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Fish Type 11 (Yu-11)

In 2016 the media exposed a certain type of missile land-based test of the People's Liberation Army, or the latest model of the fish 11 anti-submarine missile. The biggest advantage of anti-submarine missiles was range and suddenness, which was the main weapon of modern anti-submarine warfare. The new generation of light fish 11 torpedo adopts the Rankine closed-loop thermal power system. This advanced power system has high energy density, and because the closed circulation system does not need to vent outward, there was no exhaust noise and exhaust track, so The self-noise and infrared characteristics of the torpedo are reduced, so that the torpedo has better quietness and concealment, and the overall performance has reached the level of the US military MK50.

Although there was no introduction to the performance of a new generation of light anti-submarine torpedoes, its ability to compete with the world's most advanced torpedoes was bound to result in significant improvements in the overall technology. Among them, the power system may use advanced permanent magnet motor and high-energy battery, so that the maximum speed can reach 50 knots and the maximum range can exceed 20 kilometers.

At present, in terms of anti-submarine torpedoes, China has three different models, namely Yu-7, Yu-8, and Yu-11. In fact, the Yu-11 anti-submarine torpedo was only publicly unveiled in 2016. For a long time, China's navy ship forces had lacked anti-submarine warfare equipment. They learned from the Soviet Union and mainly used rocket anti-submarine depth bombs. Rocket anti-submarine depth bombs are powerful, but have a short range and limited anti-submarine depth. For enemy submarines in deep waters, the strike effect has been greatly reduced. At the same time, European and American warships had begun to use various types of shipborne anti-submarine torpedoes, among which the most commonly used were 324mm shipborne anti-submarine torpedoes, such as the American MK46 torpedo, the Italian A224 torpedo, etc., which are all very classic models. Due to the long-term technological blockade, China faced various problems in the development of 324mm anti-submarine torpedoes. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that China finally had an opportunity. In the late 1970s, China accidentally obtained the American MK46 324mm anti-submarine torpedo. However, there was only one, and the quantity was limited, which could not support scientific research. After entering the 1980s, China and Western countries entered a precious honeymoon period. During this period, China imported a series of weapons and technologies from Europe and the United States, which laid a certain innate foundation for the subsequent technological equipment take-off in China. In the 1980s, China imported the A224 324mm anti-submarine torpedo from Italy. China's import of A224 torpedoes was a temporary emergency measure and was also for reference. China's Yu-7 anti-submarine torpedo project has already begun, drawing on a lot of design and mature experience of the MK46 and A224 torpedoes. In the 1990s, the Yu-7 torpedo was gradually finalized and entered the mass production stage. After the 1990s, various large and medium-sized ships produced in China were generally equipped with Yu-7 torpedoes, such as the 051B destroyer, the 054A frigate, and various subsequent ships. Even the 1,400-ton 056A frigate was equipped with Yu-7 anti-submarine torpedoes on both sides. However, it was not enough to be equipped with Yu-7 anti-submarine torpedoes alone. Because in Western countries, in addition to shipborne anti-submarine torpedoes, anti-submarine missiles are also generally equipped. Among them, the most famous was the American Asroc anti-submarine missile. The vertical-fired Asroc anti-submarine missile was launched by the United States in the 1990s. It was widely equipped on major ships in various European and American countries. According to news reports, the maximum range of the Asroc anti-submarine missile was more than 22 kilometers, which was much farther than the ship-borne anti-submarine torpedo. In fact, China has been working hard to catch up with the world's advanced level. After entering the 21st century, after difficult research and development, China finally launched the Yu-8 rocket-assisted torpedo, which was China's own anti-submarine missile. In fact, this was a different name between countries, and the launch principle and usage are exactly the same. In the news reports of China, there are reports that the 054A frigate vertically launches the Yu-8 rocket-assisted torpedo. It can be seen that the Yu-8 rocket-assisted torpedo can be used together with the Hongqi-16 air defense missile. Since the 054A frigate can do it, then the 052D and 055 destroyers can also do it. The various parameters of the Yu-8 rocket-assisted torpedo are currently absolutely confidential and there was no information. However, China has launched the export version of the ET80 rocket-assisted torpedo based on the Yu-8. At the 2018 exhibition, various parameters of this torpedo were made public. According to reports, it can strike conventional submarines and nuclear submarines within 5 to 30 kilometers. From the parameters of the ET80 export version, we can roughly infer the various technical levels of the PLA's self-use version of the Yu-8 torpedo. It was far from enough to just stay at the Yu-7 and Yu-8 torpedoes, because the above two types of torpedoes belong to two models of torpedoes and cannot