New sailless SSN (provisional)

Tomboy said:

I do then wonder how is the pressure hull designed, Oscars had a circular pressure hull with side sponsons of missile launchers all wrapped into a single fat outer hull. If this new submarine has a similar design than it would likely only have VLS on the side, however if it were to have a single large oval pressure hull you could actually have VLS cells across the entire beam. Though that will likely cause structural and weight issues and limit maximum depth which may or may not be important depending on the exact role.

It is also probably important to note that the Oscars were huge twin screw, twin reactor subs, if this thing wants any semblance of speed, it'll likely also adopted a similar propulsion arrangement as the Oscar class. Return of the twin screw subs?

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valysre said:

How does a submarine prevent rolling without a sail? Esp when turning, it is easy to imagine that the submarine might roll without a rather heavy ballast or perhaps actively managed ballast (i.e. pumping between compartments to compensate) but that might be rather loud.

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latenlazy said:

Hmm, what if the Bohai mystery sub is a lengthened variant of the 09V. I'd suppose variations off a standard 09V for different mission specializations are not impossible.

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Blitzo said:

Depends on what the actual diameter is for the Bohai sub

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tphuang said:

the only reason I can think of having it so long is a very large mission module, whether it's large VLS farm or some kind of UUV section or both. Probably not used in an attack sub role. Maybe if it is a double hull sub, then it's close to the inner hull of 093B to reduce risks and allowing for earlier mass production. If it doesn't need to be quietest sub with high speed requirement, then using 093B sized pressure hull could be okay.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

The problem here is why would "underwater missile trucks" i.e. SSGNs have a smaller hull diameter? Shouldn't they be having similar (if not larger) hull diameters than the "pure-blood" SSNs in order to fit missile tubes that would carry longer and larger-sized anti-ship and land-attack missiles instead? Using a smaller hull diameter could/would inevitably lead to the need for a turtleback design (which is an unavoidable feature on SSBNs, but rather unfavorable on SSNs/SSGNs).

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dom146352 said:

I think an arsenal submarine makes sense. The payload fraction of ballistic/cruse missiles goes from roughly 20% -> 10% -> 5% for ranges of 1600km, 5000km, 10000km. A 5000km range missile on a moving platform is awkward as the total operational cost of a platform plus the munition for payload delivered at range would be similar cost for a 10000km range ballistic/cruise in a silo/TEL, which can hit anywhere relevant in the world from China. For a conventional warhead a moving platform with a shorter range missile makes sense.

A low cost nuclear submarine built to the 20/80 principal focusing on payload delivered to cost ratio with cheap sensors, low crew numbers and reasonable sound levels would be effective and also increase the effectiveness of the navy's other weapon platforms. The key Idea of an arsenal submarine compared to a SSGN is operating as a team. A carrier battle group with 1 aircraft carrier, 4 destroyers, 2 frigates, 2 attack submarines will have their individual capabilities improved by the addition of an arsenal submarine. The destroyers can remove any cruise/ballistic missiles from their VLS and focus entirely on air and missile defense, the attack submarines can likewise also remove their cruise/ballistic missiles they can also forgo VLS tubes and instead dedicate more internal volume to torpedoes. The attack submarines and frigates will keep the carrier battle group safe from other submarines and the aircraft carrier's fighters will keep the air clear from ASW, from this safe bubble sat 2000km from shore the arsenal submarine can move up 1000-1300 km to the shore and launch it's weapons.

From the rumors in this thread i sketched out a design of arsenal submarine based on the typhoon class submarine, at 1.5 billion dollars this should have lower cost per VLS than attritable unmanned small vessels:

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valysre said:

How does a submarine prevent rolling without a sail? Esp when turning, it is easy to imagine that the submarine might roll without a rather heavy ballast or perhaps actively managed ballast (i.e. pumping between compartments to compensate) but that might be rather loud.

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Lethe said:

As described by @Tomboy, large missiles could be mounted outside a smaller pressure hull. The wreck of the ill-fated submarine Kursk (R.I.P.) illustrates:

View attachment 176077

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