Yuan Class AIP & Kilo Submarine Thread

[FairAndUnbiased]

It's not small enough to be unmanned. The technology to pilot an unmanned submarine has probably not been exhaustively experimented on a sub of that size. A loss due to an accident would be very expensive.

maybe a tiny crew of ~10 people would be sufficient with current automation. 2-3 sonar technicians, 1 weapons officer, 1 commander, 2-3 engineers, 2-3 regular crew... who else is needed?

A german 206 has a range of 4500 km surfaced and 420 km submerged at equal size and crew of 22. If you remove 25% of the bunks, rations and life support, you can put in another battery bank or more diesel/LOX you might get up to 600 km submerged which would be tactically useful.

 

[plawolf]

It's not small enough to be unmanned. The technology to pilot an unmanned submarine has probably not been exhaustively experimented on a sub of that size. A loss due to an accident would be very expensive.

Unmanned doesn’t have to equal disposable.

For something that sized, it will certainly be worth salvaging it if it was to have a mishap, assuming said mishap wasn’t catastrophic, which it shouldn’t be.

It would certainly be possible to mitigate and minimise the risks and costs from accidents by adding in features like high pressure rated watertight compartments to keep expensive parts safe in the event of a sinking until it can be recovered; and/or even just design most of the sub to be flooded normally to minimise the costs of construction.

As for being pioneering, well I think the PLAN has never been shy about being the first to do something. They will not go out of their way to reinvent the wheel just to be different, but where there is a need, they are certainly willing and able to lead the world. So I don’t really give much time to arguments along the lines of dismissing ideas just because no one else has done it before, as that is just following the racist western party line that China cannot innovate and can only copy.

 

[broadsword]

Unmanned doesn’t have to equal disposable.

For something that sized, it will certainly be worth salvaging it if it was to have a mishap, assuming said mishap wasn’t catastrophic, which it shouldn’t be.

It would certainly be possible to mitigate and minimise the risks and costs from accidents by adding in features like high pressure rated watertight compartments to keep expensive parts safe in the event of a sinking until it can be recovered; and/or even just design most of the sub to be flooded normally to minimise the costs of construction.

As for being pioneering, well I think the PLAN has never been shy about being the first to do something. They will not go out of their way to reinvent the wheel just to be different, but where there is a need, they are certainly willing and able to lead the world. So I don’t really give much time to arguments along the lines of dismissing ideas just because no one else has done it before, as that is just following the racist western party line that China cannot innovate and can only copy.

That should be very obvious just by looking at its size. 40-50 meters long. It's not going to cost just $100,000.

I think it's a jump to think of an unmanned sub of that size until we actually have a picture or video of one when we don't even have a video of an unmanned small ship of say 500 tonnes.

 

[plawolf]

That should be very obvious just by looking at its size. It's not going to cost just $100,000.

I think it's a jump to think of an unmanned sub of that size until we actually have a picture or video of one when we don't even have a video of an unmanned small ship of say 500 tonnes.

Prototypes don’t always scale up, sometimes it makes sense to scale down instead.

The main determining factor is cost and time, which in turn is largely driven by what’s available off the shelf.

If you were prototyping a new sub, it may make more sense to take off the shelf components and manufacturing facilities from existing SSKs than clean sheet everything from scratch.

If you want to repurpose as much existing tech and parts as possible, than that may well set a fairly large minimum practical size.

But I think we have gone as far as we can with what is currently available. We should get a better idea of what this is when better quality pictures emerge.

 

[Maikeru]

Mods, can we please merge all talk about the new sub here and on the PLAN News thread into a new, separate thread, as this sub is clearly not a Yuan or Kilo.

 

[sahureka]

Could this be a modified version of one of the three new projects: MS200, S600 and S1100, which form a new family of subterraneans presented as a model at the exhibition of the different Defense & Security 2017 in Bangkok?

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for example they have developed a larger version, modifying and moving the wing forward as in the S1100 project, that is an intermediate version instead of the S-600, which can be seen in the address attached above and in the video

MC200

 

[Tam]

Just from the top of my head, this new submarine seems like a prototype to me. It could lead to affirming technologies for the mentioned export classes or to a new PLAN submarine class.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Do we have any indications on the use of lithium ion batteries in Chinese SSKs? China has a world leading battery industry, so it seems outlandish to me that the PLAN wouldn't be interested in incorporating this technology.

 

[Maikeru]

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[sahureka]

it could also be an excellent alternative for many Latin American countries that currently operate with older submarines of German origin of the U-206 and U-209 class with the latter also supplied with Venezuela and Argentina with which China has excellent commercial relations