be used interchangeably. In fact, the Yu-8 torpedo belongs to the rocket-assisted flight mode and adopts vertical launch. It can only be used on large and medium-sized ships above frigates. For the 1,400-ton class of the 056 series light frigates, it cannot be used. Based on the principles of standardization and generalization, China began to develop a new generation of 324mm anti-submarine torpedoes. In 2016, a new anti-submarine torpedo was unveiled, the famous Yu-11 anti-submarine torpedo. The Yu-11 torpedo was of great significance to China's naval vessels because it can be launched from multiple platforms and in multiple modes, which was something that the previous series of torpedoes could not do. First of all, the Yu-11 torpedo belongs to the new generation of 324mm anti-submarine torpedoes, which can be launched by naval ships using ship-borne torpedo tubes, and can also be mounted by anti-submarine helicopters. At the same time, in 2016, the rocket-assisted mode of the Yu-11 was publicly reported, and it was launched from the missile launch box in an inclined manner. In other words, the anti-submarine type of the 056A frigate can be equipped with the Eagle Strike 83 in the missile launch box, and can also be equipped with the Yu-11 rocket-assisted mode torpedo, which greatly improves the anti-submarine capability and combat range of light ships such as the 056 frigate. At the same time, since the Yu-11 rocket-assisted torpedo can be launched in a tilted manner using a missile launch box, it can also be launched in a vertical launch mode. For example, large and medium-sized ships such as the 052D series, 055 series destroyers and 054B series frigates can all use the vertical launch version of the Yu-11. There are no reports on the technical standards of the Yu-11 torpedo. According to speculation by foreign agencies, the Yu-11 torpedo uses a Rankine closed cycle thermal power system, which has no exhaust noise and exhaust track, greatly reducing the self-noise and infrared characteristics of the torpedo during navigation, and has better quietness and concealment. The overall performance was basically equivalent to that of the US MK50 torpedo. The MK50 anti-submarine torpedo was the main force of the US military, with a maximum speed of 55 to 60 knots and a maximum range of 20 kilometers. Its comprehensive performance was very strong. In fact, at this stage, the 324mm anti-submarine torpedoes of various countries are developing towards multi-purpose, such as air-launched, vertical-launched, inclined-launched, etc. China's Yu-11 anti-submarine torpedo was basically in sync with the world's advanced level in all aspects. There are many "nuclear" weapons in the world. Most people think that nuclear weapons are mainly used to kill targets through nuclear explosions. But in fact, there was another definition of nuclear weapons in the world, that is, all weapons that use "nuclear" weapons, including weapons and equipment powered by "nuclear" weapons, are nuclear weapons. Recently, the US "War Zone" website published an article saying that China was developing "nuclear-powered torpedoes" that will form a nuclear deterrent against the United States from another angle. US media quoted a report from Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, saying that a new concept torpedo design was found in China's publicly released magazine "Unmanned Undersea Systems". This torpedo uses a disposable nuclear reactor, which can greatly increase the range. Hong Kong media called it the "Chinese version of the Poseidon nuclear torpedo." The Chinese submarine research and development team publicly stated that this nuclear-powered unmanned submarine will never be equipped with a nuclear warhead. The main purpose of developing this project was to further enhance the technical capabilities of ocean exploration and ocean scientific research. According to the description, this nuclear-powered unmanned submarine was more like a small unmanned nuclear-powered attack submarine. In addition to its own warhead, it also carries multiple heavy torpedoes, which can be used to break through the defense circle of the US aircraft carrier battle group in wartime and strike US aircraft carriers. Russian President Vladimir Putin once said in a public speech that Russia wants to build six "super weapons", and the "Poseidon" nuclear torpedo was one of them. The "Poseidon" nuclear-powered torpedo not only uses nuclear power, but was also equipped with a nuclear warhead. In addition to directly launching nuclear strikes on targets, it can also be detonated in deep sea areas far from the coastline, and attack the enemy's coastal economic zones by generating tsunamis with radioactive materials. Therefore, the US government believes that Russia's "Poseidon" nuclear torpedo was a strategic nuclear deterrent weapon. The nuclear-powered torpedo developed by China this time was somewhat different from the "Poseidon" torpedo. First of all, China's nuclear-powered torpedo uses a disposable nuclear power unit, which can accelerate the torpedo to 30 knots, or 56 kilometers per hour, and maintain continuous operation for 200 hours. Afterwards, the disposable nuclear reactor will fall off directly. Then the battery on the torpedo will continue to supply power for 200 hours until the torpedo reaches the designated location. According to calculations, its range/range reaches 22,200 kilometers. If launched from Shanghai, China, this nuclear-powered torpedo can directly hit San Francisco, USA. Therefore, the US media believes that the "heart disease" problem