Indian Navy Developments & Discussions

[karn]

If the project 18 comes with the UNICORN comm antenna and the rolls royce engine ,Can we sing
"Mera radio hai japani, engine englistani deck peh RBU roosi fir bhi dil hai hindustani "?

Spoiler

I'll see myself out

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

USA and UK and France dont do SSKs because the fuckers dont have the manpower to crew the bloody things. SSNs are absolutely disgusting waste of money for standard duty operations.

France and RN are INCAPABLE of doing your normal submarine mission profile of say, attacking the enemy's merchant shipping, They're dedicated SSBN escorts.

For everything else, be it interdiction of enemy merchantmen, for sulking around and gathering SIGINT and laying mines, and inserting SF - SSKs are the best thing.

SSNs are noisier, more expensive to build and operate and the crew qualification requirements are off the charts. Its a stupid bet for non escort SSBN missions.

Whats your opinion on hybrid nuclear submarines? I mean those that are electric driven submarines, but instead of using diesel, they use a low power nuclear power plant.

You get equivalent performance to SSKs but with the endurance of SSNs. Speculated that the chinese are using this in one of their newer class SSNs.

 

[samsaptaka]

Whats your opinion on hybrid nuclear submarines? I mean those that are electric driven submarines, but instead of using diesel, they use a low power nuclear power plant.

You get equivalent performance to SSKs but with the endurance of SSNs. Speculated that the chinese are using this in one of their newer class SSNs.

Current nuke subs convert steam pressure to electric right ? Or directly drive the prop using steam pressure ? Pardon the noob Question

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

Current nuke subs convert steam pressure to electric right ? Or directly drive the prop using steam pressure ? Pardon the noob Question

Current subs drive the shaft directly with turbines (the electric generation is done for the onboard systems only)

They also dont store large, meaningful amounts of electricity.

 

[Ayan Barat]

Current nuke subs convert steam pressure to electric right ? Or directly drive the prop using steam pressure ? Pardon the noob Question

All the steam goes to turbines who's primary job is propulsion. Added to these turbines are generator that provide power to all the systems. Generally you also have small diesel engine and batteries for back-up and emergency operations.
A typical, more complicated arrangment is something like this

In case of a hybrid-drive the basic idea (I'm simplifying is so much that it's somewhat wrong) is to primarily generate electricity and then use it to drive a motor. The typical arrangement would be a nuclear reactor and a diesel engine attached in "parallel" to a generator, which then goes to a rather large AIP type battery section and then finally to the motor. There are few theoretical advantages to it
> With advancement in motors and emergence of high power density motor like axial-flux you can directly run a propeller to it instead of requiring a complex gear system. This both make things simpler and also reduced vibration.
> You don't need a mechanical linkage between steam generator and the propeller as now everything is reduced to just a single wire (obviously more than that, but you get it) so now you can completely seal the nuclear-generator section in a sound-vibration proof enclosure.
> The overall arrangment become bit simpler.

 

[SlayingHell]

All the steam goes to turbines who's primary job is propulsion. Added to these turbines are generator that provide power to all the systems. Generally you also have small diesel engine and batteries for back-up and emergency operations.
A typical, more complicated arrangment is something like this
View attachment 13378
In case of a hybrid-drive the basic idea (I'm simplifying is so much that it's somewhat wrong) is to primarily generate electricity and then use it to drive a motor. The typical arrangement would be a nuclear reactor and a diesel engine attached in "parallel" to a generator, which then goes to a rather large AIP type battery section and then finally to the motor. There are few theoretical advantages to it
> With advancement in motors and emergence of high power density motor like axial-flux you can directly run a propeller to it instead of requiring a complex gear system. This both make things simpler and also reduced vibration.
> You don't need a mechanical linkage between steam generator and the propeller as now everything is reduced to just a single wire (obviously more than that, but you get it) so now you can completely seal the nuclear-generator section in a sound-vibration proof enclosure.
> The overall arrangment become bit simpler.

NEP is different from a Nuclear Heat Source. The setup described above is a regular nuclear-powered SSN, but with advanced features—not related to the rumored Nuclear Hybrid SSK.

Nuclear Battery is akin to RTGs. It’s a nuclear battery that works on the thermocouple principle. The Chinese have been experimenting with pairing it with a Stirling engine concept to achieve unlimited low-speed endurance.

 

[Ayan Barat]

Nuclear Battery is akin to RTGs

Good luck generating electricity for a 3,000 ton submarine, let alone propelling it with extremely power inefficient nuclear batteries.

 

[mist_consecutive]

View: https://x.com/NewsIADN/status/1850523207889006933

 

[samsaptaka]

All the steam goes to turbines who's primary job is propulsion. Added to these turbines are generator that provide power to all the systems. Generally you also have small diesel engine and batteries for back-up and emergency operations.
A typical, more complicated arrangment is something like this
View attachment 13378
In case of a hybrid-drive the basic idea (I'm simplifying is so much that it's somewhat wrong) is to primarily generate electricity and then use it to drive a motor. The typical arrangement would be a nuclear reactor and a diesel engine attached in "parallel" to a generator, which then goes to a rather large AIP type battery section and then finally to the motor. There are few theoretical advantages to it
> With advancement in motors and emergence of high power density motor like axial-flux you can directly run a propeller to it instead of requiring a complex gear system. This both make things simpler and also reduced vibration.
> You don't need a mechanical linkage between steam generator and the propeller as now everything is reduced to just a single wire (obviously more than that, but you get it) so now you can completely seal the nuclear-generator section in a sound-vibration proof enclosure.
> The overall arrangment become bit simpler.

