In Through The Out Door

Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory claim to have come up with a better tool for underwater acoustics. The new system uses laser light to create sound underwater from a distance. This technology could allow planes a much easier method of communicating with submarines without the need for a floating buoy. “Efficient conversion of light into sound can be achieved by concentrating the light sufficiently to ionize a small amount of water, which then absorbs laser energy and superheats. The result is a small explosion of steam, which can generate a 220 decibel pulse of sound. Optical properties of water can be manipulated with very intense laser light to act like a focusing lens, allowing nonlinear self-focusing (NSF) to take place. In addition, the slightly different colors of the laser, which travel at different speeds in water due to group velocity dispersion (GVD), can be arranged so that the pulse also compresses in time as it travels through water, further concentrating the light. By using a combination of GVD and NSF, controlled underwater compression of optical pulses can be attained.

[From Navy Scientists Develop Laser For Underwater Communication ]

This is kind of an interesting piece of news. If you remember, a lot of hoopla came out when US naval intelligence said that China only conducted 2 submarine patrols in 2006. There was a lot of discussion on what defined a patrol after that came out. As the article below states, Chinese submarine activity increased exponentially this year.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China nearly doubled the number of patrols by its fleet of attack submarines last year, surpassing Russia but still far behind the United States, the Federation of American Scientists reported Tuesday.

The report, based on declassified information provided by US naval intelligence, said Chinese attack submarines conducted 12 patrols in 2008, compared to seven in 2007, two in 2006 and none in 2005.

“While the increase in submarine patrols is important, it has to be seen in comparison with the size of the Chinese submarine fleet,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the organization’s nuclear information project.

“With approximately 54 submarines, the patrol rate means that each submarine on average goes on patrol once every four and a half years,” he said.

The patrols may have been carried out by just the most modern and capable types of submarines in the Chinese fleet, the report said, noting that a new class of nuclear-powered Shang-class attack submarines is replacing the aging Han-class.

In an interview, Kristensen said the information, although sketchy, was a window into how Chinese naval operations are changing as it builds up its forces.

“We don’t know where they went or for how long. But it certainly seems to be a new mission. They have been very modest in their patrols in the past,” he said.

“The fact that from one year to another they have doubled their patrols seems that they have something new to do,” he said.

“It could be, as we’ve heard for the last four years or so, an attempt to expand their naval defense barrier further eastward into the Pacific,” he said.

In comparison with other major navies, a dozen patrols a year “are not much,” the report said.

“The patrol rate of the US attack submarine fleet, which is focused on long-range patrols and probably operate regularly near the Chinese coast, is much higher with each submarine conducting at least one extended patrol per year,” it said.

“But the Chinese patrol rate is higher than that of the Russian navy, which in 2008 conducted only seven attack submarine patrols, the same as in 2007,” it said.

China has yet to conduct a single patrol by a ballistic missile submarine, according to the report.

“The old Xia, China’s first SSBN, completed a multi-year overhaul in late-2007 but did not sail on patrol in 2008,” it said.

“Neither the Xia-class (Type-092) ballistic missile submarine nor the new Jin-class (Type-094) have ever conducted a deterrent patrol,” it said.

[From Chinese Submarine Patrol increase in 2008]

This story from Reuters-India tells us that Russian President Medvedev is talking up the possibility of leasing not only the ill-fated Nerpa but ‘several’ Project-971 submarines to India, for 10-year leases. Although there isn’t any press on India’s response to this – the Nerpa deal was on, off, on, etc. after the recent accident – it’s got to be tempting, as Galrahn reminded us earlier. It’s a way to get into a serious nuclear submarine force for much less money and time than would required to build it domestically; and if they do decide to go the domestic route for attack boats (in addition to the oft-discussed ATV likely-SSBN) the lease deals would provide an excellent means to acquire a trained nuc cadre. It would also allow for quick acquisition of escorts capable of keeping up with the ATV when she goes to sea on deployment. [From Russia pushes India SSN lease deal]

The New York Times has published an editorial on funding the Pentagon in the coming years, along with specific recommendations on various big-name Pentagon procurement programs. I won’t repeat their recommendations here, since you can easily read them at the link above, but wanted to touch on a few of them.

They recommend canceling the Virginia-class submarine (SSN-774) program, and instead spending money to ‘extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet.’ They further claim that this decision would produce net savings of $2.5 billion. Given that they describe the Virginias as costing $2 billion each, recommending that the U.S. put off the replacement of a submarine force which is already aging and which was acquired initially at a high rate, meaning that it will leave service at the same high rate, for savings amounting to little more than the cost of one of the current boats seems foolish to me. Also, given that the Virginia is one of the few programs which does in fact appear to be roughly on budget and on time, the message this would send appears counterproductive.

