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Type 032 midget submarine

On September 16, the official website of Harbin Engineering University issued an obituary stating: Deng Sanrui, an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, a well-tested and loyal communist fighter, former dean of Harbin Institute of Shipbuilding Engineering and a lifetime honorary professor of Harbin Engineering University, was sick. The treatment was ineffective, and unfortunately he died at 13:30 on September 15, 2020 at the age of 91. Deng Sanrui once presided over the design and development of China's first experimental submarine, and also served as the overall design consultant (chief designer) of China's first nuclear submarine. He is known as the "father of Chinese submarines" and the pioneer of "intelligent underwater robot technology".

The first Chinese teardrop-shaped submarine was called 032 submarine because 03 was from 6603. According to the June 4th Agreement signed between China and the Soviet Union in 1953, the Soviet Union transferred naval vessel manufacturing technology to China for a fee. The introduction code of the submarine was 6603 (ie 03). The other 6601 are frigates, 6602 are torpedo boats, 6604 are submarine hunters, and 6605 are minesweepers. The 032 is one model of the 03 submarine, and the 032-1 is a test boat for the 032 submarine.

At the beginning of 1958, Deng Sanrui was a teacher in the Military Engineering College of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. He was preparing to study in the Soviet Union. His Russian level was poor and his oral English is even worse. The school found an old Russian lady for him to check his conversational ability. To put it conscientiously, he was not keen on going abroad at the time. The main reason was that the teaching and research section where he was in was too tight, and there were no teachers who even graduated to train in the fleet. Surprisingly, the old Russian lady said that my spoken English was still so-so, so he had to continue to make preparations for the country.

One day, Feng Jie, the head of the Department of Naval Engineering, came to the singles dormitory and pushed Deng Sanrui to wake up during his lunch break. He said eagerly: "The navy has a mission, you come to catch it. Let's talk about it after going abroad!" Deng Sanrui was very happy to hear it, so he agreed. This meant that the organization trusts him (which was very precious in that era). In the words that Dean Chen Geng often said, "I can still value my brother!" Dean Chen’s words were meant to be self-humility. Chen Geng was the director of the Naval Design Teaching and Research Section of the Harbin Military Industry and Naval Engineering Department, a captain, and a Communist Party member with roots in Zheng Miao Hong. It is natural to be able to accept such a task.

At that time, the whole country was in the period of the "Great Leap Forward", "a day is equal to 20 years" and "how bold a person is, how productive the land is." Colleges and universities were no exception. That year, a professor at Tsinghua University published an article in the "People's Daily", to the effect of abandoning the paper to talk about military affairs, and using real swords and real guns for graduation design, which had a great influence in engineering universities across the country, and 032 was a real sword real gun design. There was never a formal written order issued by the Navy. It was only an intention to engage us in an offshore torpedo attack on a small submarine with the most advanced performance.

At that time, there were several types of submarines in China. One was the Type 03 submarine, which was assembled in Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard with a full set of parts imported from the Soviet Union in accordance with the June 4th Agreement. One was launched in 1957, and subsequent boats of the same type were under construction. The displacement of this type of boat is 1,050 tons. Secondly, when the Soviet Navy withdrew from the Lushun base in 1954, it transferred 8 old World War II submarines to China for a fee. Four of them were S-type. The pronunciation of Russian letter s is the same as English c, so it was also called C-type, or Stalin-type, with a displacement of 860 tons. The 4 M-types were small submarines with a displacement of 260 tons. M is the first letter of the Russian "Mariutka" (baby). That type of boat is so small that tall people can only stand upright in the center compartment.

The navy required a displacement between the C-type and the M-type, which is about four to five hundred tons. The shape of the submarine in World War II was the shape of a surface ship. The reason for this was determined by the combat mission mode of the submarine at that time. At that time, most of the submarines were sailing on the surface, found enemy ships, and then quickly dived underwater to carry out torpedo attacks. Moreover, a cannon is installed on the fore deck of the submarine, which is directly used for surface combat. At that time, the submarine could not sail underwater for a long time, and this limitation was not overcome until the Germans invented the snorkel. In addition, this kind of boat-shaped underwater travel had greater resistance and not good stability. After World War II, submarines no longer needed to conduct surface warfare, and technology had improved. So the boat shape reform has become necessary and possible. In 1956, the United States took the lead in building the "Albacore" teardrop-shaped submarine. But China did not know what the various performances of this boat shape are.

