Project 955: Borei class SSBN

With what money and in what timeframe?

If Russia ever goes for 14 boomers it won't have enough SSNs to escort them :O
Not to even speak of the rest of the armed forces need to reequip!

Also I am pretty sure even if this extremely unlikely scenario happened, they would exceed treaty warhead limits- unless they gutted the ICBM force which does not seem to be the case.

TR1 wrote:With what money and in what timeframe?

If Russia ever goes for 14 boomers it won't have enough SSNs to escort them :O
Not to even speak of the rest of the armed forces need to reequip!

Boomers *need* escorts? They are safer with them of course, but they aren't necessary. If anything, a SSN would only increase the chance of being detected. Plus, for escorting, I'd assume a somewhat nearby surface combatant would be sufficient.

If Russia focuses on increasing the boomer fleet to 14 boats, it won't have a half decent surface force to even speak of.

My prediction is, 8 Boreiis and that's it, tops.

I'd like to believe 12, as that is the number that the US will be fielding. Boomers are just an extension of mobile ICBM's anyway IMHO, and we all know what country has a load of those.

George1 wrote:for SSNs i agree, numbers there must be increased with the inclusion maybe of a lighter type as more cheap solution than Yasen class

Cough, SSK's, cough... No need for a large number of SSN's if Russia's navy will be on the defense.

Having too few SSBNs is a serious problem, but having too many is equally a problem too.

It is better to have a smaller more active fleet that is fully manned than to have a much larger fleet.

Keep in mind that the new start treaty limits the number of both warheads and nuclear platforms so having more SSBNs wont mean more SLBMs, it will just mean fewer missiles per boat which actually makes them less efficient.

8 SSBNs would be plenty... Russia doesn't need space for thousands of SLBM warheads...

I remember reading an article that suggested they should stop building SSBNs and instead on SSNs they should have two UKSK launchers for 16 cruise missiles or anti ship missiles (making them SSGNs) and also having 2-4 SLBMs like Sineva or Bulava on every attack sub... that way you could have more attack subs which would be good for both attack and defence.

Obvious problems are of course SLBMs are large and would require deep decks, and of course the obvious... SSNs chase enemy SSNs but SSBNs try to find empty ocean and hide but remain in communications with HQ waiting for the order to launch their missiles... so they have conflicting missions.

Hmm talking about escorts.

How each submarine identify each other ? Or coordinating their movement. Underwater communication is kinda difficult affair as typical radiowave may not work. One possible method is VLF but i wonder if this is the method used.. as VLF transmission requires large antenna and voice communication cannot be sent.

Great!

http://rt.com/news/214155-russia-submarine-vladimir-monomakh.

^^^nice video of a nice boat. if ever they miss the pool on the typhoon i think a great alternative would be the spacious escape capsule- pump some distilled water half way up and enjoy the ad hoc pool.

SEVERODVINSK /Arkhangelsk Region/, December 26. /TASS/. The seventh and eigth Borei-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines will be laid down by the end of 2015, the head of the Rubin design bureau said on Friday.
Igor Vilnit said the key task of designers and shipbuilders is not the increase of the number of submarines but maintenance of those boats that are currently in service.
Mikhail Budnichenko, the head of the Sevmash shipyard, told TASS that three Project 885M Yasen-class attack submarines and two Borei-class submarines will be laid down next year.
The Borei-class ballistic-missile submarines are to become the backbone of the Russian Navy's strategic nuclear deterrent.
The submarines displace 24,000 tons, reach speeds of 29 knots (some 54 km per hour), can dive to 450 meters and carry crews of 107 people. The vessels will be armed with up to 16 Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which have a range of over 8,000 kilometers.

So we have a 6th Borey layed down soon... didn't someone say 8 Boreys by 2020 was dreaming... even with the current financial situation it seems likely to have at least 7 in the water by 2020.

8 in service by 2020 is still dreams, barring induction/testing times being reduced enormously.

It took the two serial boats 6.5 years from being laid down to launch, and years after to commission.
I think I predicted 4 boats would be in service by 2020, at best 5. I still hold that will be the case.

So you think in the next 5 years they will only get one or two more into service?

They are laying down boats 7 an 8 next year... 2015.

The "laid down dates" are november 1996, march 2004, march 2006 for the first three that are now in service. The next three are july 2012, july 2014 and dec 2014, and the following two are both supposed to be laid down in 2015.

From launch to commission the dates for the three in service vessels are 5 years, 3 years, and 2 years respectively.

Laid down to launch times are 12 years, 6 years, and 6 years.


Now that Bulava seems to be working what cause for delay are you expecting?

