China Unveils Dangerous New “Stealthy” Attack Submarine

By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News

China has celebrated the 70th birthday of its submarine fleet by giving the public a brief look at its newest sub.

The vessel was featured briefly in a video on the official Weibo account of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. And it’s considerably different than any other Chinese submarine seen before.

Analysts told the Global Times, the English-language newspaper linked to the Chinese Communist Party, that the sub has a unique design that gives it additional stealth capabilities. They say it is already operational.

The submarine’s angled sail is identical to that of a sub called the Type 039C Yuan class, a non-nuclear attack type, in published accounts.

Last November, the Paris-based Nava News headlined a story “Chinese Submarine Is First To Exploit New Technology.”

“It is now almost certain that the distinctive shape of the sail on the latest Type-039C Yuan class submarines is to increase survivability,” the account said. “The angled sides are a stealth defense, reducing the ‘signal strength’ of the submarine from the enemy’s active sonar.”

The Naval News said that the size of the sub’s stealth features suggest that it’s designed to work against medium frequency sonars, which can be used to identify or classify a target. The vessel also has a sound-absorbing rubber coating.