolve during it's lifetime, when one should assume that each individual Block improved the design in key aspects. One doesn't have to claim the Chinese submarine force to be impotent to consider that the US may still have some major advantages. Especially when it comes to soft factors, like experience in operation, maintenance and the likes.
 
Tomboy said:
It's strange for PLAN to commit to a design that will not defeat USN ASW for the foreseeable future. It's been a long time since a completely new SSN was designed for the PLAN, considering where Chinese precision manufacturing and nuclear technology are, it's very likely for 09V to be on parity if not better than Virginias which are a nearly 30 year old design by now.
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This ship doesn't need to surpass the Virginia etc to be effective. Hell, if it even ends up operating as well as 688i, it will cause problems.
 
Tomboy said:
It's strange for PLAN to commit to a design that will not defeat USN ASW for the foreseeable future. It's been a long time since a completely new SSN was designed for the PLAN, considering where Chinese precision manufacturing and nuclear technology are, it's very likely for 09V to be on parity if not better than Virginias which are a nearly 30 year old design by now.
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I'm sorry, but this is completely illogical. Your reasoning implies that if the Chinese Navy determined that it could not match the U.S. Navy, it would abandon submarines altogether, which I am certain is not the case.

People need to stop wildly speculating in this thread based on the near-zero knowledge we have on Chinese nuclear submarines in the public sphere. Any suggestions that they are better or worse than X western design are not grounded in any actual information.
 
EmoBirb said:
I understand your point, but you're also suggesting that the Virginia didn't evolve during it's lifetime, when one should assume that each individual Block improved the design in key aspects. One doesn't have to claim the Chinese submarine force to be impotent to consider that the US may still have some major advantages. Especially when it comes to soft factors, like experience in operation, maintenance and the likes.
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For long production run classes like VA, it is often useful to have a mental benchmark between boats of different eras/production batches.

As for the capability, or "relative capability" of PLAN SSNs, the secrecy of the topic makes it a difficult conversation to have even for more open navies, and next to impossible for the PLAN unless one wants to compare notes on where they think PRC requisite industrial and technological bases are for relevant domains/subsystems and to have a serious chat about the Chinese language PLA watching grapevine... and even then obviously it'll be highly conditional.
 
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I think in this instance context matters. The daily mail is a UK journal of dubious reliability and value. To me this reads more like a piece meant to scare the (british) readers that "soon the Chinese will sail through the channel" when so far China never had even publicly thought about military excursions into the North Sea. There's not much in for them, unlike the economic opportunities presented by the Arctic.

I personally believe the only time you'll hear about Chinese destroyers or submarines in the North Sea in the next decades will be when they're conducting a joint exercise with the Russian Northern Fleet. But otherwise it seems highly unlikely.

A Navy and the Chinese Navy in particular is nowadays mostly meant to protect the globe spanning economic interests of a country. That's why China has a presence in Africa and is partaking in anti-piracy. Because the PLAN protects the economic interest of the PRC. And unless the UK starts to sink or board Chinese ships entering and leaving European ports, I don't think the PLAN will be deployed in any meaningful way in the North Sea.

I hope my position can now be understood a bit better.
 
lancer21 said:
Regardless, the point still stands, how can one possibly say the 095 will not be as quiet as whatever american sub when all you've seen is a grainy satellite image, and the 095 is not even in sea trials yet? That's just ridiculous.
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And yet one can say it will be by looking at the same pictures. :rolleyes:
 

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