The US Navy must extend the life of its submarines to face China

The US Navy may have the largest nuclear submarine fleet and the most efficient industry in the world in this area, but to face China, it lacks ships. Indeed, despite the 53 Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines, Seawolf and Virginia in service, she is just on par with the 6 Shang Class SSN (Type 09III / A), and the 44 conventionally powered submarines of the Song class (14 units), Improved Kilo (8 + 2 units) and Yuan (18 units with anaerobic propulsion). In addition, the Chinese fleet has many operational assets in the event of a confrontation with the US Navy, the most significant of which isevolve near its own coasts in the event of an intervention against Taiwan, which largely neutralizes the disadvantage of not having nuclear propulsion for its own ships.

The rest of this article is for subscribers only

The Classic subscriptions provide access to
all articles without advertising, starting at € 1,99.

Newsletter subscription