ready to oppose the PLAN in the East Sea, the Vietnamese name of the South China Sea! On its part, the Republic of Singapore still musters a f leet of revamped ex-Swedish Sjöormen-class submarines and a pair of refitted Västergötland-class; all formerly built by Kockums and purchased second-hand from Sweden to form the present Challenger- and Archer-class SSKs. In 2014, Vietnam received its two first Project 636.1 Kilo-class submarines at the revived Cam Ranh naval base: HQ-182 Hà Nội and HQ-183 Ho Chi Minh City. They have since been joined by HQ-184 Hải Phòng, HQ-185 Đà Nẵng, HQ-186 Khánh Hòa, and HQ-187 Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu. The submarines have a 3,000-ton displacement, and are able to operate at a maximum depth of 300 metres and at a speed of 20 nautical miles per hour with over 50 crew members. They are said to be equipped with six 533mm torpedo tubes, torpedoes and 3M-54 Klub submarine-launched anti-ship missile on board, according to a Vietnamese media source. Outside of Europe, Asia is the only place where original SSKs are being developped and built today: namely in China, at the very modern Wuchang Shipyards in Wuhan and the Jiangnan Shipyards in Shanghai; and in Japan, by Kawasaki and Mitsubishi in Kobe; while South Korea (with Hyundai in Okpo and Daewoo in Ulsan) produces German design SSKs under license only, and due for 2025 a first home-made exportable derivative: the 4,000t KSS-III (Jangbogo III) which draws enormously on original TKMS-HDW technology, and which has been ordered by Indonesia. They will form the Nagabanda-class with three vessels that will supplement de existing two Cakra-class (Type 209) submarines which constitutes all the Indonesian Navy underwater fleet today. Let’s remember that today’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries is the inheritor of the century old and exceptionnaly rich Nipponese submarine industry which produced hundreds of vessels for the Rising Sun Empire until 1945, at times it had been one of the world’s most powerful navies. EDR – September / October 2016
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depiction of the Amur-950 SSK designed by the Rubin OKB at the OSK Saint Petersburg shipyards. Like anything military produced in China, not much is known of the submarines developped for the PRC Navy. A master in the art of deception and reverse-engineering, the Communist regime has a tendancy to hide what it has in operation and to brag about what it does not have ! Whatever, current Chinese SSKs draw a lot on original Soviet technology. This is in particular the case with the Yuan Type 041 and Song Type 039, the first commissioned in 1999, built by Wuhan and the Jiangan Shipyards. Some half-dozen Yuan-class vessels has been supplied to the PLAN, and Pakistan is planning to purchase six from China as a way to counter the influence of expanding Indian maritime power, it was reported in 2014. Some local experts say that the submarines will be S20s, the export version of the Type 041. The only difference between the Type 041 and the S20 is that the latter does not have the former’s AIP system. Earlier the PLAN used a dozen Type 039 smaller 2,250t SSKs : the Song-class. Featuring a low-drag hydrodynamically profiled hull and sail, the Type 039 was the first submarine to use a teardrop hull design. The body is water-drop shaped and the hull is covered with rubber tiles to absorb the sound waves of sonar. The class is equipped with a sevenblade propeller and an engine fitted with a shockabsorbing base. The submarine incorporates Chinese and Western technologies. Type 039 has a length of 75m, a beam of 8.4m and a draught of 5.3m. Japan which has a very long history of building and fielding submarines, boasts today the Soryuclass oceanic submarines capable of cruising at 20kts under the sea manned by a crew of 65, the first of which, built by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyards, was commisioned in 2009 in the Japanese 15