They recommend cancelling DD-1000 (unsurprisingly) but explicitly choose to do so in order to favor funding the LCS acquisition. I’m not sure I should even bother going into that here – and I won’t. I’m sure Galrahn and Yankee Sailor will chime in if they think anything even needs to be said. They want to cut a CVBG (at least one) and offer straight-ahead acquisition cost numbers to justify this.

Their general positions is made explicitly clear on page 2, where they call for reductions in the Navy and Air Force in order to fund needed increases in ground forces. Especially for the Times, this seems odd – since the primary cause of those ‘necessary increases’ is ground wars which they have been unabashedly critical of in the past. They also seem quite sure that the U.S. Navy’s current blue-water dominance is something which can be confidently assumed to continue into the near to medium future, even with said reductions in ship procurement. I would argue instead that while ground forces are a possible reaction to events which affect the U.S. overseas, access to those locations is a prerequisite, and the Navy is what buys the U.S. that access. Furthermore, the Navy is much more about the classic defense of the United States’ sovereign territory than the Army. The Army exists in present day to enforce U.S. foreign policy, even if that policy is in ‘defense’ of the United States. However, in order to perform classic defense of the U.S., you need to prevent intrusion onto the U.S, its territories and those of its core allies. That is done not, in fact, by an expanded Army, but by a strong and ready Navy and Air Force. Claiming that an expanded ground force is the primary means of defense of the United States is to state that either the U.S. has thrown away its traditional advantages of sea power and would prefer to engage enemies after they have come ashore, or that a vigorous prosecution of foreign interventions is now critical to U.S. core defense. While the latter may be possible, it runs counter to much of what the Times has spent a great deal of time claiming.

For this post, I would offer the opinion that for the moment, improving the efficiency, predictability and reliability of U.S. weapons procurement will offer much more valuable savings as well as more assets than a hasty attempt to control total procurement dollars by cutting large programs for their acquisition cost savings. Although I don’t presently know the answer, I would be much more inclined to listen to calls for extending the 688 boats vs. funding 774s if there was any evidence presented that the operating costs (as opposed to simply the acquisition total costs) would be lower. None is forthcoming.

Snarkily selected image is a Victor-III being dismantled. Har, har, ‘cut submarine,’ I’m such a card. [From The Grey Lady Weighs In]

There are some fresh details on the Russian submarine accident TheCustodian covered last night. According to several news reports this morning, seventeen of the dead were employees of the Amur Ship-Building Enterprise while only three were sailors. The government released a list of 20 names this morning, all were Russian. While the name of the submarine has not been officially released, it is almost certainly the Akula II submarine Nerpa that recently went to sea for trials and is widely expected to be “leased” to India.

While it is still unclear what kind of gas was involved, the cause of a gas discharge from the fire extinguishing systems appears to be the official story. Much of the speculation this morning in Russia is questioning whether there were enough oxygen masks for everyone on board and whether this was the deciding factor regarding the number of deaths. According to news reports, there were 208 people on board, three times the number that normally serve on an Akula II submarine.

This news report from RussiaToday, in English, is also a useful 5 minute video for getting a feel of the official reporting.

[From Update on Russian Submarine Accident]

Rear Adm. (sel.) Mark Kenny, director of the new Navy Irregular Warfare Office, told the Submarine Naval League Symposium in Virginia last week that the SSGNs are being sent “where al Qaeda is at…it’s that simple” according to an article in Defense Daily (subscription) this morning.

“The first two deployments, the Ohio and Florida, were groundbreaking deployments,” he said at the Naval Submarine League Symposium in McLean, Va. “The ships work as advertised, brought home the bacon. And I wish I could give you the briefs in detail, because they are eye-watering…”

“These ships are the Navy’s premiere counterterrorism tool, no doubt about it,” Kenny said. He added that’s the view of “those that lead this fight”–officers such as Special Operations Command leader Adm. Eric Olson–as well as the intelligence community.

We recently observed the USS Ohio (SSGN 726) with two dry deck shelters, which one would imply that there were at least two special operations teams aboard. The article goes on to the discuss unmanned systems in development for the SSGN, including submarine versions of the Sea Stalker and the Boeing ScanEagle, to improve ISR capabilities.

The SSGN has an advantage over aircraft because it has both the intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR) and strike capabilities, he said, and doesn’t need permission from other nations to take off and land.

