WSJ on China’s Submarines

choi

(1) Jeremy Page, 深海杀手锏──解密中国战略导弹核潜艇. 华尔街日报, Oct 25, 2014
cn.wsj.com/gb/20141025/bch074710.asp


, which i s translated from

Jeremy Page, Deep Threat. With a far-ranging fleet of new submarines, China is rattling Asia’s balance of power, challenging the US and risking an undersea contest. Echoes of Tom Clancy and the Cold War?  Wall Street Journal, Oct 25, 2014.

(a) Excerpts in the windows of print:

‘This is a trump card that makes our motherland proud and our adversaries terrified,’ wrote China’s navy chief.

Guests at a beach resort can easily see three Chinese ‘boomer’ subs.

(b) Tom Clancy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy
(1947-2013; Clancy's literary career began in 1982 when he started writing The Hunt for Red October which in 1984 he sold for publishing to the Naval Institute Press for $5,000)
(c) My comment: I read this essay in print (front page of weekly Book section), which does not say anything new. There is no need to read it. What is interesting is what is published online but not in print. See the next three postings. There is no need to read the text of (2) and 3).

choi

(2) Jeremy Page, 美国反潜机和中国潜艇的猫鼠游戏. 华尔街日报, Oct 25, 2014
cn.wsj.com/gb/20141025/bch075617.asp


, which is translated from

Jeremy Page, As China Deploys Nuclear Submarines, US P-8 Poseidon Jets Snoop on Them. Wall Street Journal, Oct 25, 2014.
online.wsj.com/articles/as-china-deploys-nuclear-submarines-u-s-p-8-poseidon-jets-snoop-on-them-1414166686

Quote:

(a) China protests and harasses. "But the US, which says those operations are in international airspace, is taking steps to allow the P-8s even more time over the South China Sea, by negotiating agreements with surrounding countries to use their airfields as launchpads for sub-hunting flights, say people familiar with those discussions.

(b) "Neither satellites nor radar can detect objects underwater. The most effective way to find a sub is still by using sonar equipment to listen for its engine, or to bounce sound signals—or 'pings'—off its metallic body.

"Submariners avoid detection by keeping their engines quiet, avoiding outgoing communications and remaining below the 'thermal layer'—between warmer water near the surface and colder water below—that deflects sonar pings.

"The P-8s also work with satellites that monitor submarine bases, with undersea microphones that listen for passing subs and with surface ships that tow large arrays of sonar equipment. Once over a potential target, the P-8 drops its sonar buoys in a grid, then circles overhead gathering the data that they transmit.


Note:
(a) "Okinawa also sits next to one of the main chokepoints, the Miyako Strait, that US officials say Chinese subs have used in recent years to enter the Pacific."

Miyako Island 宮古島 is located 290 km (宮古海峡) southwest of Okinawa island 沖縄本島.
(b) towed array sonar
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towed_array_sonar
(c)
(i) thermocline
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline
(ii) Robert Derencin, Counter Sonar measures - A Bathythermograph. boat.net, June 24, 2002
www.uboat.net/articles/45.html
(Figures 4 and 5)

choi

(3) Jeremy Page, 失联时刻谁掌控中国潜艇上的核武器？ 华尔街日报, Oct 25, 2014
cn.wsj.com/gb/20141025/bch075203.asp


, which is translated from

Jeremy Page, When Sub Goes Silent, Who Has Control of Its Nuclear Warheads?  Wall Street Journal, Oct 25, 2014.
online.wsj.com/articles/when-sub-goes-silent-who-has-control-of-its-nuclear-warheads-1414166741

Quote:

“And subs must often go incommunicado. They usually receive messages by raising antennas just below the surface to pick up satellite or radio signals. But such contacts are kept to a minimum, as they make a submarine more vulnerable to detection.

“‘Submarines are really the last place of true autonomy in the military,’ says Cmdr Dearcy P Davis, who did six deterrent patrols on a US boomer and is now commanding officer of the USS Houston, a nuclear attack submarine based in Hawaii. * * * “On a Western boomer, ‘the commander is second only to God,’ says one former NATO boomer commander.

“US protocol is secret, but naval experts say American boomers can launch missiles only if they receive launch codes from the president or a designated alternative, because the U.S. doesn’t envision a nuclear attack in which it couldn’t communicate with at least one of its 14 boomers. Britain, by contrast, has a far smaller landmass and only one boomer on patrol at a time, so its boomer commanders are issued with a “letter of last resort” from the prime minister, only to be opened if all contact is lost with Britain and its allies, British officials have said publicly.

“Rear Adm. Phillip Sawyer, commander of US sub forces in the Pacific, says the US manages a system through which most countries inform it of their submarine movements so that it can warn them of potential overlap [and collision]—without revealing other nations’ plans. * * * ‘I’d like to see China take part in that system,’ he says.

Note: photo legend: “A Soviet submarine, the B-59, was forced to the surface by US forces in the Sargasso Sea near Cuba in 1962.”
(a) Soviet submarine B-59
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_B-59
(Oct 27, 1962 (in the midst of Cuban Crisis))
(b) Sargassum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargassum
(a genus; The Atlantic Ocean's Sargasso Sea was named after the algae, as it hosts a large amount of Sargassum; section 1 History)

choi

(4) Jeremy Page, 美国多管齐下监控中国潜艇动向. 华尔街日报, Oct 25, 2014
cn.wsj.com/gb/20141025/bch075409.asp


, which is translated from

Jeremy Page, Underwater Drones Join Microphones to Listen for Chinese Nuclear Submarines. Wall Street Journal, Oct 25, 2014.
online.wsj.com/articles/underwater-drones-join-microphones-to-listen-for-chinese-nuclear-submarines-1414166607
(“From the 1950s, the US listened for Soviet subs entering the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by stringing underwater microphones across the seabed around its coast and in strategic chokepoints, such as between the UK and Iceland. These cable-linked 'hydrophones'”)