of China's nuclear-powered torpedoes has been completely solved. It should be noted that the nuclear power pack of this disposable nuclear-powered torpedo will fall off after it was sealed by itself, so it will not cause pollution or impact on the marine environment. At the same time, this nuclear-powered torpedo will use conventional warheads in most cases, rather than nuclear warheads like the Russian "Poseidon" nuclear-powered torpedo. The first to expose the so-called "China's development of nuclear-powered torpedoes" was the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, whose source of information came from a paper published in the Journal of Underwater Unmanned Systems by Guo Jian, chief scientist of the China Institute of Atomic Energy. In this paper titled "Conceptual Concept of Nuclear Reactor Power Supply for Underwater Submersibles", researchers envisioned an underwater unmanned submersible powered by a miniature nuclear reactor. According to the paper, Guo Jian envisioned developing a new type of nuclear power that was mature in technology, easy to use and maintain, and inexpensive and suitable for large-scale production. The total weight of this miniature nuclear reactor was only equivalent to "the weight of two ordinary adult men", that is, less than 200 kilograms, and the nuclear fuel used was less than 4 kilograms of low-enriched uranium fuel, which can generate a total of more than 1.4 megawatts of heat. According to calculations, about 6% of the heat will be converted into electricity to propel the submarine, which was enough to accelerate the submarine to more than 30 knots and maintain this speed for more than 200 hours. The total life of the micro-nuclear reactor can reach 400 hours, which means that the range of a submarine using this power will exceed 10,000 kilometers, which was almost enough to fly directly from Shanghai to San Francisco, USA. Because it was used on a disposable unmanned submarine, and the nuclear reactor has very little nuclear material, only a small amount of radiation shielding material was needed to protect some key components from radiation. At the same time, cheap materials such as graphite are used to replace the coating made of rare earths originally used in the reactor core. In addition, this nuclear reactor will actively detach from the submarine before completing its mission or running out of fuel, and then complete the remaining chain reaction to minimize the negative impact on the environment. This paper revolves around the power system. As for how the submarine equipped with this miniature nuclear reactor will be used, its technical and tactical level, and whether the military was interested in purchasing it, these are actually unknowns. The paper only makes a simple assumption. In Guo Jian's conception, this micro-nuclear power can be used for small, high-speed, long-range unmanned underwater vehicles for reconnaissance, tracking, attack and strategic strikes, including torpedoes. However, Guo Jian was only a nuclear power expert, not an underwater weapon expert, so he only proposed a concept of a nuclear-powered torpedo with a conventional warhead, and did not explain what kind of target this torpedo can be used to attack. In fact, no matter how you look at it, this micro-nuclear power was more suitable for long-endurance underwater unmanned submersibles used for reconnaissance missions. The South China Morning Post mentioned "torpedoes" repeatedly in the article, assuming that this miniature nuclear power will be carried on the 533mm torpedoes launched by Chinese naval submarines as an ultra-long-range weapon. However, the most important thing in underwater combat was not the range of the weapon, but the detection distance. The report by the US website "War Zone" was even more outrageous, directly linking it to China's strategic nuclear arsenal and demanding that the United States pay attention to the threat of China's new nuclear weapons. The South China Morning Post and War Zone also mentioned the Poseidon that Russia was developing in their reports, and compared it with the nuclear-powered submarine envisioned by Guo Jian. The relationship between the two cannot be said to be completely unrelated. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post believes that, judging from the description, China's "nuclear-powered torpedo" was more of a large nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle than a torpedo, but it carries a warhead and does not fire torpedoes or other ammunition separately. This equipment can be used for conventional operations like an attack nuclear submarine, rather than strategic nuclear deterrence, and was sufficient to meet the growing demand for "small, high-speed, long-range unmanned underwater vehicles that can be used for reconnaissance, tracking, attack and strategic strikes" previously proposed by the Chinese Navy. This disposable nuclear reactor was also very interesting. The energy it produces was not too large, just enough to push the torpedo far enough. But considering the problem of large-scale application, this nuclear power system must be "mature and simple in technology, easy to use and maintain, low in price, and suitable for large-scale production." The idea of the research and development team was to strip most of the shielding materials from the reactor to ensure that some key parts are protected from nuclear radiation. At the same time, inside the core of the nuclear reactor, the shielding coating originally made of expensive rare earth materials was replaced by a coating made