If you have read here long, you should already be aware that it is the submarine force quietly leading from the front lines for the Navy. Good to see the submariners get some credit. However, ADM Kenny should have stopped while he was ahead.

He added that the SSGN can fill the gap in surface-fire support created by the planned truncation of the DDG-1000 destroyer line.

Sigh. ADM, stick to irregular warfare, that last comment drove a Marine sitting 20 feet from my desk to use his outside voice indoors, and when you remove the colorful adjectives of his comment it goes something like “that guy knows nothing about fire support.” Maybe you were making an important point, but the Tomahawk Cruise Missile is not fire support, and if that is what you are talking about I will agree with the Marines. [From The Navy's Premiere Counterterrorism Tool]

Medvedev observes first-ever test-launch of Russian SLBM

There are a few photo’s out from Chinese BBS worth noting. The first appears to be the Fourth Yuan class submarine being rolled out at Wuhan. Click for better resolution.

Also interesting is this picture from CCTV of two nuclear submarines, what the TV is calling Type 091s. They don’t look like Type 091s to me, and I looked around and crobato from the Sino Defence Forum doesn’t think so either. Some bloggers in China are calling it a Type 091 mod III, while others are calling it an early version of the Type 093. Hard to tell.

Very interesting anyway. [From PLAN Submarine Update]

South Korea launched its third Type 214 submarine last week. While it is often noted the quantity of naval growth taking place in China and India, we continue to observe both growth and quality in the naval forces being produced by South Korea. The addition of Type 214s to the naval mix by South Korea is not a small thing, while not often discussed, the quality of ASW capabilities by North Korea

[From South Korea Launches New Type 214]

I would link to the press release, but it doesn’t exist. New photography this week highlights the 3rd Yuan Class submarine has been launched. The first photo is a comparison of the first two Yuan class submarines launched, with the remaining photo’s of the 3rd Yuan recently launched.

The 2008 Annual DoD Report (PDF) for Congress was released early this year,

[From Observing the 3rd Yuan Class Submarine]

How dangerous is China? Ask the Russians, who are organizing their lawyers to go after the one place China seems to take seriously, their wallet. There has been some very interesting discussions taking place over in Russia, and it turns out, while they didn’t really care that the Type 39 Song Class submarine was built based on the old Romeo design, they aren’t very happy to learn the Yuan class

[From Challenges of War and Peace]

Has China “secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region”? Thomas Harding, writing in the London Daily Telegraph early this month, has declared that it is.

According to Hardy, “Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a substantial harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers.”

The threat from Chinese submarines, long touted by “hard liners” in the West, now includes the ballistic missile submarine base and protective tunnels for the craft being constructed at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island in the South China Sea.

The report comes almost simultaneously with word that a Chinese Type 094 (NATO Jin-class) ballistic missile submarine was sighted at the base in satellite images. Also visible was a newly constructed pier that appears to be a demagnetization facility for submarines. Demagnetization is conducted before a submarine deploys to remove residual magnetic fields to reduce the craft’s vulnerability to magnetic mines.

The satellite image was taken by the QuickBird commercial satellite on 27 February 2008, and purchased by the Federation of American Scientists from DigitalGlobe.

China is believed to have completed two Jin-class SSBNs with at least one more unit under construction. (An older SSBN is also in service; see below.) The U.S. Intelligence Community estimates that China would probably build five SSBNs if it wants to have a near-continuous deterrent at sea. Each Jin-class SSSBN will carry 12 JL-2 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. A “score” of such submarines — as reported in some newspaper accounts — seems highly unlikely.

While some Western defense analysts as well as journalists are touting this new Chinese capability, it should be noted that there have been submarine tunnels in southern Hainan for probably two decades or more and that similar (albeit smaller) tunnels are also found at the Northern Fleet’s Jianggezhuang naval base. Indeed, China has long constructed tunnels for military (and civilian) purposes in the even of a nuclear conflict. This writer visited some of those near the base complex of Dairen, near the Soviet-Russian border.

Further, while submarines could be “hidden” in the tunnels, they could be observed by U.S. reconnaissance satellites as they enter and leave the tunnels. This possibility, coupled with the likely noise level of the Jin-class SSBNs would increase their vulnerability to U.S. detection and surveillance methods.

Also, in wartime, any submarines in the tunnels at the outbreak of hostilities would be vulnerable to the tunnels being easily blocked by U.S. conventional or nuclear weapons.

