Chinese Submarines: Big Modelling Intelligence Gap

Hi everyone (particularly wispywood2344 and Anonymous)

China's dictator Xi Jinping, by his actions and statements, makes China increasingly the enemy of Japan, Australia and the US. Today Xi "hit...at unspecified “foreign forces” and said any external attempts to subjugate [China] would result in “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” Xi said this to the Chinese people and the free world during an hour-long address marking the ruling Communist Party's centenary of its founding.

Thank you for your views in the article Total Cost Table for Japanese Submarine Main Batteries of June 3, 2021 (to which I added the Oyashio-Soryu-Taigei Table) and thank you for your comments below the article. 

We've done good work over the years detailing Japan's submarines, especially their battery formulas, numbers of batteries and their battery arrangements.

As China wants to be increasingly our enemy I'm wondering if we could:

1. Increasingly research and describe China's submarine battery formulas, number of
    batteries and their arrangements

and

2. Build Chinese conventional and nuclear submarine tables (eg. like the Oyashio-Soryu-
    Taigei Table.) 

With America's vast secret and top secret intelligence resources I'm certain the CIA, DIA and NSA would have done 1. and 2. - but I've never seen it. With the open source intelligence available to us we could also do Chinese submarine batteries and submarine tables. These are many Chinese submarine details already available in Submarine Matters articles and the US DoD China Military Power Report 2020 (20MB .PDF) (next one out in September 2021)  which would have much information and pointers to more information. Also many other Chinese submarine details need constant compiling and discussion. 

Additional "intelligence requirements or targets" are Chinese pressure hull steel, electronics, weapons, crew efficiency (on Youtubes), impact of Covid on crews, command arrangements including CCP commissars, nuclear chain of command (re SSBNs), diesels, reactors, seafloor sensors, smart mines, UUVs and much more.

In future more information on the Chinese Yuan-class will leak out from Thailand and especially Pakistan as they will be receiving export variants of the Yuan and their security standards are more relaxed than China's.

There is fortunately much more detail on Russian subs that could be researched and tabulated in parallel.

-----------------------------

As one activity I wonder if calculations could be modelled on the likely battery numbers and arrangements for Yuans with (LABs + AIP) and also LIBs (on the latest Yuans).

Looking at the Table below. For the standard Chinese Yuan variant (with LABs + AIP) this could be based on the Soryu Mk.1's known 480 LABs by comparing submerged displacements of those Soryus and Yuans. This, of course, needs to assume Chinese LABs have the same weight as Japanese LABs.

Japan's Taigei only lists surfaced displacement - so I will not use it in calculations. Assuming LIBs only Soryu Mk.2s have the same submerged displacement as Mk.1s can be used in estimating LIB numbers in future all LIB (no AIP) Yuans. I assume strongly that the Chinese are trialling an all LIBs Yuan or Song class submarine as a technology testbed.

The following is the first attempt at:

Estimating Number of Yuan LABs by Looking At Soryu Mk.1s  

Submarine Type/Variant	Displacement (submerged)	Number of Batteries
Soryu Mk.1 with LABs + AIP	4,134 long tons/480 LABs = 8.61 long tons per LAB.	480 LABs
Yuan with LABs + AIP	3,500 long tons/8.61	406 LABs
Soryu Mk.2 with LIBs only	4,134 long tons/? LIBs = ?.?? long tons per LIB	??? LIBs
Yuan with LIBs only	3,500 long tons/?.??	??? LIBs

Much modelling with comparisons to Japanese submarines can be used in approximately estimating Chinese submarine characteristics.

Regards

Pete