Surface ships need test ships to test and experiment various shipborne weapons, radars and other equipment, and submarines are no exception. Submarines that test and experiment various weapons and electronic equipment for my country’s naval submarines are called test submarines. At present, my country mainly has the 031-type Great Wall 200 test submarine and the 032-type Great Wall 201 test submarine.
Underwater Pioneer Boat--031-type Test Submarine
On August 4, 2010, the Central Military Commission issued a commendation order, awarding the honorary title of "Underwater Launch Test Pioneer Boat" to a certain naval submarine, the Great Wall 200. This submarine is the first submarine dedicated to ballistic missile testing in the People’s Navy. The Great Wall 200 submarine was launched in September 1964 and successfully launched a carrier rocket underwater for the first time in 1982, setting many records in the history of naval submarines, such as the longest service time and the most missiles launched. During the 1950s, my country and the Soviet government signed two agreements on the introduction of naval vessels, the June 4th Agreement and the February 4th Agreement. The June 4th Agreement, which was signed earlier, mainly introduced a group of ships represented by the "Four Great King Kongs". The later February 4th Agreement shifted to the introduction of technology production, mainly including the introduction of samples and production licenses of 5 types of ships including conventional-powered missile submarines and 2 types of missiles including submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The conventional-powered ballistic missile submarine mentioned in the February 4th Agreement was code-named Type 629 by the Soviet Union and "Golf" (G-class for short) by NATO. The design of this type of submarine was completed in 1957, the first submarine was launched in 1958, and entered service in 1959. It can be seen that this type of submarine was an advanced missile submarine that would be equipped almost synchronously with the Soviet Union for the People’s Navy at that time. After my country got this type of submarine, it was renamed as Type 6631 missile submarine (Type 31 for short). This is the origin of the Great Wall 200 ballistic missile test conventional submarine.
In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union successively sent the technical design and construction design data of the Type 629 submarine to my country, and the Dalian Shipyard was responsible for the construction of the entire Type 31 submarine. Dalian Shipyard specially formed a closed and dedicated submarine production line for this purpose. In 1960, the construction of the first Type 31 submarine officially started.
Because my country lacked experience in building large submarines, especially ballistic missile submarines, and then encountered the Sino-Soviet conflict, the Soviet Union tore up the aid contract and withdrew experts, and the national economy was in an extremely difficult state at that time, which led to the delay of the construction progress of the first Type 31 submarine.
In the following four years, Dalian Shipyard actively organized technical research and finally solved a series of submarine manufacturing technologies and process difficulties such as pressure hull welding deformation and large draft hull launching process. In 1964, the first Type 31 submarine was launched, and in the following two years, the mooring test and navigation test were completed. However, due to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, my country failed to obtain the samples and information of the P-11 M short-range ballistic missiles equipped with matching equipment, resulting in the embarrassing situation of "boat without missiles" for the first Type 31 submarine. The missile weapon system could not be tested, and only the launch device and command system were simulated.
In 1966, the first Type 31 submarine was officially delivered to the Navy for service, with the hull number 1101. Since there was no imitation submarine-launched ballistic missile originally planned to be equipped in the submarine, the submarine failed to become a combat boat. The Type 31 submarine was originally planned to import materials and equipment for two ships in the first batch of orders, but the first batch of imported materials and equipment arrived insufficient, and the second ship lost the possibility of continuing to build. In fact, only one Type 31 submarine was built.
After entering the 1960s, the strategic nuclear submarines of the United States and the Soviet Union that adopted underwater ballistic missile technology began to serve in batches, and the underwater strategic nuclear deterrence force showed a huge advantage of combining concealment and suddenness. After my country overcame the national economic difficulties, as an important part of my country’s strategic nuclear deterrence force in its planning, the development of submarine underwater ballistic missiles was also put back on the agenda, and it was decided to use the Type 31 submarine as a test boat to cooperate with the various preliminary launch tests of the planned first domestic submarine-launched ballistic missile.
Through the integration and analysis of the intelligence of the ballistic missile nuclear submarines of the United States and the Soviet Union, our scientific researchers decided to abandon the original Soviet model on the Type 31 missile submarine, that is, not to use the pre-death liquid rocket engine with difficult maintenance and high storage and transportation risks as the power of the submarine-launched ballistic missile, but to use the solid fuel submarine-launched ballistic missile technology that the US ballistic missile nuclear submarines had adopted at that time. The solid rocket engine is simple to maintain and has good safety. Although the domestic large solid rocket engine technology was not mature at that time and the development was difficult, its comprehensive benefits were far better than the Soviet design. At the same time, the launch plan of the submarine-launched missile was also changed to an underwater launch method that has been widely adopted by the ballistic missile nuclear submarines of the United States and the Soviet Union, which has strong concealment and little impact from sea conditions. In order to meet the various launch test needs of the planned development of the domestically-produced first-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile "Julang-1", the decision-making department put forward a requirement in 1967 to modify the Type 31 submarine. The modification project was carried out in two phases.
