Expert: Chinese offensive nuclear submarines can globallytrack and attack aircraft-carrier formations
There have been several recent media reports on China's first nuclear submarinedetachment. Pictures disclosed to the media show drills taking place inside Chinese nuclearsubmarines for the first time. When interviewed by a media agency, the military expertYin Zhuo analyzed the combat capability of China's nuclear submarine force.
In the 1970s, a special group coded 09 emerged, which is China's fleet of nuclearsubmarines. A counter-attack force against aggression by foreign powers, this fleetrecently made a continuous voyage of 90 days and nights, thus setting a new record for asingle voyage of long duration among nuclear submarines worldwide. As a strategic "ironfist" of the Chinese military, the fleet has an initial nuclear deterrence and counterattackcapability. It has guaranteed nuclear safety for 42 years, and no nuclear accident has everoccurred.
Speaking about the strategic deterrent ability and wartime combat capability of China'snuclear submarine fleet, Yin Zhuo said that our current nuclear submarines include twotypes: ballistic missile nuclear submarines and offensive submarines. The former are thepillar of China's nuclear counterattack force. This confirms that China operates a defensivenuclear strategy and will not make first use of nuclear weapons, or deploy nuclear weaponsto forestall any enemy attack.
Instead, China operates a nuclear counterattack strategy. That is to say, only when ouropponents use nuclear weapons to attack us will we use nuclear weapons to counterattackthem. This requires our nuclear forces to have a very strong capacity to withstand enemyattack. The survival ability of nuclear submarines is higher than that of any other defenseunit, capable of reaching 85 to 90 percent. The survival capacities of other land-basednuclear forces are generally estimated at 6.5 percent, or 15 to 20 percent, far lower thanthat of nuclear submarines.
Yin Zhuo said that offensive nuclear submarines can deter large warships, and can track,pursue, seek out and attack the aircraft-carrier formations of the adversary wherever theyhide themselves. However, conventionally-powered submarines cannot do this, as theyonly have an ambush capacity. Because of their low cruising speed, conventionalsubmarines are limited to waiting for "windfalls". If the adversary alters its course, there islittle that they can do about it. However, as long as they can identify their opponents,nuclear submarines can track them globally, in all waters, worldwide.
(Editor:YanMeng、Yao Chun)
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