Project 971: Akula class

They need to investigate where those tanks went and who switched them. They need to be given life in the gulag.

Yes, who did it, who helped cover it up.

Probably easiest to follow the money.

Russia hands over Nerpa nuclear attack submarine to India: report

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Dec 31, IRNA -- Russia has handed over the much-awaited nuclear-powered attack submarine Nerpa to India on a 10-year lease, boosting the Indian navy's fire-power.

The Akula-II class Nerpa nuclear submarine had recently finished sea trials.

'The signing ceremony held at the Bolshoi Kamen ship building facility in the (Far East) Primorye region in Russia Wednesday, where the Nerpa is now based,' said a pti report.

The deal for the submarine, which is being transferred on a 10-year lease, was worth USD 920 million.

The report said an Indian crew would sail the Akula II class craft to its home base at the end of January.

'All of the naval tests and performance checks have been completed,' the Russian navy official said.

The submarine, capable of remaining underwater for months, will be rechristened as 'INS Chakra' and it would be for the first time in more than two decades that the Indian navy would have a nuclear attack submarine.

When Russia makes the delivery, it will make India only the sixth operator of nuclear submarines in the world.

The submarine deal had figured during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia earlier this month.

The Nerpa, an Akula II-class attack submarine, had originally been scheduled for delivery in 2008 but an accident during sea trials on November 8 that year had forced the Russian authorities to put it on hold.

Twenty people, mostly civilians, had been killed when a fire-suppressant gas was released on the Nerpa during shakedown trials, in one of Russia's worst naval accidents.

The Akula-II class submarines are equipped with 28 nuclear-capable cruise missiles with a striking range of 3,000 km. The Indian version is reportedly expected to be armed with the 300-km Club nuclear-capable missiles.

India had funded the completion of the Nerpa nuclear submarine at Amur Shipyard before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

2160**1422
Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30741655

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/india/2011/india-111231-irna01.htm

How many Acula's are in service?

I have a list there, can anyone confirm?

K-317 PANTERA 1990 NOR
K-331 MAGADAN 1990 PAC
K-391 BRATSK 1989 PAC
K-461 VOLK 1991 NOR
K-328 LEOPARD 1992 NOR
K-419 KUZBASS 1992 PAC
K-154 TIGR 1993 NOR
K-157 VEPR' 1995 NOR
K-295 SAMARA 1995 PAC
K-335 GEPARD 2001 NOR

Technically you are talking about the Schuka-B or Bars Class as mentioned in the thread title.

The Akula class is called Typhoon in the west and is a very large third gen SSBN.

For the state of the Navy try here:

http://russian-ships.info/eng/today/

From the information reveled recently , it seems upgraded submarine life can be extended to 35 years , so be it SSBN , SSN or SSGN any submarine that has been commissioned in say 1990 can serve the Navy till 2025 with these upgrades.

And it should be kept in mind that different upgrades will suit different vessels in different ways.

For instance to be a research vessel has certain requirements that are not as demanding as the requirements to be a successful SSN or SSBN or SSGN in 2025.

Well, lets fact it, most attack subs will likely have vertical launch tubes for Kalibre fitted, so there wont be SSNs... just SSGNs most likely.

Austin wrote:From the information reveled recently , it seems upgraded submarine life can be extended to 35 years , so be it SSBN , SSN or SSGN any submarine that has been commissioned in say 1990 can serve the Navy till 2025 with these upgrades.

Indeed. And quite a few of the subs are newer as well, and will not need replacement well past 2020, assuming they are taken care of:

971:
Gepard: commissioned, 2001.
Vepr, commissioned 1995.
Samara: commissioned 1995.
Tigr: commissioned 1993.

949:
Omsk: commissioned 1996.
Tomsk: commissioned 1996.
Tver: commissioned 1992.
Orel: commissioned 1992.

Upgrades are expensive affair and time consuming they need to cut the submarine to refuel it and then modernise the electronics , sonars , weapons etc.

So unless an upgrade adds 10-12 years of useful life to the sub its not going to be worth it.

Most of the subs from early 90's will go through an upgrade as they have useful life and are quite modern.

from what i have read Akula will be upgraded to Gepard/Nerpa standard.

and oscar will get its own upgrade the only known thing about it is Shipwreck will be replaced by Kalbir and Yakhont.

I have come across pictures that shows 3 Kalbir or Onisk for single Shipwreck , is that confirmed ?

Hello TR1 and others who can read Russian.

Is there any thing known on Akula SSN noise level and acoustics ,how did she perform in service ?

I have been trying to do some research on it and it seems even US Admirals have been impressed with Akula performance.

I am looking more in terms of what reputed Russian write up has to say on it ? Since I have read what most Western authors had to say on it.

What is the status of Victor 3 SSN specially the most modern ones ?

