.Chapter 38 Wolves

Like many of the rising naval powers in history, China attached great importance to submarines in the early days of naval construction and maintained this habit.

By 2030, the Chinese Navy had 36 submarines of various types, second only to the US Navy.

Although there is still a big gap in the construction of submarine forces in China's naval naval, such as not achieving full nuclear power. Among the 36 submarines, eight are conventional powered submarines, compared with any other country, the Chinese Navy's underwater fleet is strong enough.

Twenty-four attack nuclear submarines are six strategic nuclear submarines and eighteen attack nuclear submarines.

Since the second 098 replaced the last 094 in 2029, the strategic nuclear power of the Chinese Navy has entered a new era. Of the six strategic nuclear submarines in service, four are the 096 and two are the 098. With the latter two 098s in service, the number of strategic nuclear submarines will reach the upper limit of the "Washington Treaty", and a new generation of nuclear submarines will be replaced one after another.

In essence, there is not much difference between Type 096 and Type 098.

The 096 model is equipped with a jl-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can carry six sub-guided nuclear warheads with a maximum range of 12,000 kilometers. If deployed in the Bohai Bay, it can cover 90% of the US mainland, posing a threat to all large and medium-sized cities except for a few large and medium-sized cities such as Miami. In comparison, the biggest improvement of the 098 model is to expand the diameter of the missile launcher, increase the length of the missile bay section, and increase the displacement by about 500 tons. jl-3b is an improved model of jl-3. By adjusting the solid fuel formula and increasing the missile diameter, it will hit all large and medium-sized cities in the US without reducing the payload.

That's right, the 096 type is all deployed in the North Sea Fleet, while the 098 type is all deployed in the South Sea Fleet.

Because the Type 096 mainly operates in the northern waters of the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea and can be covered by shore-based anti-submarine forces, the Chinese Navy has only deployed two attack nuclear submarines in the South China Sea Fleet to specifically cover the Type 098 attack nuclear submarines, and the remaining sixteen attack nuclear submarines are used to perform tactical tasks.

Among these sixteen attack nuclear submarines, eight are fixedly assigned to four aircraft carrier battle groups except the "Huangdi".

Obviously, in terms of the anti-submarine force configuration of aircraft carrier combat groups, the Chinese Navy's standards exceed that of the US Navy, mainly because the aircraft carrier combat groups lack effective anti-submarine means.

The remaining eight attack nuclear submarines will be allocated according to combat needs.

Under normal circumstances, these nuclear submarines are active in the Western Pacific and the East Indian Ocean, responsible for monitoring submarines and warships of potential hostile countries. If necessary, they will also go forward to more distant waters to perform free hunting missions. For example, when Singapore and Malaysia had a dispute over freshwater resources, the Chinese Navy sent two attacking nuclear submarines to the Pacific, one to the Hawaiian Islands and the other to the west coast of the United States, specifically responsible for monitoring US warships entering and leaving the port, especially strategic nuclear submarines that are out of the port.

When fighting in the fleet, these submarines were well-deserved vanguards.

During the First Indian Ocean War, the Chinese Navy dispatched six attack nuclear submarines, two of which entered the Indian Ocean first, becoming the main force to monitor the Indian fleet. In the following battle, these two attack nuclear submarines also took advantage of the situation and achieved very impressive results.

In tactical use, attacking nuclear submarines is a force that must not be ignored.

Of course, compared with the First Indian Ocean War, the Chinese Navy's attack nuclear submarines have greatly improved.

In 2030, the last Type 093 was retired. Among the eighteen attack nuclear submarines, eight were Type 095, eight were Type 097, and two were "Weihe" class (after Type 097 and Type 098, the Chinese Navy no longer used numerical numbers, but instead used the first ship of each class of nuclear submarine as the class name. According to the naming specifications formulated in 2033, the attack nuclear submarine was named after tributaries of major rivers such as the Yellow River and the Yangtze River).

There is nothing to say about the 095 type and the 097 type, the key is the "Weihe" level.

Before the Weihe class, the performance of the Chinese Navy's attack nuclear submarines was not as good as that of the US Navy. Even the 097 type only reached the Virginia class level. There was still a big gap compared to the later Virginia class improvement model and the Las Vegas class that officially entered service in 2028. By 2030, the US Navy had 18 Virginia class improvement models and was still building three "Las Vegas" class. If a super-performance attack nuclear submarine cannot be designed as soon as possible, the Chinese Navy will face more severe challenges in the underwater battlefield as early as 2035, and even cannot cope with the threat from the US Navy.

The "Weihe" class came into being.

