09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread

[latenlazy]

HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT, GEOINT, MASINT, are just some of the methods, and there are probably more. As for your claim US intelligence agencies are no better than rumors on public forums, that's a counterintuitive claim. Can you explain why you believe that? And do you think it's peculiar to US intelligence agencies or it's the case with all agencies, including the Communist Party intel services?

Keep in mind that ONI is not the entirety of US intelligence, or even the most informed of the US's various intelligence agencies. In the grand scheme of the US's intelligence establishment it's somewhat peripheral. Furthermore, all intelligence reports will involve some kind of speculation in the face of imperfect and incomplete information, so you can't take everything on a report at face value. They're not free of inferences which must be examined and assessed. That said, what we are disputing over isn't even an intelligence report. It's a white paper for public consumption. It's probably not even written by people who have intimate knowledge of the subjects they're only summarily and lightly covering.

Also keep in mind USCC reports aren't intelligence reports. I know people who know people who've worked for the commission, and they're not privy to any special information not available to the public. If the USCC white papers corroborate with the ONI white papers, it's because the former uses the latter as a citation (pay attention to their references).

That said, even putting the question of how useful ONI reports are aside, keep in mind that China frequently surprises the US with its military developments. That's for a reason. The US intelligence establishment is vast and capable, but it's not omniscient, and it's certainly not infallible. Countries like China, Iran, and NK are rather opaque to the US, especially since the lack of cultural affinity and familiarity creates barriers in HUMINT, and so much of good intelligence work leans on HUMINT being at least the starting point for other methods (I would be willing to wager a lot of money that Taiwan's intelligence community has a much better picture of the China's technological progress for these exact reasons). Furthermore, when trying to collect intelligence from large bodies, the same problems we have as hobby observers trying to figure out the reliability of different sources also comes into play for actual intelligence work. Even insider informants, intercepted signals, or hacked databases won't ensure the information you collect will be relevant or accurate. That person working in a cubicle in the DIA or CIA with reems of collected information may or may not have more to work with than we do, but they are, all the same, as beholden to the whims of inference and interpretation as we are. That's just the nature of intelligence work.

 

[latenlazy]

I'd also like to add that intelligence work is always particularly vulnerable to factors of obsolescence. For example, if you collect information that suggests one set of capabilities for some hardware, but a year later there's been some kind of technical breakthrough that upgrades those capabilities and you don't pick up that new information, you might assume there have been no updates when in fact there have. This is why we should never treat specific intelligence as definitive if we don't know where it's from or how it was collected, even from professional sources. Our certainty can only be thrown as far as a "last I heard" basis. Belief is *always* conditional, and it's important to always be aware of what those specific conditions are, so that the effects those conditions have on accuracy can be effectively weighed and considered.

Ironically (or not) it's for these reasons that so many of us have the confidence we do that forum leaks and rumours from certain sources are reliable to certain extents for certain matters. In terms of information quality, it matters a lot less whether the content is from a seedy Chinese forum or a professional US white paper, and a lot more whether sources are consistent and withstand a test of their claims. Frequency of updates help a lot in this regard, because in addition to generating new testable claims, it shows that whatever pipeline a source is tapping for information, they're access is still operative. This is also why you're starting to see professionals (at least outside the intel community proper) tap these sources (and us) too.

 

[weig2000]

I'd also like to add that intelligence work is always particularly vulnerable to factors of obsolescence. For example, if you collect information that suggests one set of capabilities for some hardware, but a year later there's been some kind of technical breakthrough that upgrades those capabilities and you don't pick up that new information, you might assume there have been no updates when in fact there have. This is why we should never treat specific intelligence as definitive if we don't know where it's from or how it was collected, even from professional sources. Our certainty can only be thrown as far as a "last I heard" basis. Belief is *always* conditional, and it's important to always be aware of what those specific conditions are, so that the effects those conditions have on accuracy can be effectively weighed and considered.

Ironically (or not) it's for these reasons that so many of us have the confidence we do that forum leaks and rumours from certain sources are reliable to certain extents for certain matters. In terms of information quality, it matters a lot less whether the content is from a seedy Chinese forum or a professional US white paper, and a lot more whether sources are consistent and withstand a test of their claims. Frequency of updates help a lot in this regard, because in addition to generating new testable claims, it shows that whatever pipeline a source is tapping for information, they're access is still operative. This is also why you're starting to see professionals (at least outside the intel community proper) tap these sources (and us) too.