At that time, Deng Sanrui instructed 4 groups of the second-stage naval design students to conduct graduation design, and the 4th group was in the shape of a teardrop. After finishing the design sketches, Deng Sanrui went to Beijing to report to the navy. At that time, workers, peasants, businessmen, and soldiers all over the country were "launching satellites" and "making announcements".

Ji Keqin from the 702 Institute later said in a telephone interview with reporters: "I belong to the 4th group, and I do it in the shape of a drop. We saw the boat shape from the foreign materials, so we followed it. Up. When Teacher Deng went to Beijing to report, I didn't go with him, and later asked me to go. I accompanied the Dean General Chen Geng, Teacher Deng and a few others to the second floor of the Ministry of National Defense Building to report to General Huang Kecheng, Chief of Staff. I was just a small student at the time. How could I have seen two generals? I was so scared. Did not dare to come out."

Xue Zonghua (the minister was Lin Zhen), deputy director of the Naval Command's Construction Department, listened to the report on the 032 design on behalf of the navy. For Vice Minister Xue, Deng Sanrui had a lot of emotion. Others are tall and magnificent, and they had always been uniform, which is admirable. On the battlefield, they were also outstanding. In China's armistice negotiation delegation on the Korean battlefield, he was the chief of staff, under the pseudonym of Colonel Zhang Chunshan, he was awe-inspiring, and even Lao Mei gave him a thumbs up when he saw him. Minister Xue not only looked good, but also adhered to principles to cherish talents.

During the break of the 032 report meeting, he "viciously" said: "Deng Sanrui, you are too naive!" Hearing the accusation from Minister Xue, Deng Sanrui had nothing to say because he knew what he said. It’s what Deng Sanrui said in his report that it’s impossible to do "unreliable" 032. But that was in the era of "Great Leap Forward", and all walks of life across the country were shrouded in the extreme left of idealism and the infinite upper class. In the ideological trend, who does not brag, who is right-leaning opportunism? Who dares to tell the truth? However, although Minister Xue criticized me at the meeting, he had to "seriously" assign tasks at the meeting and trust him.

In 1962, when formulating the twelve-year national scientific development plan, Deng Sanrui was the main drafter of submarine development. When he pointed out that the enemy (the United States and Western countries more generally) was strong and weak in submarine technology, he was criticized by some people, accusing him of "giving up the enemy's ambition and destroying his own power." It was Minister Xue's sentence "Deng Sanrui tells the truth" that helped him out. In short, he was a real good leader, he "looks up to my brother".

After Deng Sanrui entered Beijing, his colleague Professor Yu Hongsen started to take the graduating class to build a small drop-shaped test boat, which is the 032-1 boat. The boat was about 14 meters long, about 4 meters high (including the command cabin), and had a displacement of about 32 tons. It had no diesel engine. It used a battery to drive an electric motor and a propeller (maybe a 5-blade propeller). The boat only had a device to control the submarine's lifting movement. And the space for the deployment of test instruments.

Thanks to the strong support of Jiangnan Shipyard, the 032-1 test submarine was created at the end of November 1958, and it was pulled near Lushunkou for testing. Why did the submarine built in Shanghai go to Lushun instead of trying it in the East China Sea? Because the deepest part of the sea there is only more than 70 meters, if something goes wrong, it can be rescued. More importantly, the only submarine unit of China's army was stationed in Lushun, which was convenient. Deng Sanrui was not quite sure about the specific test situation, because he stayed at the Jiangnan factory to do that "unreliable" 032.

