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China reveals deep-sea cable cutter [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-23
China has revealed a new cable cutting device that attached to a submersible will be able to cut undersea telecommunications and power cables at a depth of 13,000 feet.
Why they have publicized it is a question that needs some answers. At 13,000 feet, in can reach 95% of the world's undersea cables. It is first a propaganda coup. It puts Taiwan at a disadvantage even worse than previously. The Chinese have been cutting Taiwan's cables on a regular basis. China is letting us all know what they will do first as a first act of war.
Up until now, China has been dragging ship anchors at depths that the anchor chain could reach. That wasn't good enough. They had developed a cable cutting device that could be dragged like an anchor and cut the cable quickly, but that wasn't good enough, either.
At the depth quoted, the pressure would be 400 atmospheres. Enough to crush anything. What they came up with is a titanium shell device with internal oil covered seals that uses a 6 inch diamond coated grinding wheel to do the cutting.
New cutting device.
Sort of like a circular or chop saw. You can see it being tested in the picture.
Another picture provided shows a huge submersible that either could be used with the device, or it's already mounted on the front.
Chinese submersible.
I've never seem such a large submersible. That alone is a big Chinese achievement.
The cover story is that it was created for civilian salvage and deep sea mining. A team led by engineer Hu Haolong revealed it all in a peer-reviewed paper in the Chinese language journal Mechanical Engineer on February 24th. It's been tested on cables 60mm or 2.3 inches thick. Which aided "marine resource development." They say right in the paper and testing that it could be used on undersea cables.
Typical 69mm fiber optic cable.
The grinding wheel spins a 1,600 rpm with enough force to cut through steel. It's got a 1 kilowatt motor with an 8:1 gear reduction. Like a worm drive circular saw.
Undersea power cable cross section. Much bigger than fiber optic.
"The 21st century is the century of oceans. Enhancing marine resource development capabilities, advancing the blue economy and building China into a maritime powerhouse constitute critical components of realizing the Chinese dream." Haolong's team wrote in the engineering paper.
The other question is how far the submersible can travel underwater to a cable and then back to the mother ship? The submersible picture has very small propellers on the rear and bigger ones at the front firing up or down. I would say it couldn't go far, but it is huge and there could be a lot of battery structure inside. With the reveal by Chinese car maker BYD of their new Blade battery that stores 50% more electricity than previously possible, could make a big difference. A ship could drop the submersible far away from the cable to avoid suspicion.
The deep sea capabilities of the Chinese ROV submersible means they can be far away from coasts to cut a cable and they would be nearly impossible to repair at that depth. Everyone that isn't Chinese needs to develop the repair resources that can operate at the same depth.
There is an undersea race, like the space race was. The Chinese appear to be in the lead. The Russians have been using oil tankers and dragging anchors to break fiber optic, and in one case, a power cable, and we don't have any notion of what they're up to. Maybe the Chinese will just hand over the technology to the Russians. Only our intelligence services would know, and that capability and quality of, I would assume is hampered by every stupid move by Trump and his administration.
Somebody needs to tell Trump he's wasting time and resources on his "Golden Dome" missile defense system. It's as hair-brained as Reagan's Star Wars project, which was called the Strategic Defense Initiative.
We need to be concentrating on the sea, and under it.
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