The reason why nuclear submarines are not easy to own is mainly in research and development funds and technology. It is difficult to get a big country's heavy weapon like a nuclear submarine out in ten years. Tens of billions of dollars will continue to be invested in research and development funds alone, which is not affordable for ordinary countries. Many countries' national defense military budgets for many years are only a mere $10 billion, which makes it unthinkable to develop nuclear submarines. At present, the most expensive nuclear submarine in the world was at the end of last century. When did the French serve? Triumphal class? Strategic nuclear submarine, at that time, the cost of this submarine was 4 billion euros, which was almost equal to 40 billion yuan according to the exchange rate at that time, so it is not an exaggeration to call it the most expensive nuclear submarine in active service.
When the Columbia-class nuclear submarine, the fifth-generation ballistic missile nuclear submarine newly developed by the United States, was put into service in the early 1930s, I am afraid it would carry the most expensive title. Columbia-class nuclear submarine claims to be the largest nuclear submarine ever built in the United States, with a length of 1, a width of1m and a displacement of 208 10 ton.
According to the data of the US Department of Defense, a total of 12 Colombian-class ships will be built to replace Ohio-class ships, with a total investment of 125 billion US dollars, which is almost the same as the cost of each submarine120-1300 million US dollars. Based on the current exchange rate between the US dollar and RMB, the cost of a Colombian-class nuclear submarine is more than 80 billion RMB. If it's only expensive, that's good to say, because there are always countries like Saudi Arabia that are not poor in money, but another difficulty of nuclear submarines is that they are technically super difficult.
It is necessary for a big country to develop and manufacture nuclear submarines, and a small country simply does not have that industrial base and technical ability. First of all, it is necessary to be able to manufacture a submarine pressure-resistant shell with very high strength, which can withstand at least 600MPA of huge pressure. This requires extremely strong steel. In fact, the manufacturing technology and level of steel can represent the level of heavy industry in a country.
Only by making good use of steel can it be possible to make a submarine shell, which is the first step of the long March. Those countries that can't make artillery shells should give up this idea as soon as possible. Besides the need for special steel, another difficulty is the nuclear power of the submarine itself. The biggest feature of a nuclear submarine is that it runs on the power generated by nuclear fuel, so at least a nuclear power plant should be built on land, and then miniaturized and moved to a nuclear submarine.
How to miniaturize is a difficult problem. Also, where does nuclear fuel come from? In order to improve efficiency, nuclear submarine reactors usually use high-abundance nuclear fuel, and the US Navy uses 97% weapon-grade nuclear fuel. This highly enriched uranium can directly make nuclear weapons. The nuclear fuel abundance of nuclear submarines in Russia, Britain, France and other countries is between 25% and 40%. This kind of military high-purity nuclear fuel is almost nowhere to buy, and the United States and Russia are not enough.
The abundance of low-enriched uranium nuclear fuel in civil nuclear power plants does not exceed 3%. In this case, we can only extract it ourselves, and let thousands of centrifuges work together for several years, maybe we can extract the needed nuclear fuel. But this process is too difficult for a country without strength.
In addition to the above, there are many difficulties and problems in building nuclear submarines. In short, nuclear submarines are not easy to develop and build, which is a patent of big countries, and small countries simply can't afford it.