(Newswire.net — February 26, 2015) — According to US Navy Vice Admiral Joseph Mulloy, the Chinese Navy now has more diesel and nuclear attack submarines than America does. He told the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower Subcommittee on Wednesday, that not only does the Chinese Navy outpace the US in submarines, but that some of them are “fairly amazing.” He said that piling up the ships and submarines, Beijing is “exploring new ways of projecting its power on the seas.”
“They may not be the same quality, but their submarine forces are growing at a tremendous rate. They now have more diesel and nuclear attack submarines than we have,” the admiral told the lawmakers. “They are producing some fairly amazing submarines and they are actually deploying them,” he said.
Allegedly, the Chinese are experimenting with the length of their missions and preparing crews for longer life under the sea. In addition, they are exploring a new geographic location, and testing new weapons, Vice Admiral Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for capabilities and resources, told the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower Subcommittee on Wednesday.
According to Vice Admiral Mulloy, the Chinese naval missions included at least three deployments into the Indian Ocean. They can also send strategic ballistic missile submarines on missions lasting for 95 days, he said to the subcommittee, Russia Today reported.
“We don’t think they have nuclear weapons on board, but we’ve seen them producing the missiles and testing them,” the admiral said. “We know they are out experimenting and looking at operating and clearly want to be in this world of advanced submarines.”
Chinese piling up Navy ships, however, doesn’t seem to alarm the Pentagon. According to ‘The National Interest’ blog, “China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) has traditionally delegated comprehensive nuclear-arsenal command and control authority to the Second Artillery Corps, and it is unlikely that the CMC will undergo the structural transformation necessary to devolve launch authority to PLAN commanders.”
According to ‘The National Interest’, the Pentagon believes China’s inexperience in maintaining secure communications between SSBNs and land-based command means that a US decapitation strike on command and control systems could potentially render a Chinese sea-based nuclear deterrent ineffective.
On the other hand, underestimating the potential threat could be a serious mistake, military experts say. The fact that China is producing large quantities of submarines, only means that they plan to rely on them in the future, and there is a perfectly sound reason for that, the exact same reason Russians rely on their submarines, which can launch a nuclear missile undetected, from any location under the ocean.