Project 955: Borei class SSBN

^^^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.

Great! 6th nuclear submarine Project 955 "Borey" will be laid on Friday on Sevmash

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.

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.

What has Yasen got to do with it?

Even future Russian SSKs will have UKSK, and by 2025 the Zirconium should be in service... as should Brahmos II.

4th Ballistic missile submarine project Borei class - "Prince Vladimir" - planned to be transferred to the Navy in 2017

kvs wrote: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.  

You gonna pay for that?

Two Borei class nuclear submarines to replace old Kalmar class subs in Russia's Far East

Borei class submarines of Project 955 will no longer be built, Project 955A will continue Project 955

LANGKAWI (Malaysia), March 17. /TASS/. Two fourth generation Project 955 Borei class strategic nuclear submarines will replace in Russia’s Pacific Fleet the old strategic nuclear submarines of Project 667BDR (Kalmar class), director general of the submarine design bureau Rubin Igor Vilnit said on Tuesday.

The submarines’ decommissioning will be phased, the head of the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering said at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA-2015) in Malaysia.

"Both series - 667BDRM (Dolphin) and 667BDR in the East have had a long life already. Submarines of the BDR project are actually at the final stage, so it is planned to deliver two Borei class subs there this year," said Vilnit.

However, he said, the Borei class submarines of Project 955 will no longer be built. "Project 955 is over. Three boats have been built and delivered to the Navy. Now Project 955A will continue Project 955," Vilnit said.

All contracts on the construction of the Borei-A class submarines of Project 955A have been concluded and the work is going on schedule, he said. A total of five such submarines are planned to be built.

Russia’s Navy currently has three Borei class submarines - the Yuri Dolgoruky, Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh boats that have been commissioned in recent years. They are armed with the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles.

According to the Russian military, Borei-class are state-of-the-art submarines, featuring characteristics superior to any submarine currently in service worldwide. The Borei-class subs are replacing outgoing nuclear subs of the previous generation and are set to become the backbone of Russia’s sea-based nuclear defences.

A Borei-class sub is 170 metres long and 13.5 metres wide, and can dive up to 450 metres. They have a compact, hydro-dynamically efficient hull for reduced broadband noise and are the first to use pump-jet propulsion among Russian submarines. Their submerged cruise speed is at least 30 knots (56 kilometres per hour). Safety measures for the subs include a rescue chamber that can host all 107 crew members.

not only the K-329 Severodvinsk but also the Borey class show different length on satellite pictures than specified. Try to measure these boats in Severodvinsk or Severomorsk or Zapadnaya Litsa in google earth. These boats are about 158m and not 170m!
Any Ideas?

rambo54 wrote:not only the K-329 Severodvinsk but also the Borey class show different length on satellite pictures than specified. Try to measure these boats in Severodvinsk or Severomorsk or Zapadnaya Litsa in google earth. These boats are about 158m and not 170m!
Any Ideas?

I wonder why.. However I suspected that the satellite wasn't really on top of the sub.. Thus accidentally made "angled" image that distort measurement.

Stealthflanker wrote:

rambo54 wrote:not only the K-329 Severodvinsk but also the Borey class show different length on satellite pictures than specified. Try to measure these boats in Severodvinsk or Severomorsk or Zapadnaya Litsa in google earth. These boats are about 158m and not 170m!
Any Ideas?

I wonder why.. However I suspected that the satellite wasn't really on top of the sub.. Thus accidentally made "angled" image that distort measurement.

I don't think so. For example use the History layer in Severodvinsk and measure other ships next to the Boreys. You will see that they match more or less exactly their specifications. You only see significant mismatches for Borey and K-329 Severodvinsk!

see what I mean:

rambo54 wrote:

Stealthflanker wrote:

rambo54 wrote:not only the K-329 Severodvinsk but also the Borey class show different length on satellite pictures than specified. Try to measure these boats in Severodvinsk or Severomorsk or Zapadnaya Litsa in google earth. These boats are about 158m and not 170m!
Any Ideas?

I wonder why.. However I suspected that the satellite wasn't really on top of the sub.. Thus accidentally made "angled" image that distort measurement.

I don't think so. For example use the History layer in Severodvinsk and measure other ships next to the Boreys. You will see that they match more or less exactly their specifications. You only see significant mismatches for Borey and K-329 Severodvinsk!

see what I mean:

It is normal for the real specifications of weapon systems, including their dimensions, to be different from their published values. That is a rule, actually.

Take what is on the internet for example; very very few of the "non-obvious" specification details are correct, and I am being very very generous with my description of the situation.

For more than a decade the published submerged displacement of the proekt 941 was being listed as 24000 tonnes to 27000 tonnes, including in all of the Jane's publications, while from the beginning a simple calculation would show that it was close to 50000 tonnes.

I can recall that from the very beginning my calculations for Borej showed figures very similar to yours, and I didn't use satellite images; what I think I did was to add the length of a missile compartment to the length of a proekt 971.

rambo54 wrote:
I don't think so. For example use the History layer in Severodvinsk and measure other ships next to the Boreys. You will see that they match more or less exactly their specifications. You only see significant mismatches for Borey and K-329 Severodvinsk!

Yes.. i have checked it now... So basically Wikipedia and basically whoever quotes that 170 m figure is inaccurate.

and this is better.

http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-370.html

This one is for Graney
http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-372.html

You can see in the Graney specs there are hmm three length figures from 119 to 139m

Anyway can i ask where did you find the Graney ? coordinates and time stamp ?

Stealthflanker wrote:

rambo54 wrote:
I don't think so. For example use the History layer in Severodvinsk and measure other ships next to the Boreys. You will see that they match more or less exactly their specifications. You only see significant mismatches for Borey and K-329 Severodvinsk!

Yes.. i have checked it now... So basically Wikipedia and basically whoever quotes that 170 m figure is inaccurate.

and this is better.

http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-370.html

This one is for Graney
http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-372.html

You can see in the Graney specs there are hmm three length figures from 119 to 139m

Anyway can i ask where did you find the Graney ? coordinates and time stamp ?

Severodvinsk:
64.578015° 39.814701° - 23 June 2010
64.575185° 39.800798° - 30 July 2010
64.575245° 39.800658° - 13 Aug 2011 + 21 Aug 2011
64.575394° 39.800599° - 28 Aug 2012
64.578223° 39.804305° - 9 May 2013
64.575394° 39.800599° - 18 June 2013
64.575984° 39.805111° - 10 Sept 2014

Severomorsk
69.095267° 33.414915° - 20 July 2014

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