When the 032 submarine began to demonstrate, Wang Xu participated in work for a period of time, and then left to teach. At that time, countries all over the world were exploring the shape of a drop-shaped boat, and the Americans took the lead. Japan, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe are also doing it, and China was not too late in this regard. At the end of November 1958, Wang Xu suddenly received an order to go to Shanghai to perform an emergency mission. Wang Xu arrived at the Naval Shipbuilding Technical Team at No. 10 Hengshan Road in Shanghai and found out that he was asked to be the leader of the 032-1 test team. The team members include Chen Jilin, Jing Yufeng and others. He was an experienced old submarine soldier, as well as a Kazakh military industrial cadet. He was timid. He was so scared to cry when he heard that he was going to experiment. Wang Xu asked him to watch a movie to stabilize his mood. One night at the end of December of that year, this team loaded 032-1 on a barge at Jiangnan Shipyard, pulled it along the Huangpu River to Shanghai North Station, and mounted the small boat on a temporarily refitted railway wagon assembled with two flat cars. There was also a shed made of wood on it, which was the team's temporary residence. The train took about three days to arrive at Lushunkou. The 032-1 was placed on a trestle on the military port terminal.

At that time, although 032-1 requires a sea trial, it is actually just an empty hull. There was no propeller, front horizontal rudder, compressor, electric motor, communication device, periscope, etc. The quality of the battery was not good enough, and the output power was unstable. There are no relevant technical documents for the test. In early April 1959, Deng Sanrui had a lung infection and was admitted to Hospital 404. Comrade Chen Houtai was in charge of the experiment. After more than two months, Deng Sanrui was discharged from the hospital and came to the dock to take a photo of 032-1 with the camera he brought back from the Soviet Union.

The reason why it was said that 032 was "unreliable" is well-founded. At that time, this type of submarine was required to adopt "the most advanced technology", and it was precisely these "world advanced level" technical achievements that were born in the "Great Leap Forward" that were the least reliable.

Batteries are an important power source for submarines, and the use of silver-zinc batteries was encouraged at that time. This kind of battery is light and corrosive, it is very good, but the price is expensive. Fortunately at that time projects did not consider costs. However, the quality of the silver-zinc battery was too poor to us on board the boat. To be on the safe side, it was decided to try all the silver-zinc batteries that arrived, but they were all scrapped. The electric motor is also the main component of the submarine. Without it, the submarine would be difficult to move. However, the motor generates a lot of heat during operation, and it is very easy to burn the motor if the temperature is not cooled in time. At that time, forced air cooling was generally used, but the efficiency was not very high. The motor factory claimed to have successfully developed a dual internal water-cooled motor (a water jacket was installed on the stator and rotor of the motor and cooled by circulating water), but until it was dismantled in 032 in 1960, the sbumarine team did not see that one with “world advanced Horizontal" dual internal water cooling motor.

The diesel engine is the "heart" of the submarine. A shipyard’s diesel engine workshop claimed to have developed a triangular diesel engine. Its cylinders are arranged on top of each other, so that there are 6 cylinders, and the output power naturally doubles. Theoretically, it is true. Foreign countries also have successful trial production. What is done is another matter. Other parts, such as periscope, clutch, etc., are not equally qualified. According to the design procedure, the design of the submarine has to go through the three steps of preliminary design, technical design and construction design, none of which are indispensable. Since there are no qualified parts, we can't even do the preliminary design. Every day we wait for qualified parts eagerly The arrival of that day is really difficult!

Due to too many difficulties, 032 really couldn’t go on. The Navy decided to suspend the 032 project at the end of December 1959. Yu Xiaohong, who later became the vice president of the Seventh Academy, approached Deng Sanrui for advice. Deng Sanrui said frankly, "stop it!"

Everything has a duality. Although 032 and 032-1 ended fruitless, there were still some important gains. First of all, the composition and operation of the personnel of the 032 design agency and subsequent transfer arrangements directly contributed to the birth of the Seventh Academy and several professional submarine research units and the submarine development major in universities. Because before that, there was no professional submarine design unit in China, and many of the professionals in the Seventh Academy and Jiaotong University that were established later were people from the military industry. Secondly, through the experiment of 032-1 (though not comprehensive), it proved the good water and underwater maneuverability of the drop shape, which laid a good foundation for the selection of the drop shape for China's attack nuclear submarines. Third, "failure is the mother of success." Through the failure of China's first independent development of 032, the fanatical idealistic and imaginary development ideas had been completely dispelled. Since then, China's submarine development work was gradually on the right track, both conventional submarines and nuclear submarines were close to the world's advanced level.