In this era of smartphones, social media and citizen journalists, the idea of intelligence is being transformed, or at least needs to be updated. The CIA and other western (or non-western) intelligence agencies may have large budget, large numbers of professionals, as well as many high-tech facilities and equipment, they may not always outmatch the tens of thousands of foot soldiers, part-time analysts who collectively can gather a lot more data points, corroborate each other and update in near real-time. It's a lot like the software industry where the open-source software is gradually winning over the commercial software in many areas (not all areas), with quality, features and timely releases, plus a large and vibrant support community in many cases. Call it crowd sourcing, crowd wisdom or indeed crowd intelligence if you like.

In the past, I have found many of the Chinese military reports published by the US agencies have either erroneous or outdated information, at least compared to what we've known or widely discussed here at SDF for some times. While I certainly am not suggesting the intelligence community is useless or incompetent, its' certainly hard to accept they have clear edge in every aspects over the open-source community with many dedicated users and members such as SDF or similar forums.

 

[Quickie]

Vibration dampening tech on highspeed rail

I think this is also relevant. Precision engineering helps to reduce noise and vibration by way of better fit in the moving parts of the machinery like the gears, piston, flywheels etc.

 

[latenlazy]

In this era of smartphones, social media and citizen journalists, the idea of intelligence is being transformed, or at least needs to be updated. The CIA and other western (or non-western) intelligence agencies may have large budget, large numbers of professionals, as well as many high-tech facilities and equipment, they may not always outmatch the tens of thousands of foot soldiers, part-time analysts who collectively can gather a lot more data points, corroborate each other and update in near real-time. It's a lot like the software industry where the open-source software is gradually winning over the commercial software in many areas (not all areas), with quality, features and timely releases, plus a large and vibrant support community in many cases. Call it crowd sourcing, crowd wisdom or indeed crowd intelligence if you like.

In the past, I have found many of the Chinese military reports published by the US agencies have either erroneous or outdated information, at least compared to what we've known or widely discussed here at SDF for some times. While I certainly am not suggesting the intelligence community is useless or incompetent, its' certainly hard to accept they have clear edge in every aspects over the open-source community with many dedicated users and members such as SDF or similar forums.

I'd caveat that the intelligence community doesn't publish everything it knows for obvious reasons. What they do publish for public consumption is usually second rate information that's not always regularly updated (Remember the point about obsolescence. Always check the date on any piece of infromarion. Intelligence is time sensitive).

More data points aren't automatically better either. Having smartphones everwhere won't always help you get information from inside a meeting, test room, or a computer database (yes, everyone probably carries smartphones into meetings, but if they share information it's because they volunteer it, not because they have smartphones). If you review the ways we get information here, crowdsourced information often acts more as visual or on the ground confirmation for things insiders share with us months if not years earlier. That's where some of the more serious professional intelligence agencies are still more capable than anything anyone can do with crowdsourcing (I would exclude ONI from this). One of their functions, after all, is collection from deeply embedded sources. I wouldn't sell them short, even if what they make available to the public isn't always reliable.

 

[weig2000]

I'd caveat that the intelligence community doesn't publish everything it knows for obvious reasons. What they do publish for public consumption is usually second rate information that's not always regularly updated (Remember the point about obsolescence. Always check the date on any piece of infromarion. Intelligence is time sensitive).

More data points aren't automatically better either. Having smartphones everwhere won't always help you get information from inside a meeting, test room, or a computer database (yes, everyone probably carries smartphones into meetings, but if they share information it's because they volunteer it, not because they have smartphones). If you review the ways we get information here, crowdsourced information often acts more as visual or on the ground confirmation for things insiders share with us months if not years earlier. That's where some of the more serious professional intelligence agencies are still more capable than anything anyone can do with crowdsourcing (I would exclude ONI from this). One of their functions, after all, is collection from deeply embedded sources. I wouldn't sell them short, even if what they make available to the public isn't always reliable.

I've put enough caveats in my post to guard against any misunderstanding that I might suggest in the slightest sense that intelligence community is less capable than crowd intelligence overall. I was also fully aware that the published reports are usually "sanitized" version - in fact I was thinking about putting that caveat in the post.

That being said, my originally message holds, despite your and my caveats. When it comes to Chinese defense developments, my better reference is actually not SDF, which consists mostly second-hand information (yet it is still better than my of the intelligence analysts). I was more thinking about Chinese sources. I expounded the ideas in the past in SDF. I'll just leave it as that.

