The Russian navy inherited most of the submarine heritage of the Soviet navy and invested heavily in developing nuclear submarines in recent years. At present, there are about 30 nuclear submarines of various types, and the scale of diesel-electric submarines ranges from 40 thousand tons to 450 thousand tons. Compared with the US Navy, the Russian Navy has obvious advantages in strategic nuclear submarines, mainly because the new generation of "Columbia" class in the United States is still under construction, while the Russian "God of the North Wind" class has been in service in batches. However, Russia's latest generation of "Yasen" class attack nuclear submarines are slightly inferior to "Virginia" in terms of construction speed and performance, especially the lack of construction quantity, which exposes the hidden worry of the lack of resources of the Russian navy.
The development of China Navy submarines has always been mysterious, and it is difficult for outsiders to know the details. It is generally believed that the total number of nuclear submarines in China is about 20, and the scale of diesel-electric submarines is about 60, with a total tonnage of about 400,000 tons. In terms of nuclear submarines, China's navy is undoubtedly the last among the three countries in terms of quantity and single boat performance. However, the high proportion of strategic nuclear submarines is also a major feature of China's navy. According to official public information, China's navy nuclear submarines account for about 40% of the total size of nuclear submarines, 33.3% are Russian, and 26.5% are American. This super-high proportion is largely due to our urgent need for strategic nuclear submarines and the slow progress in attacking nuclear submarines.
In other words, even though China has been catching up with nuclear submarines for more than ten years, the overall performance is still not ideal, and it is difficult for the navy to build a large number of models with insufficient performance. So it can only build one or two ships for each sub-model as a transition, just like the rapid iteration of 052B, 05 1C and 052C at the beginning of this century, the previous sub-model must verify the new technology for the next sub-model. However, strategic nuclear submarines are an indispensable strategic cornerstone for big countries. In theory, at least six can meet the demand. The superposition of the two demands leads to the special composition of China's nuclear submarine force. These factors also make China's nuclear submarine force still lag behind, which makes it the most obvious weakness of the navy.
As for the domestic diesel-electric submarine, the situation is much better, at least it has surpassed the "teacher" of that year-the Russian navy. Since 1990s, China has imported more than 10 diesel-electric submarines from Russia, and Russia does have a profound technical background in nuclear submarines. These factors make the outside world mistakenly think that the performance of Russian diesel-electric submarines is still strong. But in fact, the performance of the new generation diesel-electric submarine of the Russian Navy is not ideal, and the "Rada" class submarine barely entered service after years of "dystocia". Around 20 14 years ago, China signed a contract to purchase four Russian-made "Rada" class diesel-electric submarines, but the contract was cancelled due to serious problems in the technical scheme provided by Russia. Compared with the smooth introduction of Su -35SK, S-400 and Mi-17 1 in the same period, the technical shortcomings of Russian diesel-electric submarines are exposed.
In fact, the Russian navy has concentrated on developing nuclear submarines in recent years. Although diesel-electric submarines can undertake some achievements in materials and electronic technology, they need additional development in the fields of vitality and AIP system (independent of air propulsion system). However, due to the economic downturn, Russia's new investment in these fields is very small, and the harvest results are naturally very small. In contrast, China Navy regards nuclear submarines as a long-term strategic goal, and diesel-electric submarines have always been regarded as the backbone of offshore underwater combat power, so the resource investment is fully guaranteed and technological progress is constantly emerging. Since 039B, the application of domestic AIP system has been realized.
Today, the size of AIP submarines in active service in the navy has exceeded 20. Just as 052D has propped up half of the naval surface fleet, 039B and 039C have also become the absolute main force of diesel-electric submarine forces. Of course, because the submarine replacement is a long process, our navy is still equipped with some outdated models such as 035 and Russian Kilo, and the overall performance needs to be further improved.
At present, although the U.S. Navy submarine is relatively the smallest among the three countries, it has the largest tonnage, the most advanced performance and the clearest future development plan, so it is difficult to shake its leading position in the short term. Although the size of Russian submarines exceeds that of the US Navy, a large number of old diesel-electric submarines are outdated, and, like the destroyers "Fearless" and "Modern", they have actually become "existing fleets". However, due to Russia's firm determination to develop nuclear submarines and maintain its strategic advantage, the performance of its new generation of nuclear submarines is also very good, second only to the US Navy in the world. In addition, Russia is also equipped with a very mysterious special submarine, which has outstanding characteristics, but has not been tested in actual combat. As for the submarine force of China Navy, diesel-electric submarines are still the main force in the short term, although the scale is considerable. Although the performance is really good, in the long run, we still need to make great efforts in the field of nuclear submarines.
Another issue of great concern is submarine export. Originally, only diesel-electric submarines were traded in the international market, and the case of the Indian Navy renting Russian nuclear submarines is already an example. However, with the joint efforts of Britain and the United States to intercept Australia's huge submarine orders from France, signs of nuclear submarines entering the international military trade market have emerged. This submarine order with a minimum of nearly 100 billion US dollars seems to indicate that nuclear submarines are also expected to become shelf products in the military trade market. In fact, at present, the U.S. Navy's attack nuclear submarines, except torpedoes and anti-ship missile weapons, have used the vertical launcher of cruise missiles and have the ability to launch tomahawks. On the basis of domestic 039, China also developed S-20P and exported it to Pakistan. This record order worth 5 billion US dollars has also become a milestone for domestic submarines to enter the international military trade market.