China: SLBM Test Launch Failed (fell back to sub and almost sank it)

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 01/26/10

[TigerLikesRooster]

/begin my translation

China: SLBM Test Launch Failed

(the missile) fell back on the submarine and almost sank it.

A few months ago in Yellow Sea, China conducted a secret test launch of Julang-2 SLBM, but failed, according to Jan. 25 report by Liberty Times of Taiwan.

The missile with the range of 8,000 km, which can strike U.S. mainland, was mounted on a Golf-class submarine, and launched from underwater. However, after breaking out of water, its booster failed to fire up, and fell back down on the submarine.

The submarine with 83 crews and displacement of 2,880 tons was hit by the missile weighing 10 tons, and was almost sunk. Still it managed to limp back to its base.

Ten years ago, PLAN developed Julang-2 by modifying Dongfeng-31 ICBM, and successfully conducted the surface launch, but a few attempt of underwater launch all failed.

As a result, Type 094(Jin-class) submarine, China's newest model, is so far unable to be equip itself with its own SLBM's, leaving a big hole in China's offensive nuclear capability, according to the newspaper.

They succeeded in the test launch of Julang-1 from Type 092(Xia-class) submarine, hitting a target in Taklamakan Desert, but its range is only 2,000 km and this class of submarine mostly moves within coastal waters, which is why they decided to develop Julang-2.

/end my translation

[Molon Labbie]

Granted, but the BUFF is American made. The other is Russian designed sub. Their record is less than spectacular.

[DuncanWaring]

So the proper epithet then would be “cheap Rooski crap”, not “50 years old”. ;-)

[east1234]

Bill Clinton needs to get right on this, he can have the technology in their hands within weeks!

[Fishbed]

Taiwan’s Liberity Time has as much as a credit of notorious Epoch Times, which means they won’t feel ashamed of making up news.

According to the Liberity Time, it is the US/Japan founded the launch failure, yet the first one to report this failure is this Taiwan news agency, aint it smell fishy?

Just take a huge grain of salt to any of the news come out of the mouths of this news source since it is notorious at making things up.

[1rudeboy]

Do you have any examples of the Liberty Times making-up news?

[TigerLikesRooster]

yet the first one to report this failure is this Taiwan news agency, aint it smell fishy?

This fact, in and out of itself, is not really a problem. It is common that intel agency sat on their findings, and let some foreign news outlet report them.

It is common that Japanese media reports news from S. Korean sources, but S. Korean media did not get it first. By the same token, S. Korean and Japanese news media report news sourced from U.S. sources but U.S. media did not break it first. There are many N. Korea related news reported by S. Korea, quoting Japanese news media whose source is in S. Korea. U.S. media reports news on N. Korea, first reported by S. Korean media whose source is American.

This kind of things happen so often that I do not see it as a problem. Their credibility is just as good as any other news on the average.

I don't know what other problems it had in the past, but this is not the one.

[Thunder90]

A Golf sub firing a knockoff Russian Bulvula missile (early model)... a recipe for failure.

[Fishbed]

They said this is from USA/Japan source yet there is not a single USA/Japan source to confirm it

Note JL-2 is not some small tool, its the SLBM targetting USA so the USA news agency covers EVERY SINGLE JL-2 launch tests, failure or not, yet nobody in the US report this wierd failure, only this third rate Epoch-time like “news agency” get this?

Let me tell you something:

The JL-2, just like the majority VLS systems in the world, lunched to a angel that not vertical to the ship, so even if it fail to power up, it wont come right down on the ship, it will travels a parabola, VLS launch system has already designed to avoid such failure, the “news reporter” has zero knowledge about a VLS system like JL-2 to make such amatuerish mistake when he write this science-fiction.

[Fishbed]

Yes, plenty of them

However most of these made-up news are about the taiwan’s own politics, thus you may not understand them unless you know taiwan’s politics reasonable well.

However an example you may know is, during Taiwan’s election, Liberity Times and thier gangs spreading ridiulus rumors like how the then candidate Mr. Ma get a US permant residency card, or how Ma’s wife, during her college days, have stolen some newspapers.

You know, they just like making up pathetic rumors to promote the low morale of the native taiwanese.

They have even gone as pathetic as use photo-shopped pictures in their news during the election.

When they are the primary source of any big news, and they refused to cite any creditable source, then 99% of the chance it is a totally-made-up, note: they are the third-rate “news agency”, never afforded to have alot of connections. Let along has any connection with the US intelligence etc.

This news is laughable if you know a little bit about the VLS system and JL-2 system.

Futhermore, the golf submarine was used to be a launch platform during JL’s early stage development, but the only modified golf for such purpose has retired and scrapped in 2005, this is confirmed by IISS’s world military balance.

So first, even if JL-2 failured, it wont hit the ship due to the design of the VLS system there, secondly, the golf-class launch test platform has already retired 4 years ago, so you can not use a golf to launch JL-2 several months ago, must be a ghost ship which did that J/K.

[Humble Servant]

I was about to agree absolutely, but I’m going to defer to a real physicist here—the question would be whether the forward speed would actually increase when the density of the medium is reduced, or would merely take longer to decay in air than water. There seem to be a lot of real-world variables added to the situation, like the profile of the vertical missile in water raising a lot more resistance than the streamlined sub hull, and the amount of water the missile goes through on the way to the surface, but I’m really out of my element here.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I did some check on their missile problems. I found out that they do have trouble maintaining proper launch angle in the past. They use a cold launch method and their ejection process is not up to the job. So missile did veer off the desired path and took steeper ascent angle, it may not go far enough to get out of the sub's body.

As for availability of Golf-sub, they apparently brought it back with some refurbishment. Click this link for view of the gold sub, the article was dated Jan. 19, 2009.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I checked some news article related to this, and Chinese have had problem with missile launch mechanism. They use a cold launch(rocket fired up after being ejected from the tube(even out of water?).) They could not get launch angle right in the past. So missile was ejected but may not go in the intended direction.

This put additional uncertainty for the missile's behavior.

[taxesareforever]

Must be a real downer for the Chinese.

[Fishbed]

And your source, don't tell me its also from Liberity time or Epoch time. I tell you something: the first stage of lanuch pop-up were shot through compressed air if you don't know, and this article openly claimed its failure were due to the failure of power-up stage of the rocket engine, so the first stage to get out of the water is succeed. More funny fact is, for such compressed-air powered VLS system, If its first stage failed it wont get out of the tube of the submarine, hence can not sink the submarine, as simple as that. Ironically, if its the second stage (power phase of the engine) failed like the aritcle suggested, the only scenario it can come right down the submarine is that:The engine powered up succesufully but the direct-control system failed, like American failed Trident-SLBM launch: Btw, the most recent Chinese JL-2 test conducted in 2008, which is 1.5 years ago, so how about you admit the Liberty aritcle is a joke. But I guess you just want to believe whatever you want to believe, which means, self-delusion.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Look, think a little carefully. The missile was popped off the tube but not at the right angle. So it may have been popped off more straight up. Then, the engine failed to fire up, so it fell back down right to the submarine. You said it could not have landed on the submarine because it was launched with a slant to take parabolic trajectory. So I am saying that, even if it was launched with a slant initially, if the pop-up mechanism does not work as it supposed to, its angle would be off after the pop-up, and it could go more straight up.

If the pop-up alone was not powerful enough to clear the missile off the submarine body, this would probably be the moot point. If it is, then the missile trajectory could have been screwed up and taken more upwardly direction.

If this news of launch somehow turns out to be not true, I will accept it as it is. However, there is no glaring "technical error" in the news so far.