 

[Blackstone]

Keep in mind that ONI is not the entirety of US intelligence, or even the most informed of the US's various intelligence agencies. In the grand scheme of the US's intelligence establishment it's somewhat peripheral. Furthermore, all intelligence reports will involve some kind of speculation in the face of imperfect and incomplete information, so you can't take everything on a report at face value. They're not free of inferences which must be examined and assessed. That said, what we are disputing over isn't even an intelligence report. It's a white paper for public consumption. It's probably not even written by people who have intimate knowledge of the subjects they're only summarily and lightly covering.

Also keep in mind USCC reports aren't intelligence reports. I know people who know people who've worked for the commission, and they're not privy to any special information not available to the public. If the USCC white papers corroborate with the ONI white papers, it's because the former uses the latter as a citation (pay attention to their references).

That said, even putting the question of how useful ONI reports are aside, keep in mind that China frequently surprises the US with its military developments. That's for a reason. The US intelligence establishment is vast and capable, but it's not omniscient, and it's certainly not infallible. Countries like China, Iran, and NK are rather opaque to the US, especially since the lack of cultural affinity and familiarity creates barriers in HUMINT, and so much of good intelligence work leans on HUMINT being at least the starting point for other methods (I would be willing to wager a lot of money that Taiwan's intelligence community has a much better picture of the China's technological progress for these exact reasons). Furthermore, when trying to collect intelligence from large bodies, the same problems we have as hobby observers trying to figure out the reliability of different sources also comes into play for actual intelligence work. Even insider informants, intercepted signals, or hacked databases won't ensure the information you collect will be relevant or accurate. That person working in a cubicle in the DIA or CIA with reems of collected information may or may not have more to work with than we do, but they are, all the same, as beholden to the whims of inference and interpretation as we are. That's just the nature of intelligence work.

On the nuclear sub noise levels, it comes down to if US intelligence sources are more believable than public forums, and I say the former. Those that think the latter is more reliable have the God given right to do so.

 

[latenlazy]

On the nuclear sub noise levels, it comes down to if US intelligence sources are more believable than public forums, and I say the former. Those that think the latter is more reliable have the God given right to do so.

You should stop trying to hide behind the "US intelligence sources" moniker. ONI is not the CIA or the DIA or the NSA. They have an old chart in a public white paper they haven't updated making claims about the noise level of one submarine that has received updates since the publishing of the chart, while also making noise level claims of another submarine that hasn't even been revealed yet. That's what you're trying to pin your confidence on. Forums may not be perfect, but appeal to authority doesn't have more credibility than basic logic. And if the public nature of some claim makes it suspect, just fyi both forums and the ONI chart are public.

 

[vesicles]

On the nuclear sub noise levels, it comes down to if US intelligence sources are more believable than public forums, and I say the former. Those that think the latter is more reliable have the God given right to do so.

Aside from the actual ability of the US intelligence to gather complete info on PLAN sub noise, you are also assuming the US intelligence community will faithfully provide all the highly classified info to the public. The fact of the matter is that they will never do such thing.

So they will do two possible things: (1) underestimate Chinese subs capabilities to the public. This would most likely be aimed at hiding what they actually know. (2) overestimate China's capabilities. This is most likely to convince lawmakers to give them more funding. The apparent miscalculation also serves the purpose of hiding their own detecting capabilities and possible secret detecting posts, etc. I'm sure the PLAN also does decoy sub missions to explore the detection capabilities and possible listening posts of the USN. Actually releasing true intelligence by the USN might expose their own capabilities.

So I would say the chances of the US intelligence reporting true capabilities of the PLAN is slim. Keep in mind that we are talking about spy games here. No one will tell you the truth.

 

[Blackstone]

You should stop trying to hide behind the "US intelligence sources" moniker. ONI is not the CIA or the DIA or the NSA. They have an old chart in a public white paper they haven't updated making claims about the noise level of one submarine that has received updates since the publishing of the chart, while also making noise level claims of another submarine that hasn't even been revealed yet. That's what you're trying to pin your confidence on. Forums may not be perfect, but appeal to authority doesn't have more credibility than basic logic. And if the public nature of some claim makes it suspect, just fyi both forums and the ONI chart are public.

Reasonable people would believe ONI's publicly release submarine noise chart isn't all the intelligence it has, and it likely knows far more, especially when one considers US intelligence agencies share information regularly. That aside, there isn't much doubt ONI's publicly info is far, far better sourced than Internet forums and blogs, even quality ones like SDF and Henry K's Eastern Pendulum.