Chapter 124: Accumulating Thickness

If the "Tuna" class fully electric submarine was the main force of the Chinese Navy in World War III, then the attack nuclear submarine named "Great Wall" class was the backbone of the Chinese Navy in World War III, and it was the most advanced attack nuclear submarine in the early stages of World War III.

Although at the beginning, the Navy required the underwater displacement to be controlled at about 10,000 tons, and at most no more than 12,000 tons, several shipyards participating in the bidding proposed that after using magnetofluid thrusters and jh-45 reactors, the displacement could not be controlled below 12,000 tons.

After re-examination, the Navy adjusted the plan and relaxed the displacement to about 15,000 tons, with the maximum of no more than 17,500 tons.

In terms of displacement, the Great Wall class was already the largest attack nuclear submarine at that time.

In the end, the idea submitted by the Wuhan Shipyard won with absolute advantage. During the implementation stage of the project, the Wuhan Shipyard and the Qingdao Shipyard formed a consortium to jointly be responsible for the construction work. In terms of specific operations, the Wuhan Shipyard is responsible for the construction of the main modules and then assembled in the Qingdao Shipyard. The main reason is that the Wuhan Shipyard can only build a 10,000-ton ship at most in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. In addition, in the construction tasks of the "stingray" and "tuna" class, the Wuhan Shipyard undertakes the final assembly work, and the ship platform has long been occupied.

In addition to being big, the performance of the "Great Wall" level is also excellent.

According to the idea submitted by the Wuhan Shipyard, the maximum submersible degree of the Great Wall class has reached forty-seven knots, and the noise intensity when it can continue to sail at a temperature of forty-five knots is between 97 decibels and 99 decibels; the maximum diving depth is 980 meters, and the ultimate diving depth is 1,140 meters; the underwater displacement is 17,400 tons, and the reserve buoyancy is 18%.

Because this is not the final plan, the aspects of weapon configuration, personnel establishment, and continuous combat capabilities have not been determined.

Only one thing can be confirmed, the Great Wall class is definitely not a cheap submarine.

At that time, the quotation of Wuhan shipyards was as high as 220 billion yuan, and it was just a preliminary estimated price. According to previous practice, it was normal to increase the actual cost by 15 to 25%. Therefore, the cost of the "Great Wall" level when it did not include the imagined cost was more than 250 billion yuan.

It can be said that this is almost as good as a "Tarzan" class aircraft carrier.

Faced with such a high cost, the Navy will definitely not be able to purchase the "Great Wall" level in large quantities.

In fact, when the project was launched, Mu Haoyang knew very well that the Great Wall class was an advanced submarine that could not be afforded, so he could only serve as the backbone of the submarine force to balance the cost by building "stingray" and "tuna" class fully electric submarines in large quantities.

At that time, the Navy only planned to buy four ships.

In addition to price factors, the Great Wall class is the first attack nuclear submarine equipped with a controlled fusion reactor and a magnetofluid propulsion system. It must be technically lacking, and the time for large-scale procurement is not yet ripe. In a sense, the Great Wall class is a transitional attack nuclear submarine, or it brings the attack nuclear submarine into a new era, raising the threshold for the arms race between the China and the United States.

To put it vividly, the main value of the "Great Wall" class is to make all the nuclear submarines of the US military outdated, forcing the US military to spend more money to develop and build attack nuclear submarines that can match the "Great Wall" class, thereby reducing the US Navy's expansion in other fields.

In fact, this is also the most critical role played by the "Great Wall" class before the war.

The emergence of the Great Wall class made the US Navy very pessimistically realize that its high-profile Portland class attack nuclear submarines face the embarrassing situation of being behind when they are in service. As a result, the number of Portland class constructions was indirectly reduced from 44 to twelve. The result was that in the early stages of World War III, the US Navy still had to allow the Virginia class to fight for more than 20 years, and the Little Rock class, the main force of its submarine force, had no performance advantages.

Of course, this in turn affected the Chinese Navy.

Strictly speaking, the engineers at the Wuhan Shipyard made the greatest contribution, and imagined this submarine, which was not originally hoped by the Navy as an advanced enough submarine, avoiding the construction of the second-generation fusion nuclear submarine in advance, and providing the Navy with a powerful underwater combat platform.

It can be said that the "Great Wall" level concept is very successful.

Strictly speaking, by the standards of the 1950s, except for the excessive cost, the "Great Wall" class has almost no disadvantages.

The result was that after the outbreak of World War III, the Navy increased its purchase volume at the Great Wall level.

However, when continuing to purchase, the Navy had to reduce the construction price of the "Great Wall" level by reducing technical standards.

