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Google Maps Shows Chinese Nuclear Sub Prototype

mytrip writes "An image of what could be one of China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarines is available on the Google Maps and Google Earth satellite-image site, a defense blogger claimed Tuesday. The satellite picture was discovered by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, and announced Tuesday on his blog. Kristensen believes the picture, taken by the Quickbird satellite late last year, reveals China's new Jin-class, or Type 094, nuclear ballistic missile sub. The new sub class is approximately 35 feet longer than its predecessor, the Xia-class, also known as Type 092, according to two images Kristensen compares on the blog. The Jin-class sub has an extended midsection that houses 12 missile tubes and part of the reactor compartment, Kristensen explains."

19 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. It's a cardboard diversion by sunking2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's just there to draw our attention from the real threat. Flooding the world with these

    http://www.leftlanenews.com/chinese-sedan-flunks-g erman-crash-test-with-video.html/

    1. Re:It's a cardboard diversion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
  2. This exemplifies a distubring trend by Jaaay · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course who cares about the Chinese government but it shows that whilst human nature hasn't changed in thousands of years technology has and privacy is going straight to hell. What used to be non-existant or only available to governments with multi-billion $ defence budgets is quickly becoming available to every man and his dog as Google Earth shows. The bad thing is without human nature changing we're all going to end up in a screwed society where we must all watch our words and actions like politicians in case there being recorded or publically posted in ways that could ruin our careers for the crime of being human once in a while.

  3. Re:How much do you want to bet... by jbeaupre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let's be clear: You want people to know about your nuclear capability. It's not much of a deterrence if no one knows you have it. In fact, people thinking you have a capability is almost as good as having one*.

    * Example: Saddam's ambiguity eventually bit him on the rear (or neck), but he was quite willing to let his neighbors assume he could produce all sorts of nasty things.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  4. i love this by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    because i believe the future is not 1984, but instead, reverse big brother

    the standard mythology is that cameras everywhere is all about the government controlling you. but with google maps, with cell phone cameras, etc., we are actually seeing the rodney king effect: that governments suddenly have to get used to a new democratic form of transparency that they never had to deal with before

    george orwell is bullshit. the future of cameras everywhere is that they can be used AGAINST big government

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  5. Re:How much do you want to bet... by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Having a deterrent is pretty pointless unless everyone knows that you have it. I'm sure they wouldn't have left this boat out in the open unless it was their intention for people to see it.

    Yup. Leave them out in the open for all to see, until they put to sea. Then they disappear, nobody knows where they are, and everybody gets nervous. The British did this during the Falklands War: they made lots of noise about subs heading for the South Atlantic, then shut up. The mere fact that subs might be in the vicinity made the Argentine Navy a lot less effective. Knowing that you might get hit by a torpedo at any time, with no warning, would rattle anybody...

    If you look in other places you will find lots of subs tied up at docks in plain view. Try the Russian naval bases north of Murmansk, for example.

    ...laura

  6. yes, the standard paranoid schizophrenia by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1984 is not so much a work of intelligence as it is mental pornogrpahy for paranoids

    kind of like ayn rand's work is mental pornography for the simply selfish

    they even have a fancy philosophical term for this selfishness: libertarianism. uh, no, what ayn rand wrote is just about being a selfish dickwad

    1984, atlas shrugged: these 2 works are mythological touchstones for certain subcultures of society. such that i know i am going to be modded into oblivion by saying these words. i know what i say here is deeply offensive to a certain subset of morons and wackjobs

    orwell/ rand aren't enlightening at all. they just reinforce a preexisting bias already present in certain readers, such that those biased readers get really excited about these works. there preexisting biases are radically reinforced. those biases being either:

    1. the government is out to get me. i know it. you say otherwise? you must work for them (1984)
    2. it's ok to be totally selfish. because it's actually a really deep and rich philosophy, not just a shallow shortsighted instinct of the simple minded(atlas shrugged)

    ayn rand and george orwell rank right up there with l ron hubbard in terms of biggest purveyors of pseudoreligious clap trap from the last century. "dianetics", "1984", "atlas shrugged": the 20th century's champs of pseudointellectual, pseudoreligious snake oil

    but don't let my cries of "bullshit" sway you when i point at these hucksters. you may now pillory me with the passion of a scientologist told that there is nothing wrong with psychology

    sorry to rock your mythology, crackpots

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  7. on the contrary by circletimessquare · · Score: 1, Interesting

    making a big fuss over one poor guy getting kicked is often the most potent weapon against tyranny. i don't know why you dismiss something like rodney king being videotaped as a pointless foible

    his being videotaped is a potent and electrifying symbol that the story of justice does not end at the end of the government's truncheon weilding thugs. you consider it a distraction, i don't understand you. something like rodney king being beaten or tank man are rallying points in the war against autocracy, rule by force

    and you dismiss them as a diversion? i think mindless cynicism has eaten some of your perceptive abilities

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  8. Re:The real question is... by hey! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IIRC the type 094s are equipped with SLBMs with a reported range of 8000km, as opposed to the SLBMs in their single, older type 092 which was equipped with missiles with a range of 2100-2500km. This means they can roam in a much larger area and still strike the US, and that they needn't go far out of Chinese territorial waters to strike the west coast.