Thanks, using nuclear energy to charge the batteries, generate electricity and use that to drive an electric motor for propulsion seems to be a more quieter approach and obvious, so why is this not the primary approach? There must be some drawback, probably power wastage

 

[Ayan Barat]

Thanks, using nuclear energy to charge the batteries, generate electricity and use that to drive an electric motor for propulsion seems to be a more quieter approach and obvious, so why is this not the primary approach? There must be some drawback, probably power wastage

Exactly; even if you change let's say the angle of rotation by adding two gears and a shaft you loose some energy. And here we're talking about converting on form of the energy to another so both the generator and the motor would waste some energy in the form heat compared to a simpler arrangement of steam directly turning the propeller.

Also technology has matured a bit now so we've things like more efficient motors or generators, exotic materials.

 

[SlayingHell]

Good luck generating electricity for a 3,000 ton submarine, let alone propelling it with extremely power inefficient nuclear batteries.

Why don't you research before posting?

A Soryu class submarine Hotel Load is 200kW and its silent transit speed requiress 50kW.
A NASA Cassini RTG generates 250-300W and its entire weight is around 50Kg. So to fulfill Hotel Load plus Silent Transit Speed they need around 1000 Batteries which means 500 Tons which is manageable on some 4000-Ton submarine.

Even if you don't want to fulfill hotel load and only powering silent drive is enough whwich is 50kW then 200 Batteries which is around 100-Tons is more than manageable.

Number of Batteries in Japan's new Taigei submarine.

A professional level blog on strategic matters, especially submarines (nuclear and conventional) in English, Hindi & most other major languages.

gentleseas.blogspot.com

Comparison of Soryu Modes of Electrical Propulsion Table

A professional level blog on strategic matters, especially submarines (nuclear and conventional) in English, Hindi & most other major languages.

gentleseas.blogspot.com

This blog is a goldmine and @Gessler is contributor there.

 

[SlayingHell]

Why don't you research before posting?

A Soryu class submarine Hotel Load is 200kW and its silent transit speed requiress 50kW.
A NASA Cassini RTG generates 250-300W and its entire weight is around 50Kg. So to fulfill Hotel Load plus Silent Transit Speed they need around 1000 Batteries which means 500 Tons which is manageable on some 4000-Ton submarine.

Even if you don't want to fulfill hotel load and only powering silent drive is enough whwich is 50kW then 200 Batteries which is around 100-Tons is more than manageable.

Number of Batteries in Japan's new Taigei submarine.

A professional level blog on strategic matters, especially submarines (nuclear and conventional) in English, Hindi & most other major languages.

gentleseas.blogspot.com

Comparison of Soryu Modes of Electrical Propulsion Table

A professional level blog on strategic matters, especially submarines (nuclear and conventional) in English, Hindi & most other major languages.

gentleseas.blogspot.com

This blog is a goldmine and @Gessler is contributor there.

Everything is economies of scale problem. Plutonium 238 is a pain in ass to extract and costly- volume of scale problem. But is less radioactive and requires minimal shielding as it only emits primarily alpha particles making Radioactive hysteria less of a problem. It primarily made sense when Nuke Reactors Noise was so loud and the Chinese were having trouble to achieve stealth levels of Virginia and Seawolf and hence experimenting with that. But for established players like USA, France, UK its doesn't make sense.

 

[Binayak95]

Whats your opinion on hybrid nuclear submarines? I mean those that are electric driven submarines, but instead of using diesel, they use a low power nuclear power plant.

You get equivalent performance to SSKs but with the endurance of SSNs. Speculated that the chinese are using this in one of their newer class SSNs.

You mean a LWPR like the French use.

Its a good idea in principle, but i dont know what the spool rate is, i.e how quickly it can ramp up power to enable rapid accln

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

You mean a LWPR like the French use.

Its a good idea in principle, but i dont know what the spool rate is, i.e how quickly it can ramp up power to enable rapid accln

I think as long as the batteries are big enough, it shouldnt really matter..... right? The batteries can supply excess power to the engine, and the reactor can power up to desired level in the meantime.

For ref, this is the type of propulsion I am referring to :-


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8rUnOen3Pg&pp=ygUGYmlua292

 

[Lcafanboy]

View: https://x.com/idrwalerts/status/1850367320574865677


View: https://x.com/NewsIADN/status/1850523207889006933

 

[samsaptaka]

View: https://x.com/idrwalerts/status/1850367320574865677


View: https://x.com/NewsIADN/status/1850523207889006933

Bit OT, but security and screening of barc nuke scientists need to be stepped up. I remember during khangress era there were a spate of mysterious deaths of nuke & space scientists. Has it stopped or still happening?

 

[darkflame]

the Type 209s and the last trench of Kilos have already been given life extension programs, and mid life upgrades, and everything else.
They are due for scrapping. The GoI should have really taken the additional 3 scorpene option 3 years ago.

What's your stand in kalvari class data leak? Hell no way one can fill over 22000 pages with useless nonsense, personally in my opinion not going for 3 more subs immediately was an obvious decision, and going for them even now makes no sense.

 

[Binayak95]

What's your stand in kalvari class data leak? Hell no way one can fill over 22000 pages with useless nonsense, personally in my opinion not going for 3 more subs immediately was an obvious decision, and going for them even now makes no sense.

Its not useless nonsense for sure. the leak was effectively done by people who wanted to scrap the Aussie deal.

The leak details go into detail in materials and some technical drawings - but all of that is more or less known to submarine manufacturers - nothing that really gives an out and out advantage to a hostile navy at detecting a Scorpene.