Yes, only one or at best two more, if we are talking by 2020.

My logic is simple construction trends and the time the boats were laid down. The two first serial boats took 6.5 years to float out, and 3-2 years to commission after. Now let us say for the sake of argument that this goes down. I think this is itself questionable since the ships are no longer using ex-971 hull sections, and starting with Knyaz Oleg will have different sail construction and different equipment suit. But let's go ahead and say the total time from laying down to service acceptance becomes 6 years. This automatically disqualifies the 7th and 8th boats, who are planned to be laid down in late 2015. Even if we use our hypothetical schedule, they will only be ready by late 2021, or 2022 effectively.

As for the rest:
Dolgoruki, Nevsky and Monomakh are in service.
Knyaz Vladimir effectively started construction in 2010 IRC, so I am confident it will enter service well before 2020.

The 5th and 6th hulls however were laid down only in mid 2014 and right at the end of the year. They would have to finish construction and acceptance trials within 5 years to to be ready for service by 2020. Let's be realistic here, little points to this suddenly happening. Time to commission won't be held up by Bulava, but I have not seen anything to suggest construction times have drastically decreased (ignoring Dolgoruki as the obvious outlier). More in line with the trend is them commissioning in 2021 or 2022.

Honestly, I'm starting to think that Russia really needs a ton of boomers in service anyway.... The USN is servery downsizing their fleet, and who knows exactly how much this will affect their boomers. Right now they are on schedule to build "only" 12 of them, but we've all seen how the USN loves to drop their word in favor of MIC corruption... Anyway, with Russia deploying such a large number of land-based mobile ICBM's, the need for lots of boomers ins decreasing.

With Bulava testing successful and any modifications needed being made to the basic design I think there will be fewer delays to the newer subs and therefore getting them into the water should speed up... and I think the current confrontational relationship with the west will speed up production priorities rather than slow them down.

You are of course entitled to your opinion on this.

12 boreis sound too much- 8 is plenty adequate. If murica wants to up the ante with its nukes in europe the russkies always have the ace in the hole- breaking out of INF treaty. imagine suddenly having 3x the warheads pointing at conus- would sober up the most bloodthirsty warmongers there.

Quite right, what russia needs is much more SSNs. Boomers after all wont be destroying CBGs, which is the absolute main weapon of NATO not nukes.

Actually the need for more SSBNs is diminishing as most Russian Naval surface vessels will be getting the capability to carry long range precision guided cruise missiles with nuclear level accuracy and performance.

Would be much cheaper to fill the UKSK tubes with nuclear armed Zirconiums and Kalibrs... especially if the latter are developed to the level where they can fly 5,500km or more like their air launched counterparts (Kh-101/102).

GarryB wrote:Actually the need for more SSBNs is diminishing as most Russian Naval surface vessels will be getting the capability to carry long range precision guided cruise missiles with nuclear level accuracy and performance.

Would be much cheaper to fill the UKSK tubes with nuclear armed Zirconiums and Kalibrs... especially if the latter are developed to the level where they can fly 5,500km or more like their air launched counterparts (Kh-101/102).

Nothing can beat a good 'ol ballistic missile though. Unmatchable range, high hypersonic speed and multiple warheads/decoys. With the new advances in warhead busses; perhaps the Bulava will have be given some improvements too - to allow one Bulava missile to send warheads and decoys to a whole bunch of different targets along its ballistic trajectory.

Cruise missiles, for all their advantages, are much shorter ranged (especially supersonic variants), a lot slower and vulnerable, and can have only the fraction of the payload. They should be kept for tactical targets; for strategic targets ballistic missiles more than fit the bill.

Russia can afford to operate many more than 8 ballistic missile submarines. At the very least it should have 16 boats. The number 8 is just too
small. The US can always come up with a way to take these boats out and the only real way to frustrate such schemes is with numbers. This applies
to the BMD, which relies on disarmament to have viability.

I think around 24 operational Borei submarines would be a worthy target. One of the key pluses for these boats is that they make the
chimps running Washington worry about their "invulnerable" BMD shield.

GarryB wrote:Actually the need for more SSBNs is diminishing as most Russian Naval surface vessels will be getting the capability to carry long range precision guided cruise missiles with nuclear level accuracy and performance.

Would be much cheaper to fill the UKSK tubes with nuclear armed Zirconiums and Kalibrs... especially if the latter are developed to the level where they can fly 5,500km or more like their air launched counterparts (Kh-101/102).

Unfortunately hypersonic SSM barrage dream that might not happen as long as the yasens take exponentially longer to get into service than the boreis, and no cheaper SSGN modern alternate model to them  have been developed.