The first phase of the modification project, it is said that the main change is to replace the three Soviet-made CM-60 surface missile launchers on the boat with two domestically designed "Julang-1" missile underwater launchers. The core of the new launcher is the missile ejection device that pushes the missile out of the boat and out of the water. It surpasses the technical level of the first generation of compressed air ejection devices and gas ejection devices for submarine-to-ground missiles. It imitates the US ballistic missile nuclear submarine and uses the latest gas-steam ejection device. The system structure is simple, the missile launch overload is small, and the ejection thrust is large, which has leapt to the world’s first-class technical level.
At the end of 1972, the first Type 31 boat conducted the first submarine underwater 30-meter ejection test of the "Julang-1" full-scale model missile under real sea conditions. By 1974, several underwater launch tests of the "Julang-1" model missile were carried out successively, providing valuable test data for the development of the "Julang-1" submarine-launched ballistic missile.
In order to improve the missile launch capability under high sea conditions, the first Type 31 boat was modified for the second time. After the modification, its hull number was changed from the original 1101 to 200 (now the Great Wall 200, which is still used today). In 1979, it successfully carried out several underwater launch tests of the "Julang-1" model missile under high sea conditions.
From the end of 1981 to January 1982, the matching test between the Great Wall 200 boat equipment and the "Julang-1" missile missile system was successfully carried out. Next, according to the plan, the Great Wall 200 submarine will conduct the first live-fire test of the "Julang-1" missile, and conduct preliminary tests for the missile to be officially equipped on my country’s first strategic nuclear submarine.
On October 1, 1982, Xinhua News Agency was authorized to issue an announcement: "my country will launch a carrier rocket from October 7 to October 26 on the high seas within a circular sea area with a radius of 35 nautical miles and a center of 28 degrees 13 minutes north latitude and 123 degrees 53 minutes east longitude." On October 16, 1982, the Great Wall 200 ballistic missile test conventional submarine successfully launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile (telemetry missile) underwater in a sea area in the North Sea, marking that my country’s underwater ballistic missile launch technology has entered the practical stage. China has become the fifth country in the world to master the underwater ballistic missile launch technology. This is an indelible milestone in the history of my country’s underwater nuclear deterrence construction.
In the sixth year after the successful test of "Julang-1" on the Great Wall 200 submarine, also in the golden autumn of October, my country’s first ballistic missile nuclear submarine successfully conducted an underwater launch test of the "Julang-1" missile. After more than 30 years of hard work, my country has finally obtained a realistic underwater nuclear deterrence capability.
Before and after the "Julang-1" submarine-launched ballistic missile was officially equipped on my country’s first strategic nuclear submarine, the Great Wall 200 submarine has carried out a large number of underwater launch test missions under various conditions, creating many records in the history of naval submarines, such as the longest service time and the most missile launches. For this reason, the submarine has been rated as an advanced ship company model by the Navy three times, and won the second-class merit three times. In 2009, it was commended by the four headquarters as an advanced grassroots unit of the whole army. In August 2010, it was awarded the title of "Underwater Launch Pioneer Boat". Due to equipment limitations and aging of the hull, the Great Wall 200 ballistic missile test conventional submarine is no longer suitable for the new generation of submarine-launched ballistic missile tests, but its historical status as my country’s underwater pioneer will be recorded in history forever.
The Navy’s new test submarine--Type 032 test submarine
On June 6, 2014, at the China Shipping Expo hosted by the Zhongshan Municipal People’s Government, many Chinese Navy active ships made a wonderful appearance in the form of models, including a scaled model of a new Chinese Navy test submarine-Type 032 test submarine (Great Wall 201 test submarine). This is the first time that the specific design details have been disclosed to the outside world since it entered service in 2012. In terms of purpose positioning, the Type 032 test submarine is not a mass-produced combat submarine. Its construction purpose is mainly to replace the early Great Wall 200 test submarine of the Chinese Navy and serve as a new generation of conventional-powered ballistic missile test submarines. The project of the submarine was launched in January 2005, construction started in 2008, it was completed and launched in September 2010, it was equipped to the troops in October 2012, and it has started to carry out new weapon testing tasks in 2013.
