The Type 093 submarine (

NATO reporting name NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform man ...

: Shang class) is a class of

nuclear-powered Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

attack submarine An attack submarine or hunter-killer submarine is a submarine specifically designed for the purpose of attacking and sinking other submarines, surface combatants and merchant vessels. In the Soviet and Russian navies they were and are called ...

s constructed by the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

for the

People's Liberation Army Navy The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN; ), also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAN traces its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chines ...

Development

GlobalSecurity.org reports that development of the Type 093 began in the early 1980s. However, Admiral

Liu Huaqing Liu Huaqing (; 1 October 1916 – 14 January 2011) was Chinese revolutionary and an admiral of the People's Liberation Army Navy, who served as the third Commander-in-Chief of the Navy from 1982 through 1988. He is considered to have greatly co ...

wrote in his memoirs that development began in 1994 following President

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...

's continued support for nuclear submarine development after the launch of the final Type 091 in 1990. Erickson and Goldstein suggest that the

Yinhe incident The ''Yinhe'' incident () occurred after a claim was made in 1993 by the United States government that the China-based container ship ''Yinhe'' () was carrying chemical weapon materials to Iran. The United States Navy forced the surrounding Middl ...

in 1993, and continued tensions with Taiwan, also drove

's support of the program. Russian experts aided the design. 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.

Variants

;Type 093 Initial design. 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 The ''Akula'' class, Soviet designation Project 971 ''Shchuka-B'' (russian: Щука-Б, , Pike-B, NATO reporting name ''Akula'') are a series of fourth generation nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) first deployed by the Soviet Navy in 1 ...

(

''Akula'') at 110

decibel The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a ...

s. In 2009, USN ONI listed the Type 093 as being noisier than Project 671RTM (NATO reporting name Victor III) which entered service in 1979.Office of Naval Intelligence (2009: 22) Two built. NATO reporting name Shang I. ;Type 093A Modified design, possibly with greater length and a hump behind the sail. Four built. NATO reporting name Shang II. ;Type 093B Projected "guided-missile nuclear attack submarine" variant armed with surface/land-attack missiles.

Development

Variants

Ships of class

See also

References

Citations

Sources