Nuclear-powered attack submarine class
The Type 093 submarine (NATO reporting name: Shang class) is a class of nuclear-powered attack submarines constructed by the People's Republic of China for the People's Liberation Army Navy.[3]
History
Development of the type
Admiral Liu Huaqing claimed in his memoirs that development began in 1994 following President Jiang Zemin's continued support for nuclear submarine development after the launch of the final Type 091 in 1990.[citation needed] Erickson and Goldstein suggest that the Yinhe incident in 1993,[5] and continued tensions with Taiwan also drove Jiang Zemin's support of the program.[6] Russian experts reportedly aided the design.[3]
The first Type 093 was laid down in 1994 and commissioned in 2006. The second was laid down in 2000 and commissioned in 2007. The first Type 093A was laid down in 2009 and was commissioned in 2015.[3][1]
2023 social media and British tabloid rumors
August 2023
On August 21, 2023, social media rumors claimed PLAN submarine 093A–417 had suffered severe damage in an incident in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait.[7][8] (As of December 2023, these rumors remain unsubstantiated by factual evidence.) On August 31, A spokesperson for Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said Taiwan's intelligence and surveillance systems had not detected evidence of such a crash, and open-source military analyst H.I. Sutton wrote he had "not seen any convincing evidence to support" the rumors, which claimed the sub had suffered a fatal incident which killed all aboard.[9][10] On August 31, PLA spokesperson Wu Qian stated "reports claiming that a Chinese Type 093 nuclear-powered submarine had an accident in the Taiwan Straits are completely false."[11]
October 2023 (shifting narratives)
The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, reported in early October 2023 that an alleged August incident occurred due to the submarine becoming “... caught in a trap intended to ensnare British sub-surface vessels in the Yellow Sea.” (rather than in the Taiwan Strait) and that the entire crew died due to hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as a result of system faults on the submarine,[8] The media reports left some submarine experts unconvinced. For example, Thomas Shugart, a retired submariner and adjunct senior fellow at the think tank Center for a New American Security in Washington D.C., stated that “I’ve never heard of submarine nets being used on the high seas, and I don’t understand why snagging one would cause a failure of atmosphere control equipment,”[8] According to Shugart, “(s)ix hours is not enough to result in hypoxia without something else consuming the oxygen first, like a fire or explosion,”[8] Radio Free Asia further reported two days after the Daily Mail’s article, a media outlet based in Taiwan (UP Media) alleged that, instead of submarine nets, the real cause of the alleged accident was “serious problems” of the Yu-3C torpedoes on the submarine.[8] In response, retired submariner and US naval intelligence analyst Chris Carlson told Radio Free Asia that he was "taking a wait-and-see approach" but that “(t)he problem is the vast majority of the reporting [on the alleged incident] is from Taiwanese sources that have some credibility issues,”[8] As of December 2023, evidence of any incident has yet to emerge.
Variants
- Type 093
Initial design.[3] In the early 2000s, Chinese sources reported that the Type 093's noise level was on par with the improved Los Angeles-class submarines, and with Project 971 (NATO reporting name Akula) at 110 decibels.[12] In 2009, USN ONI listed the Type 093 as being noisier than Project 671RTM (NATO reporting name Victor III) which entered service in 1979.[13] Two built. NATO reporting name Shang I.
- Type 093A
Modified design, possibly with greater length[3] and a hump behind the sail.[15] Four built. NATO reporting name Shang II.
- Type 093B
Projected "guided-missile nuclear attack submarine" variant armed with surface/land-attack missiles.
People's Liberation Army Navy