    They can strike Anchorage, AK and Honolulu HI, without leaving port, and they probably can hit Seattle while still in Chinese territorial waters.

    So I'd say that it's at least a pretty credible threat of a first strike, since we can't simply sink any vessel that comes within 8000km of the US. In terms of nuclear deterrence -- well I wouldn't discount their abilities. They're going to have at least six of them, carrying a total of 64 warheads. They only need to have one elude a preemptive attack to provide them with retaliation capabilities. I wouldn't discount Chinese capabilities. They're probably a much more formidable technological opponent than Russia, because of their economic base.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  9. well duh by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Interesting

    a cell phone camera or google maps is not the complete answer, just a new tool in a swiss army knife of tools to use against autocracy. you thought that the struggle was ever going to be answered definitively or completely with one technological tool or idea?

    the struggle against those who wish to restrict your rights and freedoms is a struggle that has always been waged, in all societies, and always will be waged, for all time. because you can't use google maps to spy on dick means it's pointless to try? or to not celebrate the transparency these new tools suddenly offer?

    what if activists followed dick around as much as they could everywhere he went with cellphone cameras? you don't think they wouldn't find something embarassing at least once or twice, even with all the secret service flak they would get? you think this struggle requires no sacrifice? you think it's one technological trick or doodad and SNAP, the desire of some assholes to control everyone else will just magically disappear?

    it's a struggle, forever. celebrate the new tool handed you in the struggle. or you don't really understand what is going on

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  10. Re:Maybe we should sell Taiwan a Los Angeles by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This may have been very true 10-15 years ago, but certainly not now. In fact, millions of Taiwanese (including 5 from my own family) have moved to the mainland to live and work permanently. It's the mainlanders who are the ruthless capitalist running dogs these days.

    Which is the biggest threat to the leadership's control - as more people get money they start to want to do things with it; and get ideas about how the government should deal with them, as opposed to how the government wants to deal with them. Then, those that haven't enjoyed the economic boon start wanting a piece as well while those that have start getting less willing to see more of their money go to the government to be redistributed.

    The Chinese leadership may think they can pull off keeping themselves in power and free up the economy; but given the size and divergent cultures within China I doubt they can pull it off.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  11. Re:bored? Google Earth the Korean DMZ! by vertinox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    having google maps during the cuban missle crisis or the cold war would've been bad ass...

    Check out this one which is about a mile or so from the South side check point of the coastal DMZ.

    Thats a building, but its been painted to match the terrain. I suspect they are afraid of DPRK flying around their border. If you scroll through to the north, you can see the trench fences (the last parking lot) and then opposing that the North Korean side. If you keep scrolling west you can follow the trench fence system to the west coast. There are a lot of interesting things such as trenches and border forts and hidden nooks and cranies you can only see from the air.

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  12. Hardly a big deal. by Nim82 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is there such a big fuss over China launching a new boomer?

    China is already in possession of an outdated ballistic missile sub, they are simply building a replacement class. Yet news sites and the 'omg China' crowd seem to be thinking it's a sign of aggression, and similar nonsense. Here in the UK the govenment has recnetly raised a bill for ~£20 Billion for a replacement SSBN system.

    As to it's secrecy, I've seen models and diagrams of it for years on various blogs and military tech sites, the fact they were building a new submarine was not secret. It was also know that it would look (unsurprisingly) just like the current russian boats. All China has managed to do is keep it's construction somewhat secret. China can track satellites, and it's not hard to hide a sub (most facilities have hangers for them) - this is not an intelligence coup, it's simply China showing the West their new toy. We do it via public launches and bottle smashing, China simply parks theirs outside and waits for someone to notice.

  13. Re:How much do you want to bet... by Jonathan_S · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes the Belgrano was the first warship that was sunk during the Falklands war... by wire guided torpedoes from a UK sub
    Actually, the torpedoes used by the HMS Conqueror were not wire guided. They were an older design, the Mark 8, originally designed in the 1920s. (Although the design had been updated some over the years; the ones used were Mark 8 Mod 4).