For example, starting from the third batch, the "Great Wall"-class pressure-resistant shell no longer uses hy-240 steel, but uses hy-180 steel that is widely used in all electric submarines. The second only one is that the construction price has been reduced by 15%. The main reason is that the production of hy-240 steel is too difficult and processing is also very difficult, resulting in the yield rate of the "Great Wall"-class shell less than 10%. After changing to hy-180 steel, not only the steel itself has been very mature, but the processing difficulty is also greatly reduced.

For example, starting from the fifth batch, the "Great Wall" class was replaced with the jh-45c reactor, and the output power was reduced from 300 megawatts to 240 megawatts. Although its maximum submersible degree was reduced by two sections, the procurement price of the reactor was indirectly reduced by 40%. In this way, the construction cost of the fifth batch of "Great Wall" class was reduced by 10% on the basis of the third batch.

In addition, large-scale construction has economies of scale and can also reduce construction cost.

In the end, the construction cost of the "Great Wall" level dropped to about 60% of the first batch.

In this way, the Great Wall class has become a relatively cheap submarine, at least compared with its combat effectiveness.

During the war, the Chinese Navy purchased a total of 46 Great Wall class ships, including the four before the war, and the total construction volume was as high as fifty. Because during the war, the number of other attack nuclear submarines built by the Chinese Navy was not large, but adhered to the continuous improvement and conservatism. Therefore, during the entire Third World War, the Great Wall class was the most attack nuclear submarine built by the Chinese Navy and the fourth largest number of attack nuclear submarines built in the world.

More importantly, during the entire war, the attendance rate of the "Great Wall" level continued to rank among the top.

At that time, a "Great Wall" class of the Indian Ocean Fleet set a world record of continuous deployment when carrying out combat missions to the Atlantic Ocean.

It is no exaggeration to say that the "Great Wall" class was the backbone of the Chinese Navy during World War III.

Of course, the "Great Wall" class was the only large attack submarine that the Chinese Navy could fight in the ocean at that time.

You should know that it is not until the fourth batch of "Tuna" class is put into service, all-electric submarines will have the ability to operate more than 10,000 kilometers away from the base. Before that, only attack nuclear submarines had ocean-going combat capabilities, and all-electric submarines either moved near the base or accompanied by fleet activities.

In fact, in the early stages of the war, the main task of the "Great Wall" level was to accompany fleet activities.

The main reason is that all-electric submarines use pump-* propulsion systems, and there is no silence advantage after 35 kilometers. During the war, the fleet had 80% of the flight, and rarely sailed at a distance below 35 kilometers. The result is that even if the maximum airline of the "Tuna" class can keep up with the aircraft carrier battle group, it will be difficult to play a role. In this way, the only one who can truly accompany the aircraft carrier battle group and provide anti-submarine cover for the fleet is the "Great Wall" class.

It can be said that it is precisely because the magnetofluid propulsion system cannot be used that the Navy requires that the "Tuna" class's submarine must not be less than 20,000 kilometers. Because only when this level is reached can all electric submarines replace attack nuclear submarines and rush to the enemy-controlled sea areas to perform combat missions, so that the attack nuclear submarines will return to their original position and accompany the fleet to fight. This is also the same reason, the Navy will grit its teeth and purchase the "Great Wall" class in large quantities to replace the 099 and 097 levels that do not meet the requirements in aviation, and all electric submarines that do not meet the requirements in silentness.

In addition, the "Great Wall" class has another serious contribution, which is to usher in the era of standardization of submarines.

In fact, there are great commonalities between the "stingray" and the "tuna" level, but the "tuna" level adopts more new technologies, such as the second-generation fuel cells, bionic sound-silence tiles, etc., so not many people regard it as an enlarged version of the "stingray" level.

After the Great Wall class, several attack nuclear submarines built by the Chinese Navy were actually highly improved versions of the Great Wall class, and they were not much different from the Great Wall class in basic structure, and even the differences in weapon systems, detection systems, fire control systems, etc. are not very big.

The biggest advantage of standardized construction is that it can significantly shorten the design time.

You should know that even during the war, it would take several years to imagine an attack nuclear submarine with a displacement of more than 15,000 tons.

In addition to shortening the design time, it also improves the versatility of the platform, thereby improving construction efficiency.

Not to mention, more than 80% of the equipment that is built with the Great Wall class can be used to build other submarines, thus greatly reducing the burden on shipyards.

Of course, the idea of ​​standardized concepts also comes from surface warships.

In war times where the fundamental requirement is to ensure the number of constructions, standardized ideas are the most suitable choice.

From the above introduction, it can be seen that the Chinese Navy did not pay attention to submarines, but after realizing the impact of technology, it chose a profound development strategy and used its strong technical accumulation to create an unprecedented outbreak before World War III.

This big burst is enough to break the strategic balance between the Chinese and US navies.

Chapter 124: Accumulating Thickness
Chapter completed!