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What are the advantages of the Sailess Sub?: https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/06/new-mystery-submarine-sig nals-chinas-rapid-undersea-expansio n/
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>>65212630
theyre sacrificing passive stability and mission flexibility for sheer speed or range
I legit dont know why they want it tho, speed is a trade off with detectability and the extra complexity definitely means less weapon capacity, hit and run tactics are only good if you can outrun enemy optics. not only would the high speed subs be obvious theyre coming, but it'd be trivial to keep tracking them from the air with dropped hydrophone buoys
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File: Project 673.png (2.6 MB)
>>65212630
So they've built a modern day Project 673?
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>>65212672
speed can still be an useful asset if they can figure out very high subsonic underwater transit, like 200-300+ knots. Though i seriously doubt they can manage that with nuclear power. You'll need something with way higher power density than that.
Another alfa class 1:1 replication is useless and a total waste of money. IIRC the original alfa liquid reactor also had a rather short lifespan, too
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>>65212714
>>65212672
I don't think they're going after high speed since It has a pumpjet. They're most likely going "sailess" for stealth reasons
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>>65212630
Don’t the Chinese have a thing about just building stuff to get a better understanding of the principles? They might just build a sail less sub to compare with subs with sails, then pick out the qualities they like and build in future ones
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>>65212729
>Don’t the Chinese have a thing about just building stuff to get a better understanding of the principles?
Thats not a chinese thing, everyone does it, it is called "building an experimental vehicle". NASA does it all the time. The chinks have a different developement philosophy, they first make a passable copy, then they make an improved copy, then they develop their improved copy into something that is quite different etc etc. Look at what they did with their copies of the Romeo class submarine and Mig-21. The latest versions were very unlike the original. Now they are not copying any more, now they are making original reserach.
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>>65212672
>theyre sacrificing passive stability and mission flexibility for sheer speed or range
Old submarine sails used to contain the commanding bridge which was housed in a small pressure hull, modern sails are just housings for masts and have no buyouancy. So I dont see how they contribute to passive stability. IIRC the last US sub to have a bridge inside a small pressure hull in the sail was the USS Triton which was designed as a high speed nuclear powered surface radar picket (!).
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File: Project 673_.png (542.6 KB)
>>65212672
The soviet Project 673 was sailess and had a retractable tower that acted as a "bridge" when surfacing: >>65212707
I wonder if the chinks did something similar
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>>65212630
>>65212722
I don't think this is intentional
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>>65212722
thats even stupider though, that would mean china doesn't understand sonar
maybe they invented acoustic paneling that has an infinite frequency response range so all pings can be negated, otherwise...
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>>65212861
>>65213194
>>65212707
Except that the Project 673 was never built
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>>65212630
>Big son of a bitch!
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>>65212630
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>>65213508
(This is LCS derived knowledge, I know a bit about subs but take what I say with due salt.)
Yes, pumpjets are good for speed, and yes they produce a fair amount of cavitation (though its different in some aspects than the type produced by screws which can be important distinction in some contexts).
What often gets lost though is that the "soud profile curve" for pumpjets is a lot flatter than for open screws. That is to say, that while they are louder when going slow, they actually end up quieter at higher speeds. This would be the "stealth" they provide.
Which can be quite useful on attack submarines where you may be wanting to often take "tactical sprints" to get into position and the screws being louder at those times would give up your game.
Let me be clear, this is absolutely a tradeoff. In a situtation where say enemy ASW elements know your general area and are trying to pinpoint location, you would 100% want the screws so you could try to quietly creep away.
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>>65212630
>>65212707
The US also had a similar design with the Conform sub design before choosing the Los Angeles class
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>>65214140
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>>65212630
Who they tryna flex on? That shit looks like a dildo.
>>65212734
It look all slick black like....nice.
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>>65215368
>Less active sonar crossection
a diamond alone is sufficient, unsure about the rest though
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>>65212672
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/1/106
besides this one it also fixes one of the biggest problems the flow towards the pump now the pump can push with clean water on all of its range without having to create additional bubbles hence more sound
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>>65212672
You could build a sub faster than most torpedos thanks to volume increasing faster than surface area.
Think WW2 jet tactics, being so much faster than the enemy you just make attack passes while remaining too fast for them to hit you.
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This is actually a huge problem for T2 navies, middle powers.
Part of the issue is that if China attacks us with autonomous naval drones it will be hard to prove it was China, and if we can't prove it's china, we can't prove it wasn't china, so some third power (CIA, Mossad, montenegro) might attack us just to trigger a war they don't have to fight themselves.
Other issue is that the cost of these autonimous craft is very low even compared to merchant marine, even trawlers. China isn't making these because they plan to make one or two, they're going to make 200 and launch them from their civilian flotilla. This is a threat which scales.
EW is evolving far faster then material science which means that since the sinking of the bismarch, ships have been getting easier to target and harder to defend. our capacity to detect these drones is very limited, given that they can just float around like naval mines, including on the surface, or act as torpedo mines by sinking themselves then simply floating to the surface and detonating when triggered by engine signatures. Our surface vessels were rebuilt over and over on the same ancient hulls, new ships are barely worth making so the ones we have are all end-of-life so we can't invest more in upgrading them.
underlying issue is that the USN has refused to support us. That's a reality we can't ignore. We may not be in a position to fight China at all if the US isn't materially committed to the war effort. We cant go to war with China based on paper and rubber bands.
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