    The British captain choose not to use his reportedly trouble prone wire guided homing torpedoes (Mark 24 Tigerfish), and preferred to get close and use the old dependable design instead.
  14. Re:The real question is... by good+soldier+svejk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Back in the nineties I used to hang out with "boomer" commander (a Captain). He said all that Tom Clancy sub hunting stuff was overrated and that boomers on both sides operated with near impunity. He rode boats for two decades and was pinned twice by the Soviets. In fact he felt that it was a waste of money driving boomers with nuclear reactors because it was so easy to make your boat scarce when you had to. According to him the Navy sends the boomers on unecessarily long cruises to justify the use of nuclear power and it negatively affects morale without adding significant strategic advantage. He did approve of nuclear powered attack subs, which benefit from the extra power. At any rate, he said that the Navy was always saying there was a revolution in anti-submarine warfare just around the corner but it never materialized. Neither side could hope to interdict enough of the enemy's boomers to effect a first strike without fear of retaliation. I presume the biggest problem the Chinese have is lack of numbers. Maybe things have changed, but I doubt it. Also, quiet isn't everything. The Soviets never built subs as quiet as ours, but they built ones that could dive deeper.

    --
    It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man

    -James Baldwin
  15. Re:bored? Google Earth the Korean DMZ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was looking around the Google Earth imagery in the DPRK recently. There's weirder stuff than that on the North Korea side -- airports with rows of MIG fighters (real or just props? Why left out in the open instead of in hangars?); half the hilltops near a major towns seem to have trenches and anti-aircraft sites on them, whether there is a military base nearby or not; roads and railways near the border for no particularly good reason go underground (i.e. are covered with thick layers of trucked in-dirt -- I'm guessing they would blow the tunnel with explosives and collapse the transport routes), etc.

    Three things really stood out when I was looking around

    1. In west-central North Korea there is a dam feeding an ENORMOUS irrigation canal that stretches across a quarter of the country -- winding its way over the terrain and through multi-kilometre-long tunnels through whole mountains (yes, those are west and east ends of the same tunnel -- zoom out to see them both -- and there are dozens of tunnels along this thing!). It's one freaking huge and expensive irrigation project.

    The second thing was near one of the military airports where there are 4 huge circular landing pads with 30m-wide helicopters parked in the middle. The blades are so big they could only be the Russian-built Mil Mi-26 or something similar. There are at least a dozen other, smaller helicopters parked in the same area.

    The third weird observation was this set of two enormous mansions tucked away in a forested valley, complete with its own private "end of line" train station, and a double security wall along the crest of the valley ridges. Gee, I wonder who lives there? The contrast with the state of the rest of the country is pretty shocking. I can see why the mansions are hidden away from view in a valley.

    They've got some amazing stuff out in the open. One thing is for sure. This is not a country that should be starving with that much military and other assets out in the open on display.

  16. Re:How much do you want to bet... by mjwx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Exocet's only sunk the British destroyer (HMS Sheffield) because the ship was unable to activate their Electronic Warfare Support Measures (ESM) due to the satellite communications terminal being in use at the time. The other exocet missed the HMS Yarmouth because they were able to deploy chaff.

    The Argentine air force attached the British navy once more using regular iron bombs, some of which had old fuses which failed to detonate. The HMS Coventry was sunk by Argentine Jets using bombs as the was positioned close to land to act as a decoy for the Argentine air force. as a result the ships radar was unable to tell the difference between the land and the low flying Jets, the HMS Coventry used 4.5" guns and smaller armaments against the jets. The Argentine air force lost 20 jest sin their attacks on the British fleet.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  17. Stop using word "invade" by deconvolution · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As the U.S. government, the U.N and most of countries in this world stated, Taiwan is a PROVINCE of China. It is separated from mainland China because of a civil war (called the third civil war between 1945-1949). During that time most Chinese people supported the communist party and banished the KMT party the U.S. supported to Taiwan in 1949.

    The communist party were planning to continue attacking KMT in Taiwan as the final war and make the whole China as a single unity. However, the Korean war was broken out and H. Truman asked the U.S. navy _invaded_ (since they did not ask Chinese people if agreed) Taiwan Strait to prevent the communist party's plan. The new government has no choice but sent army to North Korean as a kind of "revenge" leading to a long time hostile status until the end of Vietnam war (all the officers of Vietnam army were trained in China military academies).

    Before 1949 after Japanese force surrendered, every Chinese CAN go Taiwan as a RIGHT as go to everywhere in China. Chinese people, even army coming to Taiwan, are to use their rights. So Chinese people called this "the war of unify". It is nothing about ideologies but similar to the civil war in the U.S. How can we say "invade"?

  18. Re:How much do you want to bet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is the common fallacy about the Belgrano - it was actually the second Argentian warship to be sunk. The first was the submarine Santa Fe, in South Georgia, by helicopter attack.

    This took place 500 miles outside the exclusion zone and two weeks before the Belgrano was sunk. The Argentinians can never complain that the attack on the Belgrano was unexpected.