China's maturing navy

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2006 by Eric A. McVadon

Whether, or how soon, the ballistic-missile threat becomes a factor in the ability of the PLAN to deter, confuse, and delay or, alternatively, confront approaching U.S. Navy forces, the ability to launch lethal antiship-cruise-missile attacks is an area where the PLAN is already near or at maturity--even if the targeting of American forces at which to launch them has not reached a mature state. The PLAN became early a cruise-missile navy, as a way of overcoming other deficiencies. Now it must be described as a modern cruise-missile navy, at least with respect to the platforms and lethal, evasive missiles it is deploying. (19) The PLAN's four newest classes of submarines, armed with potent ASCMs, fall just below MaRVed ballistic missiles in the hierarchy of potential or emerging threats to U.S. forces.

At the top of the submarine component of the overall threat are the eight new Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines from Russia that are now being successively delivered to China. These submarines threaten carrier strike groups through their ability to launch, while submerged over a hundred miles away, the SS-N-27B/Sizzler antiship cruise missile. (20) After a subsonic flight to the target area, the SS-N-27B makes a supersonic, sea-skimming, evasive attack. (21) It is described by its marketers and others as part of the best family of cruise missiles in the world and, in the opinion of some, as able to defeat the U.S. Aegis air- and missile-defense system that is central to the defense of carrier strike groups. (22)

Shang-class (Type 093) SSNs are possible partners for the new Kilos. The surprisingly rapid construction of successive units in this new class of nuclear-powered attack submarine implies special utility in a Taiwan contingency. The Shangs could, if they prove sufficiently quiet and fast and are properly equipped with sensors, be part of the net by which the PLAN locates and identifies approaching U.S. carrier strike groups. (23) If used this way, they could be part of a matrix composed of such detection and reporting means as satellites, merchant ships, and even fishing boats with satellite phones.

Having served as part of the matrix that detects targets for the ballistic missiles and Kilos, the Shangs could then join with the Song- and Yuan-class non-nuclear submarines (SSs) in attacks against selected U.S. forces that have, as expected in the sequenced PLA attack concept, suffered by that point significant degradation of their air and missile defenses. (24) These three classes of submarines could carry out, from several attack axes, submerged launches of large salvoes of subsonic, but still very capable, ASCMs. Of course, further follow-on attacks by torpedoes cannot be discounted if they appear to be needed.

China's other new nuclear-powered submarine program, the Jin-class (Project 094) ballistic-missile submarine, is primarily a part of China's strategic deterrent, but it will necessarily play a role as backdrop for this Taiwan scenario. (25) As with China's modernized and augmented land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, Beijing can act more confidently in bold undertakings vis-a-vis the United States when its strategic forces are more secure. With the Jins, Beijing is adding a layer of insurance that American missile defenses could be saturated--and that Washington would know it. Washington, of course, would have to take into account the fact that it is dealing with a capable nuclear power whose missiles have become very mobile and hard to detect.