© Provided by Nikkei Asian Review l (Nikkei)
TOKYO -- As China's submarine fleet grows, Japan is working to enhance its ability to detect the vessels by developing a patrol helicopter and creating a specialized Self-Defense Forces unit.
According to the Defense Ministry, the Chinese navy is adding large landing craft and surface vessels with advanced air defense capabilities to its fleet of some 890 vessels. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told the National People's Congress in March that the country will give high priority to becoming a great marine power. Beijing has indicated that it will not yield on territorial issues, including the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China claims as the Diaoyu.
China is fortifying its fleet of roughly 60 submarines by buying Russian-made vessels and building its own. In particular, it is said to be adding advanced submarines that are quiet and can stay submerged for extended periods. And with these vessels patrolling a larger area than before, detecting them with ships and helicopters has become difficult, says an SDF officer.
This prompted Japan to strengthen its own maritime forces by adding destroyers, including Aegis ships, and submarines. It will also ramp up the capabilities of naval patrol helicopters and long-range patrol planes.
Development of a new patrol helicopter will begin next fiscal year, with deployment scheduled by fiscal 2022. These aircraft will have data link equipment so they can share information, a capability the existing fleet of SH-60K patrol helicopters do not have. Stealth submarines are difficult to detect using a single helicopter because they reflect sonar in different directions. Furthermore, detection accuracy declines in waters less than 200 meters deep because sound waves bounce off the surface and sea floor.
Sonar waves transmitted by one of the new helicopters can be received by another, improving the ability to find enemy stealth submarines. The new helicopters will also have technologies for altering the sound waves depending on water depth and the geographical features of the seabed, as well as data-processing equipment to extract precise information even with high levels of static. Japan hopes to build 80 of these new helicopters.
Japan will also change its main patrol airplane from the P-3C to the domestic P-1, which has superior detection capabilities and a longer range.
The Maritime SDF will establish a unit comprising about 40 experts in such fields as submarines and sonar at its base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, next fiscal year. By gathering pertinent information, including seabed geography, water temperatures and the engine sounds of foreign submarines, the unit will analyze locations where detecting submarines is difficult.
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