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The job of commanding a nuclear submarine should go to smart and well-qualified officers. Or at least that's the case in Western navies. Not so in the Chinese navy. Except for engineers, Chinese submarine officers tend to come from military academies with the lowest college-entrance-exam scores, a US military analyst said. This suggests that People's Liberation Army Navy sub commanders are not the "best and the brightest" officers who may be most equipped to cope with the stresses and challenges endemic to submarine warfare. Based on China's college-entrance exam — called the gaokoa — the People's Liberation Army Navy engineering...

A Chinese nuclear submarine got caught in a trap intended for U.S. or British submarines in the Yellow Sea, killing 55 people on board, multiple reports claimed. However, Beijing has not yet released any information to corroborate or deny the catastrophic accident. The news outlets, citing a British intelligence report, said 22 officers, seven officer cadets, nine petty officers and 17 sailors were killed in an accident involving a Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) nuclear submarine on Aug. 21. International Business Times could not independently verify the information. If true, the incident "reflects poorly on the PLA Navy's capabilities," Niranjan...

Did Donald Trump pass secrets about our nuclear submarine fleet to a foreign national? ABC News made a big splash with that report last night, at least with its headline. However, the article doesn’t quite definitively deliver, and there may be a reason for that.During the special counsel investigation into Trump’s classified material/obstruction case, FBI agents and Jack Smith’s prosecutors have interviewed Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt at least twice. Pratt’s name came up because he had apparently bragged to dozens of people that Trump had shared highly sensitive information in April 2021 about America’s submarines as a way to promote...

Deal is set to be announced at meeting of Biden and leaders of Australia and U.K. ... The U.S. will speed up Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines by arranging for Canberra’s first few subs to be built in the U.S. .... The plan to sell up to five U.S. Virginia-class submarines to Australia is intended as a stopgap to provide the country with nuclear-powered subs by the mid-2030s. ... The alliance is called Aukus, an acronym for Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. In addition to collaborating on nuclear-submarine technology, the countries intend to cooperate on artificial intelligence, autonomous systems,...

An affair between two U.K. Royal Navy officers serving on nuclear submarines threatened the security of the country’s nuclear deterrent, according to the judge at a military court. The two individuals have both been formally discharged from the navy and have received suspended prison sentences. Details of the 2020 incident were made public following a recent court-martial. The two officers, Lt. Sophie Brook and Lt. Cdr. Nicholas Stone, were serving aboard the Vanguard class ballistic missile submarine HMS Victorious and the Astute class nuclear attack submarine HMS Ambush, respectively. Lt. Brook was a watch leader aboard Victorious at the time...

The arrival of a USS Georgia submarine in the port of Gibraltar has sparked a diplomatic row between Spain and the US. The Spanish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that it has lodged an official protest with the US. The Spanish authorities wanted the submarine to anchor at the Rota naval base instead, where the US Georgia had already been based in August 2020. The reasons and the duration for the stopover of the submarine remain unknown.

A Navy nuclear engineer and his wife from Maryland were busted for trying to sell confidential information about US nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign country, using memory cards hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich and a Band-Aid wrapper to transmit the secrets, according to court documents. Jonathan Toebbe, who worked at the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and had a top-secret security clearance, and his wife, Diana, were busted Saturday in Jefferson County, W.Va., accused by the FBI for violating the Atomic Energy Act, the Justice Department said on Sunday. Toebbe, 42, “has passed, and continues to pass, Restricted Data as...

A US nuclear powered submarine struck an object underwater in the South China Sea on Saturday, according to two defense officials. A number of sailors on board the USS Connecticut were injured in the accident, the officials said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, according to a statement from US Pacific Fleet. "The submarine remains in safe and stable condition. USS Connecticut's nuclear propulsion plant and spaces were not affected and remain fully operational," the statement said. "The incident will be investigated." The US Navy did not specify the incident took place in the South China Sea, only that it...

A Russian nuclear submarine has caught fire in the northern province of Arkhangelsk ... The blaze started in the early afternoon local time when insulation between the craft’s inner and outer hull caught fire during welding. The submarine was the Oscar class K-266 Orel (Eagle), a similar vessel to the Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea in 2000, claiming the lives of 118 men. A spokesman for the shipyard told Interfax there were no casualties and all crew and workers left the craft in time.

A nuclear-powered U.S. attack submarine struck a suspected fishing vessel shortly after passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf on Thursday, damaging one of the submarine's periscopes but injuring no one, a Navy official said on the condition of anonymity. The Navy's Fifth Fleet said in a statement the vessel appeared unaware of the incident, adding it "continued on a consistent course and speed offering no indication of distress or acknowledgment of a collision." The USS Jacksonville, a Los Angeles-class, nuclear-powered submarine, did not appear to suffer further damage, the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said. "The reactor remains in...

