Beneath the Hull: How Vulnerable is China’s Navy to Submarines, Drones, and Hypersonic Missiles?

China’s navy has surged from a coastal defense force to the world’s largest fleet by hull count. Sleek new destroyers, cruisers, and carriers patrol the Western Pacific, while Beijing hails its transformation as proof of a “world-class” military in the making. Yet beneath the steel and symbolism lies a harder question: how survivable is this fleet in the face of the most modern maritime threats — submarines, drones, and hypersonic missiles?

The answer reveals a paradox. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is powerful in numbers and modern design, but it remains highly exposed to technologies that are reshaping naval warfare.

Silent Killers: Submarine Threats

If there is one domain where the PLAN remains most vulnerable, it is under the sea. Submarines have long been the nightmare of surface fleets — invisible hunters that can sink capital ships without warning.

The PLAN has invested heavily in anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Type 052D destroyers and Type 055 cruisers carry towed sonar arrays, and China has deployed Y-8 and Y-9 patrol aircraft as well as a growing fleet of ASW helicopters. Undersea sensor networks are being laid across the South China Sea, giving Beijing some localized detection capability.

But there are persistent weaknesses:

• Experience gap: Sub-hunting is one of the most difficult naval missions, demanding years of crew training and coordination. China’s navy simply hasn’t had decades of sustained ASW practice that the U.S. Navy, Japan, or Australia possess.

• Geographic choke points: U.S. and allied submarines would not need to operate off the Chinese coast to be effective. Narrow straits and open-ocean approaches could be lethal ambush zones.

• Surface ship vulnerability: Even China’s most advanced destroyers and cruisers have not been combat-tested in protecting carriers or amphibious forces from coordinated submarine attacks.

The bottom line: while the PLAN’s surface fleet is modern, it remains highly vulnerable to submarine campaigns, especially if conflict stretches into prolonged operations beyond the First Island Chain.

The Rise of Naval Drones

Drones — aerial, surface, and underwater — represent the new swarm threat to navies worldwide. For the PLAN, they cut both ways: China is one of the world’s leaders in unmanned systems, but it must also defend against adversaries using them.

• Aerial drones: U.S. and allied forces could use drones to overwhelm China’s air defenses, conduct persistent surveillance, and spot targets for long-range missiles. Unlike manned aircraft, drones can loiter for days, stressing the PLAN’s radar coverage.

• Unmanned surface and underwater vehicles (USVs/UUVs): Low-cost drones can harass or even disable larger warships. Ukraine’s use of sea drones against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is a case study Beijing cannot ignore.

• China’s countermeasures: The PLAN has begun integrating electronic warfare systems and point-defense weapons to counter drones. It also fields its own UAVs — such as the BZK-005 and Wing Loong series — to provide targeting data for missile strikes.

But survivability remains a challenge. Drones make it harder for large, expensive ships to remain hidden or unmolested. A $2,000 sea drone packed with explosives can threaten a billion-dollar destroyer if defenses falter for even a moment.

The Hypersonic Factor

Hypersonic missiles — traveling at five times the speed of sound or faster — are perhaps the most discussed naval threat of our time. China itself has pioneered hypersonic glide vehicles like the DF-17, meant to target U.S. ships. Yet that same technology, in the hands of rivals, poses a grave danger to the PLAN.

• Carrier vulnerability: Chinese carriers, still relatively untested, are especially exposed. Hypersonic weapons compress decision-making time for defenders, reducing the chance to intercept.

• Layered defenses unproven: While China’s Type 055 cruisers carry long-range surface-to-air missiles, their ability to track and intercept hypersonic projectiles in combat conditions remains speculative. The U.S. Navy itself is still struggling with the same problem.

• Asymmetric impact: Hypersonics could negate China’s advantage in ship quantity. Even a small number of successful hits could cripple key assets — a carrier, a command ship, or an amphibious flagship — shifting the balance of a battle.

The irony is stark: China’s own hypersonic arsenal may deter U.S. carriers, but allied advances in hypersonic or quasi-hypersonic strike capabilities would make PLAN task groups equally vulnerable.

Quantity vs. Survivability

China’s shipbuilding machine has prioritized numbers. The PLAN now fields dozens of advanced destroyers and a growing carrier force, but survivability depends on more than hulls and missiles. Submarines, drones, and hypersonics exploit precisely the areas where China has the least combat experience and fewest proven defenses.

Even PLAN insiders acknowledge the risks. Damage control, a core survival skill in navies like the U.S. and Japan, remains underdeveloped. Large ships may look formidable in peacetime, but in wartime their ability to fight through damage is untested. Maintenance, training, and institutional learning — the “invisible armor” of a navy — can matter as much as steel and sensors.

A Double-Edged Future

The vulnerabilities are real, but they are not permanent. China is pouring resources into drone warfare, hypersonic intercept research, and undersea detection networks. Its own advances may outpace defenses elsewhere, creating an environment of mutual vulnerability.

Still, for the next decade, the balance seems clear:

• Against submarines, the PLAN remains highly exposed, especially beyond its home waters.

• Against drones, the fleet must contend with cheap, expendable threats that could drain resources and complicate operations.

• Against hypersonics, no navy — including China’s — has a reliable solution.

The result is that despite its size, the PLAN may find its survivability fragile in a high-end war. Its surface fleet can project power, intimidate neighbors, and enforce claims in contested seas. But in a prolonged conflict against a peer, submarines, drones, and hypersonics could prove the great equalizers, cutting through the façade of quantity with the harsh test of survivability.

Conclusion: A Navy on Shaky Waters

China’s navy is no paper tiger. It is modern, well-armed, and numerically dominant in the Western Pacific. But it is also a force caught between ambition and vulnerability. The PLAN can sail proudly in peacetime and intimidate in crises, but in wartime it would face predators above, below, and beyond the horizon that its fleet has not yet learned to survive.

Quantity has given Beijing power on paper. The unanswered question is whether that power will endure when tested by the silent torpedo, the swarming drone, or the hypersonic strike.