The submarine force of the US Navy is already fully nuclear-powered, which is also a proud selling point of the Americans and the US military. In those years, the United States instigated the Taiwan authorities to purchase new submarines, but the United States itself no longer had the capacity to manufacture conventional submarines, and the Taiwan authorities ran into walls everywhere in the world. The United States is also trying to pull Australia into the U.S. nuclear submarine system through the Arkus Alliance.
Recently, a US Navy researcher published an article on the far-right website The National Interest, saying that under the threat of the PLA's powerful anti-ship capabilities, US aircraft carriers are already floating coffins, the number of nuclear submarines is too small, and the US Navy should return to the conventional submarine route driven by diesel-electric motors. The idea that aircraft carriers are floating coffins, put forward by the former leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, has already proven to be extreme. Now, American researchers have turned this point of view into perspective, and it seems that the US nuclear submarine force is in great trouble. In fact, this question is not mysterious. The decline of the American shipbuilding industry has not spared the nuclear submarine sector. In fact, the construction of nuclear submarines is difficult, technically complex, and more deeply affected. Today, the United States is preparing to start the construction of Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines and continue to implement the construction of Virginia-class attack nuclear submarines. There is also daily maintenance and repair of Virginia-class and Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines. All this has overwhelmed the US shipbuilding and ship repair industry, and the combat readiness of the nuclear submarine force has dropped sharply. Switching to seemingly simpler conventional submarines seemed to be a solution to the problem.
In fact, in addition to nuclear submarines, the US Navy has also thought of other ways to develop diesel-electric submarines. It's just that this kind of submarine has no crew, that is, the Orca submarine developed by Boeing. According to the US Navy's own propaganda, this large unmanned submarine has performed well, and it has traveled thousands of miles, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and completed a lot of testing and reconnaissance work. However, it is clear that the Orca submarine can only undertake reconnaissance and surveillance tasks at present, and it is still far from a combat model.
So, will the introduction of diesel-electric submarines solve the problem? No. The problem facing the US Navy is not what kind of power submarines to use, but the fact that the naval strategy is being adjusted. From the end of World War II to the early days of the War on Terror, the U.S. Navy pursued a strategy of all-out offensive. But now, with the decline of combat effectiveness, the US Navy has shrunk to a full-scale defense posture, but it still refuses to admit it. If the size of the fleet shrinks further, it will degenerate to focused defense. In an offensive state, the US military can use a limited number of ships to actively carry out operations. However, in a defensive state, it is necessary to ensure sufficient troops, and not to pursue elite troops excessively. The introduction of unmanned ships is to use new technology to expand the force. But it seems that the development of unmanned technology is not as fast as the US Navy expects.
Switching to diesel-electric submarines, can it be done for the US Navy? The United States has long lost the ability to create diesel-electric submarines, and it will not be possible to restore them without more than ten years. Moreover, today's AIP diesel-electric submarines have become the mainstream, that is, they carry liquid oxygen tanks in the hull, which can drive diesel engines to run underwater to achieve the goal of long-term diving. Germany, China, South Korea and other countries have mastered this technology through long-term and arduous efforts. The United States is completely blank in this regard. Therefore, it is very difficult for the United States to build diesel-electric submarines on its own and to reach the world's advanced level.
It is not difficult to say that in the camp of the allies of the United States, there are a large number of masters of diesel-electric submarines, among which Germany has the best reputation, French and Spanish products have excellent performance, Japanese products have unique characteristics, and South Korea is actively promoting them in the international market. If the U.S. is planning to import from abroad, there are a large number of models to choose from. But either option, there is no cheap option. Today's conventional submarines use a lot of advanced technology and are expensive. The unit price of the Virginia class is about $1.8 billion, and the unit price of the German Type 214 submarine is already close to $400 million. Although it sounds a lot cheaper, the speed and weapon-carrying capacity of diesel-electric submarines are far inferior to those of nuclear submarines. Moreover, the biggest problem of diesel-electric submarines is that they have a small combat radius and cannot be deployed globally, which is suitable for defending their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. If the US Navy wants to cross the sea and make trouble for China, it obviously cannot rely on conventional submarines. Of course, as far as the US Navy is concerned, if it adopts the Akus submarine model and finds an excuse for "joint development," it may be able to get some usable diesel-electric submarines from Japan and South Korea. However, these submarines can only be deployed in South Korea or Japan, where they can be maintained and safeguarded on a daily basis and threaten China.