Germany will sell Israel a sixth nuclear capable Dolphin-class submarine, Germany's defence minister confirmed on Tuesday after talks in Berlin with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak. "An additional submarine will be delivered to Israel," Thomas de Maiziere told a joint press conference with Barak, adding that Germany would subsidise the cost although he did not say by how much. A German government source in November said Germany would foot a third of the bill, amounting to a maximum of 135 million euros ($178 million). Germany reconsidered the sale of the submarine to Israel in the wake of tensions over Jewish...

Chinese Govt. Denies Rumors of Radiation Leak on Nuclear Submarine The Chinese government has officially denied reports that radiation has leaked from its newest nuclear submarine. According to the Global Times, which sometimes serves as a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, the defense ministry in Beijing said the sub docked in the port of Dalian has not leaked radiation. The rumors began with a report on the Chinese language website buxun.com, operated in the United States, and then quickly spread across the Internet through Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. The Korean defense ministry has said that if radiation...

/begin my translation Radioactive Material Leaked from a New Chinese Nuclear Submarine in Dalian, China Boxun Exclusive Boxun Beijing July 30, 2011 Boxun exclusive news: According to sources at the Dalian Naval Academy in Dalian, Chinese Navy's new nuclear submarine anchored in Dalian(port) had sudden radioactive material leak on July 29. At the time, technicians from China Era Electronic Corp.(中国时代电子公司) were installing electronic devices in the submarine, and the incident occurred without warning. Currently, the cause of the accident is under investigation. Military sealed off the area and try to stop news leaks on the order from military command in...

Britain's defence chiefs were said to have been deeply unamused when a Russian nuclear submarine slipped away from the gaze of our military spies. I wrote this morning about how the "layer cake" of surveillance lost the submarine last summer as it left the headquarters of the old Soviet northern fleet in Severomorsk near Murmansk. It was picked up three weeks later on patrol in the Atlantic. Does this matter? Rob Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons, thinks not. This is what he told me: The fact that we cannot track a Russian missile submarine, of which there are very...

Two British nuclear submarines went to sea with a potentially disastrous safety problem that left both vessels at risk of a catastrophic accident, the Guardian can reveal. Safety valves designed to release pressure from steam generators in an emergency were completely sealed off when the nuclear hunter killers Turbulent and Tireless left port, a leaked memo discloses. The problem went undetected on HMS Turbulent for more than two years, during which time the vessel was on operations around the Atlantic, and visited Bergen in Norway, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and Faslane naval base near Glasgow. It was not noticed on...

This eerie wreck image is not computer generated. It's the sonar image of Russian nuclear submarine B-159 (called K-159 before decommissioning), which has been lying 248m down in the Barents Sea, between Norway and Russia, since 2003. The Russian Federation hired Adus, a Scottish company that specialises in high-resolution sonar surveying, to evaluate if it would be possible to recover the wreck. "The operation was complicated as the submarine was very deep, so we had to use the sonar equipment mounted on a remotely operated vehicle, (below)" says Martin Dean, the managing director of Adus and a forensic-wreck archaeologist. "We...

India's indigenously designed and built nuclear submarine, INS Arihant, will assume an operational profile after two years, according to Indian Navy chief, Admiral Nirmal Verma. "Arihant, of course, will take about two years of trials before she is inducted in the navy," Adm Nirmal Verma has said in an interview for the forthcoming issue of defence journal Indian Defence Review. Verma said the Navy and the DRDO were looking into the challenges such as "proving of new technology, getting the submarine fully operational, developing doctrines and procedures" for the induction of Arihant. "We are actively working on all these issues,...

France successfully test-fired on Wednesday its new M51 strategic missile from a nuclear submarine, the first test at sea after three land-based firings, the defence ministry said. France's newest strategic nuclear submarine "Le Terrible" launched the test at 9:25 am (0825 GMT) from the Audierne Bay in the Atlantic and "everything went as planned" said a statement from the defence ministry. The M51 has a range of 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) and enjoys better accuracy than the current M45 ballistic missile carried by France's four nuclear-armed submarines.

Russia's Nerpa nuclear attack submarine, which entered service with the Navy in late 2009, will undergo additional adjustments in February, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. The submarine was put into service despite a fatal accident during its sea trials in November 2008. Earlier reports said it had passed final tests successfully. "Additional adjustments are planned for the Nerpa in February 2010 to rectify the flaws revealed during the latest tests," a ministry official said. On November 8, 2008, while the Nerpa was undergoing sea trials, its onboard fire suppression system activated, releasing a deadly gas into the sleeping quarters....

Pakistan hit out at India on Tuesday, branding its first nuclear-powered submarine "detrimental" to regional peace and vowing to take "appropriate steps" to maintain a "strategic balance". Relations between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have plummeted since Islamist gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai last November, attacks that New Delhi blamed on banned Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). "Continued induction of new lethal weapon systems by India is detrimental to regional peace and stability," the foreign ministry said. Arch-rival India on Sunday launched the first of five planned submarines by naming the 6,000-tonne INS Arihant (Destroyer of Enemies), powered by an...