It is not difficult to see from the publicly unveiled model that the Great Wall 201 test submarine has at least four major weapon testing functions, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, various 533mm submarine-launched torpedoes, special operations team transport cabins, etc. It may also test submarine-launched fiber-optic guided air defense missiles, unmanned combat submarines, and small (micro) submarines on board. This type of submarine is only used for testing purposes, to test submarine-launched weapons and equipment, and to provide a data basis for the weapon equipment of new submarines. The early Great Wall 200 submarine was mainly responsible for two weapon test tasks, namely ballistic missiles and torpedoes. It was praised as the "incubator" of new submarine-launched weapons for its excellent completion of the first and second generation submarine-launched ballistic missile test tasks.
There are three launch tubes side by side in the command room of the Great Wall 201 test submarine. Among them, the front one is the crew escape test cabin, and the back two are ballistic missile test launch tubes. At the same time, from the hull structure of the middle part of the model submarine, the solid diameter of the bottom of the two ballistic missile launch tubes is obviously larger than the front and rear diameters. It can be seen that the size of the missile that can be tested will also be larger. From the performance parameter reports of foreign media such as Jane’s Defense Weekly: the length of the boat is 92.6 meters, the width is 10 meters, the horizontal stable wing width is 13 meters, and the maximum height is 17.2 meters. The designed draft is 6.85 meters, the working depth is 160 meters, and the maximum diving depth is 200 meters. The maximum speed on the water is 10 knots and the maximum speed underwater is 14 knots. The normal displacement is 3797 tons, and the underwater displacement is 6628 tons. The boat has a huge hull and tonnage, good underwater stability, and advanced electronic equipment, making it very suitable for testing submarine-launched ballistic missiles. If the barrel and launch control system are slightly modified, it can also be used to launch large anti-ship cruise missiles. The US "Ohio" class cruise missile nuclear submarine is modified from a ballistic missile nuclear submarine to launch the "Tomahawk" cruise missile.
In addition to testing ballistic missiles, the Great Wall 201 test submarine is also equipped with a vertical launch cruise missile device similar to the late-stage "Los Angeles" submarine of the United States, which is used to test cruise missiles with performance similar to the "Tomahawk". From the model diagram, there are four vertical launch tubes in the middle of the front deck, which are similar to the cruise missile launch tubes equipped on surface ships. Here they are mainly used for performance tests of new submarine-launched cruise missiles.
In addition, it can be seen from the model of the Great Wall 201 test submarine that the bow of the submarine is equipped with two torpedo tubes, the main purpose of which is to test various new submarine-launched active/passive acoustic self-guided torpedoes, wire-guided torpedoes, and wake self-guided torpedoes, and to achieve this through the corresponding torpedo launch control system.
The front of the huge command platform hull of the Great Wall 201 test submarine is equipped with an integral escape capsule. This device is widely equipped on Russian nuclear submarines. Its main function is to test underwater separation or recovery from submarines. Once the design requirements are met, China’s new nuclear submarines will also be equipped with a similar escape system. At the same time, the submarine is equipped with an underwater floating life-saving bell to improve its survivability in emergency situations. In addition, special operations underwater carriers can be moored on the deck. For example, a small (micro) submarine can be moored on the stern deck of the US Virginia-class nuclear submarine, which is mainly used for underwater escape and rescue, and can also be used to undertake underwater sentry tasks.
Conclusion
There are many kinds of test submarines in the world. The US Nautilus and the Soviet K-3 test nuclear-powered submarines are mainly used to test the application of nuclear power devices on submarines, which pioneered the development of nuclear-powered submarines in the two countries and laid the foundation for the development of nuclear submarines in the world. my country’s early Great Wall 200 test submarines mainly undertook the test tasks of our army’s first-generation submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and also made important contributions to the successful test of the second-generation submarine-launched ballistic missiles. As submarine weapons and equipment technology develops and matures, the United States, Russia, France and other countries are more inclined to develop comprehensive technology test submarines, and gradually upgrade them directly into combat submarines, rather than developing single technology test submarines. However, due to the limited number of nuclear submarines already in service in my country, it is not convenient to use active submarines to take into account the test function, so test submarines will still exist for a certain period of time in the future. The newly built Great Wall 201 test submarine, with its large displacement, good underwater stability, and advanced electronic equipment, is very suitable for testing various submarine-launched ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It can also undertake the "diving life-saving equipment" that new submarines may be equipped with and the test mission of small (micro) submarines on board, in order to replace the mission of the No. 200 submarine. It is believed that it will play an irreplaceable and important role in optimizing the design of my country’s future new submarines and upgrading and transforming active submarines.