Certainly the Chinese Navy is being modernized, although it is significantly smaller than it was during the Cold War era. The slow development pace of China’s SSBN force, the failure of the first Chinese SSBN, the Type 092 (NATO Xia) completed in 1988, to have ever made a deployment, and persistent reports that a ballistic missile for the SSBNs is not yet available, raise major questions about this aspect of the “Chinese threat.”

[From A Super Secret Sub Base?]

This is a pretty good hi res photo of a PLAN Russian Kilo class submarine. At most she has been in service for what, 4 years tops?

Sexy. However, sometimes it is about perspective. I think these photo’s are the same submarine.

Updated: My commenter’s as usual are much smarter than me, and they have excellent links.

[From Picture of the Day: Kilo Class Submarine]

In the CRS report by Ronald O’Rourke on PLAN modernization there is an interesting table that outlines the commissionings of PLAN submarines by year starting in 1995. Because good hard data is difficult regarding the PLAN, this might be the most useful chart yet on the subject.
According to this chart, the PLAN only commissioned a single submarine in 2007. If true, that would be ver

[From PLA Navy Submarine Commissioning Observations]

At first, we were not really sure where the interesting Carrier vs Subs series by Martin Sieff was going, and to be honest, it is still unclear where his conclusions lie, but as a discussion topic we find the series quite interesting and compelling for analysis. The first, second, and third part of his series are all good reads. While we admittedly don’t agree with some of what he is saying….

[From Assessing the Risk to Carriers from Submarine

UW Seaglider draws U.S. military attention

In discussing PLAN submarines lately, we thought it might be interesting to put the recent shipbuilding production into context. Based on our discussion and review the other day, we note that in the 5 years from January 2003 to December 2007 we can account with a good deal of certainty China has built 15 attack submarines, broken down as follows: Type 093 SHANG class SSN – 2 Type 039 SONG class [From Chinese Submarines vs Soviet Submarines vs US Submarines]

Back in November we pointed out that the US appears to have lost control of its nuclear policy in relation to Russia. We highlighted that the United States will spend $448M in the FY08 budget on dismantling Russian nuclear weapons, which is a good cause, but by paying for the dismantling it is allowing Russia to spend 10 billion Rubbles, or roughly $411M on new Borei Class ballistic missile [From Bush Subsidizes Iran Nuke Program, Congress Subsidizes Nuke Submarines]

While American press reports continually headline China’s buildup of naval forces, in reality there is only one warship category in which the Chinese Navy is superior to the U.S. fleet — diesel-electric submarines. In no other category is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy even close to U.S. Navy force levels or capabilities.

The Chinese have an estimated 55 diesel-electric submarines in service, including several modern, Russian-built Kilo-class units. In addition, China is building advanced conventional as well as nuclear-propelled torpedo attack submarines. (The U.S. Navy now operates only nuclear-propelled attack submarines — 55 SSNs are in commission.)

Non-nuclear submarines are difficult to locate — if operated by competent crews — especially in coastal or littoral waters. In those areas the advanced submarine detection systems developed by the U.S. and other NATO navies during the Cold War have limited effectiveness because of shallow depths and the massive noise put into the water by coastal shipping, fishing craft, offshore oil drilling rigs, and other sources.

However, China’s conventional submarines, like their nuclear-propelled units, spend little time at sea. Researcher Hans M. Kristensen, writing for the Federation of American Scientists, reports that China’s “55 general-purpose submarines conducted a total of six patrols during 2007, slightly better than the two patrols conducted in 2006 and zero in 2005.”

The patrol information was obtained from the U.S. Navy. Kristensen continued, “Just what constitutes a Chinese ‘patrol’ is secret, according to the U.S. Navy….”

This writer has learned that such patrols have a maximum of about 30 days with the boats averaging a speed of four or five knots while on patrol. Still, these patrols have demonstrated that the submarines can locate U.S. ships, as evidenced by the surprise of U.S. officials when the carrier Kitty Hawk (CV 63) encountered a Song-class diesel submarine. Obviously, diesel boats cannot effectively track U.S. warships, but could probably be guided to such intercepts by reconnaissance aircraft or satellites.

Little is known about the operations of China’s nuclear torpedo-attack submarines (SSN). However, according to reliable sources, neither the first Chinese ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) of the Xia design, launched 25 years ago, nor the new Jin-class SSBNs launched since 2004 have undertaken a patrol. Indeed, reportedly the Chinese still do not have an operational submarine-launched ballistic missile for those craft.

Rather, it is the non-nuclear submarines that should be of major concern to U.S. and allied naval planners who wish to operate in Far Eastern waters.

[From China's Subs Go to Sea . . . Sort of]