Could China’s new magnetic wake detection technology mark the end of stealth submarine warfare? Reports on recent Chinese research suggests it might, the Eurasian Times reports.
This month, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xian, China, have unveiled a novel detection method capable of identifying even the stealthiest submarines by tracking their magnetic wakes.
The team, led by Associate Professor Wang Honglei, discovered that the magnetic fields generated by the wakes of submarines, such as the US Seawolf-class, can be detected using airborne magnetometers. This potentially groundbreaking technique exploits the magnetic interactions between seawater ions disturbed by the submarine’s motion and the Earth’s geomagnetic field.
The study, published in the Journal of Harbin Engineering University in December last year, indicates that speed, depth and submarine dimensions influence the intensity of these magnetic signatures. Unlike traditional acoustic detection methods, magnetic wakes cannot be silenced and leave a persistent trace.
The Chinese research comes after the USS Connecticut grounding in the South China Sea in 2021, which, among other things, highlighted the increasing challenges of stealth operations in contested waters. As China integrates magnetic tracking into its broader “kill web” of detection technologies, underwater naval warfare may see a transformative shift.
The rapid evolution of submarine detection technologies threatens submarines’ traditional stealth and strategic utility, which, in turn, could necessitate innovations in submarine design, countermeasures and operational strategies to maintain their relevance in future conflicts.
Shallow water environments like the Taiwan Strait reduce the effectiveness of traditional sonar systems, while technologies such as Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) introduce new detection capabilities and limitations that complicate submarine tracking.
