China's Type 32 class submarine

We've known about this class for a while, but it has now been officially unveiled as shown in image below.



For those who don't know, this is the super class conventional submarine with a lot of lada/kilo influence that was launched in Wuchang shipyard back in 2010. At the time, we thought it might be a new conventional submarine class to replace Yuan. However, it turns out this is basically a one ship class that will be used to replace the old No. 200 Gulf Class ballistic missile test bed. This will likely be used to test out ballistic missiles as well as new vertical launch system. It is Chinese navy's new submarine test bed.

Some more information on this class:

• Program was established in Jan 2005, ship launched in September 2010, completed test run by September 2012
• Was handed over Oct 16th, 2012 and has already started to be used for testing.
• It is double hull, has length of 92.6 m, 10 m width, hydroplane width of 13 m and largest height of 17.2 m.
• It has draft of 6.85 m when surfaced with displacement of 3797 tons. Its submerged displacement is 6628 tons.
• It operates at 160 m depth with maximum dive of 200 m.
• Its maximum surfaced speed is 10 knots and maximum submerged speed is 14 knots.
• Can operate with 88 crew for 30 days without resupply, or 200 crew for 3 days.