of cheap materials such as graphite. The final disposable nuclear reactor can generate more than 1.4 megawatts of heat with less than four kilograms of low-enriched uranium fuel. Although only about 6% of the heat can be converted into something for nuclear-powered torpedoes in the end, it was enough to support the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) carried on the torpedo for a long time. This nuclear-powered torpedo can be used in two different ways. The first attack method was to drop it directly from the coastal areas of China, and the second attack method was to drop it through submarine forces. Regardless of the attack method, the disposable nuclear power device will not work immediately, but will start half an hour after the torpedo was launched to ensure safety. The US website War Zone was very worried. The US media believes that China has made great progress in the development of intelligent torpedo seekers. Therefore, nuclear-powered torpedoes launched from Shanghai and other regions in China, even with only conventional warheads, can also attack important targets along the US coast, such as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers docked in the US home port. In addition, although the Chinese research and development team stated that this nuclear-powered torpedo will only use conventional warheads, given China's technical strength, it was not too difficult to replace it with a nuclear warhead, and it can be completed in a short period of time. By then, this nuclear-powered torpedo will become a strategic nuclear deterrent weapon like Russia's "Poseidon" nuclear torpedo. If this equipment can be successfully developed, it will have a significant deterrent effect on the US military, especially the US Navy. This means that aircraft carriers hiding in the home port of the US mainland are no longer in an absolutely safe state, which can effectively limit the US Navy's use of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and reduce their range of operations and combat. Some experts believe that this weapon was an effective means of restraining the enemy's anti-missile system and can force the enemy to give up using force against China at the strategic level. From another perspective, this weapon can even directly cross the territorial waters of other countries without violating relevant international conventions. The current relevant international maritime treaties have not yet made a conclusion and imposed restrictions on this unmanned submarine, and there are no legislative restrictions on this weapon. Of course, the nuclear torpedo developed by China was not as exaggerated as the Russian Poseidon. It was said that the nuclear torpedo developed by China was much smaller than the Poseidon, but the Chinese nuclear torpedo was more versatile and cheaper to manufacture. It can be equipped on most large surface warships and submarines, and was far more versatile than the Russian Navy. Nuclear torpedoes attack from the bottom of the sea, and the existing strategic defense system of the United States cannot defend against such attacks, thus forming a new strategic balance. However, the timeliness of nuclear torpedoes was too poor. If the Poseidon nuclear torpedo attacks a target 10,000 kilometers away at a speed of 100 knots, it will take at least 4 days, so the opponent has no way to intercept it and has enough time to prepare for it. In addition, the strike effect and collateral damage of nuclear torpedoes are uncontrollable. It was very likely that after the attack, the opponent's coastal targets are not destroyed, but the polluted seawater makes it impossible for the opponent to deal with it. This weapon can make up for China's insufficient intercontinental conventional strike capability to a considerable extent in wartime. In wartime, it can directly launch dozens of torpedoes to lurk near the US mainland military ports first, and carry out devastating strikes on US Navy aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers leaving the port, completely eradicating the threat of the US Navy from the source. China does not need such inefficient nuclear weapons because it has the most advanced hypersonic technology. Direct use of hypersonic weapons to attack the enemy, there was currently no air defense system that can intercept, not only was it highly efficient but also can strike a wide range, not limited to coastal targets. Unlike Poseidon, China's nuclear torpedoes do not use nuclear warheads, which means that China can use these nuclear torpedoes in conventional wars. This weapon can be loaded on the PLA's large nuclear submarines as a supplement to its conventional strike means. The PLA's current demand for underwater weapon exploration was growing, and these small nuclear torpedoes that can perform reconnaissance, battlefield surveillance, and tracking strikes are undoubtedly what the PLA needs. Rocket-assisted torpedo was a torpedo launched from a ship, assisted by rockets in the air, reaches a predetermined point and enters the water, and automatically searches, tracks and attacks the target. Composed of rocket vehicle and homing torpedo. It has the advantages of long rocket range, fast speed and strong self-guided torpedo automatic search and attack capabilities. Due to the huge noise of the supercavitating torpedo during its movement, the "Storm" class supercavitating torpedo originally developed by Russia could not be equipped with acoustic guidance sonar, and could only attack targets in a straight line like the old torpedoes of the World War II era.