Like the large surface warships built at the same time, the "Weihe" class also uses modular technology and can adapt to different combat tasks by carrying different functional modules. However, compared with surface warships, the submarine's functional modules, especially the weapon modules, are not as rich.

Most of the time, the main task of submarines is anti-submarines, especially for the Chinese Navy.

Therefore, the "Weihe" class focuses on anti-submarine operations. The standard task is anti-submarine, and in terms of performance, it highly emphasizes silent performance and maximum quiet navigation speed. To this end, the "Weihe" class adopts many new technologies and completely get rid of the design concept of the 097 type.

In terms of power systems, the first two "Weihe" class still use natural cycle pressurized water reactors. Although from the construction progress, the second batch and four ships may also use natural cycle pressurized water reactors, starting from the third batch, controllable fusion reactors will be used. When the first batch and the second batch are undergoing mid-term improvement, the power module using fusion reactors will be replaced to fully realize "fusion power".

Compared with fission reactors, the advantages of fusion reactors are very obvious.

In addition to the power can be made larger, fusion reactors have another very prominent advantage, that is, the noise level does not change linearly. According to the test data that have been mastered, the noise will not increase significantly when the output power of fusion reactors reaches 80%.

In this way, the maximum quiet speed of nuclear submarines will be greatly improved.

You should know that when a natural cycle pressurized water reactor is used, the maximum quiet speed of attack nuclear submarines with a maximum speed of 35 knots will never exceed twenty knots. If a fusion reactor with a larger power is used, in addition to the maximum speed that can easily exceed forty knots or even forty knots, the maximum quiet speed can also be increased to more than thirty knots, so that the submarine can accompany the aircraft carrier to fight at a quiet speed throughout the entire journey.

Of course, noise reduction is not just about power systems.

The "Weihe" class is the second submarine that adopts active noise reduction measures after the "Las Vegas" class.

The so-called "active noise reduction measures" do not mean trying to reduce the noise emitted by the submarine, but through some equipment, the noise emitted by the submarine is eliminated by the phase interference method. The specific method is to deploy thousands of "inverting noise jammers" on the hull of the submarine, which are controlled by the central computer on the submarine. By emitting sound waves with the same amplitude and opposite phases, the noise emitted by the submarine is integrated.

This move can reduce the fluid noise intensity of the submarine by more than 90%.

By the same method, the intensity of the cavitation noise generated by the submarine propulsion system can be reduced by 80%.

From a practical perspective, this means that under the same circumstances, the distance discovered by the enemy boat can be shortened by at least 60%, and the detection distance of the passive sonar of the boat can be increased by 15 times. Combined with other advanced technologies, such as the latest side-side sonar array, it is equivalent to increasing the combat capability of the boat by more than ten times.

In submarine warfare, this is definitely an irreparable gap.

Shortly after the "Weihe" was in service, the Navy conducted a simulated confrontation exercise. The four 097 class ships failed to find the lurking "Weihe" after 48 hours. The "Weihe" "killed" four 097 models within four hours after the attack, proving its advanced nature.

It is precisely because of this that the Navy decided to build the "Weihe" class in large quantities.

However, the first two "Weihe" class are used to replace the already lagging Type 093. Because the Navy is expanding its lineup of attack nuclear submarines, the Type 095 will be in service until 2045. In other words, the "Weihe" class will not replace the Type 095, but will be used to enrich the lineup.

According to the information obtained by Mu Haoyang, the first two ships of the second batch will definitely be in service before 2035.

If the war needs are urgent, the other two will also be able to enter service before 2035. By then, the Chinese Navy will have twenty-two attack nuclear submarines.

As long as the fusion reactor is successfully developed, the number of "Weihe"-class construction is likely to exceed twenty.

This is definitely not a small number.

You should know that before the Weihe class, eight ships were built in Type 097 and Type 095 each, only four ships were built in Type 093, and four ships were built in Type 091, but in fact only one ship had combat capabilities. If twenty ships were built in Type 20 ships of the Weihe class, it would become the first large-scale attack nuclear submarine built by the Chinese Navy.

It must be admitted that compared with the US Navy, the number of attack nuclear submarines by the Chinese Navy is still seriously insufficient.

However, compared with neighboring countries, the Chinese Navy's submarine force is absolutely powerful. Not to mention, the Japanese Navy only has twenty-four conventional AIP submarines. In the Western Pacific region, except for China, the United States and Russia, no fourth country has an attack nuclear submarine.

There is no doubt that attacking nuclear submarines is the real ace of the Chinese Navy.

In war, no one knows how much role these submarines can play.

If we consider the ground strike capabilities of attacking nuclear submarines, this force is even more threatening. For island countries like Japan, it is even a strategic threat.
Chapter completed!