Li Xiju participated in the 032-1 test from beginning to end. At that time, Li Xiju was the recorder on the 032-1 test boat, and the test team leader was Chen Houtai. The Boat captain Han Wenyun, sailor captain Chen Jilin, as well as backup captain, helmsman squad leader, electrician, naval crew, tester, and recorder. At that time, the commander of the Lushun base was Major General Liu Huaqing. He also attached great importance to the 032-1 trial. We tried a total of three times, and each time the base had to send multiple ships to perform tasks such as command, escort, and support. In the sea area we tested, no ships were allowed to enter.

The first test of 032-1 was conducted in the inner sea area of the military port. There were 5 people on the boat, mainly for the rotation test. The boats circled in the harbor area, and on the shore, there were dedicated personnel on the shore to measure the boat position from different positions with a sextant (a special-purpose navigational instrument), and the two sextants measured simultaneously. After the measurement is completed, draw the measurement results into a graph. In the 032-1 water surface test, it was found that the 032-1 was stable when driving forward, but the heading stability was found to be unsatisfactory when moving backward, but this should not be too great an issue. The problem can be solved by adding stabilizer fins behind the boat. The test took more than two hours, and in general it was quite ideal, and the participants were relieved.

The second test was conducted outside Hong Kong. The weather was fine and calm. In order to save the power of the battery in the boat, the team first used a tug to tow the boat to the test sea area. The purpose of this test was to initially measure the speed of 032-1. The general procedure is as follows: place floating benchmarks at equal distances on the sea surface, and then calculate The time between the test boats passing the benchmarks, and the boat speed are calculated. Since there are ocean currents in the sea, just as the river flows downstream and upstream, the boat should be measured three times in both forward and reverse directions to calculate the average value. Because 032-1 used the lead-acid battery used on the luggage car of the railway system with limited capacity, the speed was only about 9 knots, but it basically achieved the test purpose.

The third test was conducted in the open sea, this time it was a dive test. According to general requirements, the submarine must have a safe depth when diving. The depth requirement was about 20 meters. After 032-1 dived, the crew began to test various items as required. Unknowingly, it exceeded the stipulated time of ascent. At this time, the people on the command ship on the sea were anxious and couldn't get in touch, because 032-1 did not have a communication device, no signal buoy, nor even a periscope (the periscope removed from the M-boat, because the barrel is too long to use), so 032-1 was veritably "deaf" and "blind" in the water. The person in command of the ship hurriedly threw grenades into the water (because the density of water is much greater than that of air, the explosion sound waves can travel far in the water. This was a common contact method used at that time). The people on 032-1 still did not hear it. Later, the team found out that it was overtime, and quickly surfaced. The people on board commanded the team, who quickly explained: "032-1 was able to move freely in the water". When we were happy, we forgot the time to float.

After the three tests, the test was to continue, but on December 1, 1959, the Navy 418 submarine (Soviet-made M-class) sank in the waters of Zhoushan. Only one of the boat's crew survived. This shocked the entire navy. In the next major safety inspection, the 032-1 test boat was pointed out that there were too many potential safety hazards, and there was no life-saving escape equipment in the boat, so the 032-1 was ordered to stop the test immediately, and the 032-1 was transported back for modification. Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard cut the rear section of the boat and lengthened the boat to 16.7 meters (mainly to load large-capacity batteries).

Originally, other equipment needed for further tests was to be installed, but there was no suitable one, and with the advent of the "Cultural Revolution", 032-1 was gone. Later, the Navy transferred the 032-1 test submarine and related archive materials to 702. During the "Cultural Revolution", the 032-1 submarine was sold scrap steel.