Also check this article

China's Noisy New Boomer

Here is Rubin has to say on Amur 1650 which actually surfaced displacement of 1765T
http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/en/projects/naval_engineering/conventional_submarines/amur_1650/

Brochure http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/fileadmin/editor/listovki/Amur_1650_eng.pdf

Compared to Kilo class submarines, the Amur 1650 submarine features a reduced displacement. The boat is distinguished by the capability of firing up to 6 missiles in a salvo against targets at sea and on shore, state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems and a sonar with a unique passive antenna to detect silent targets at a large range.

Acoustic signature of the Amur 1650 submarine is several times lower compared to Kilo class submarines which are currently considered to be the most silent in the world. The submarine is equipped with electronic warfare systems of new generation based on the recent hi-tech solutions.

The provision is made for the boat to be fitted with an air-independent propulsion plant with electrochemical generators to considerably increase submerged endurance and cruising range. The plant with stock of reagents is located in a special compartment module, which can be incorporated into the submarine during construction or repair / refit.

Regarding submarine stealth- I was reading around about the Kurks the other day, apparently the salvage ROV operators (commercial oil guys, pretty high tech equipment) almost ran into the Kursk on several occasions due to it being essentially invisible to their sonars.

TR1 wrote:Regarding submarine stealth- I was reading around about the Kurks the other day, apparently the salvage ROV operators (commercial oil guys, pretty high tech equipment) almost ran into the Kursk on several occasions due to it being essentially invisible to their sonars.

Well the ROV was using active sonar to find the Kursk and since the submarine uses layered Rubber Coating to make it less visible to active sonar , the ROV has problem due to the same reason.

Didnt realise upload quality of Akula article was bad , here are better uploads


Akula-1 http://www.mediafire.com/file/x4i2534wrh0n2up/Akula-1.zip

Akula-2 http://www.mediafire.com/file/g51jihx5giujag1/Akula-2.zip

Austin wrote:Didnt realise upload quality of Akula article was bad , here are better uploads


Akula-1 http://www.mediafire.com/file/x4i2534wrh0n2up/Akula-1.zip

Akula-2 http://www.mediafire.com/file/g51jihx5giujag1/Akula-2.zip

WAAAAAI....WAAAAAAI it's in Russians

"Russian attack submarine sailed in Gulf of Mexico undetected for weeks, U.S. officials say"


[url=http://freebeacon.com/silent-running/ ]http://freebeacon.com/silent-running/ [/url]

Interesting news , Any idea how did they manage to then know after a month of being undetected that she was there for weeks undetected.

I suspect this leak also has to do with Naval cuts on the anvil due to automatic $ 1 trillion across the board defence cut planned , they are saying look we cannot detect the sub and you are cutting fund it will get more worse.

With a good crew , training and bit of luck Akula can fight its way if required it really a good submarine.

ASW is incredibly expensive and requires a lot of very specialist skills to actually be effective as well.

They will know it has been there for weeks because they probably tracked it leaving port on the surface and probably could guess what its likely mission was... especially if its mission included listening to certain activities and probing defences.

Needless to say you have a few sensors detect a presence of "something" and then you detect a presence of "something" somewhere else a few days or weeks later, and then finally after a couple of weeks you bump into a Bars sub it is not rocket science to put two and two together... especially given the scrutiny of the Russian fleet... their exits and returns to port... if there are only three or four Bars subs on patrol and one is in the Indian ocean and two are somewhere else but you can't account for the other one...

Of course it is one thing for this sort of thing to happen, it is another to release this information to the public.

I rather suspect the reason for releasing this information was to save their budgets from cuts, or in fact get increases of funding.

Trillions are spent on making subs quiet... if that wasn't effective then they wouldn't bother.

I would suspect it was true because the consequences of being caught lying in an attempt to get extra funding would be rather worse than saying nothing at all and losing the funding.... ie higher ups would lose their cushy well paid jobs which is what they really care about.

I agree these leaks are more to make sure the budget cuts dont affect the Navy and Akula is the bogey man.

I am sure there would be quite a few Virginia off Russian coast that go undetected or gets detected but the Russian Navy dont go to press about it.

And nor would they release such information.

The most important information you can have is what information the enemy has about you.

The Military doesn't spend money for fun.

A good example is tank gun ammo. There is no prize for having the most powerful tank ammo. Developing ammo and deploying it costs money so your ammo is generally designed to penetrate your primary enemies tank frontal armour from 2,000m most of the time.
The job of the people building your tank is to make sure that your tanks frontal armour will stop the enemies best tank round and most of his missiles within reason.

The US will not bother to develop armour for the Abrams that will stop the 317kg shaped charge warhead of the Kh-29 family of medium missiles because no level of mobile armour will help... these missiles are designed to undermine the concrete foundations of bridges and other heavy structures so no level of tank armour will be good enough.

The point is that if the US had never learned about the performance of several ERAs the Soviets and Russians have developed they would not have developed the higher penetration rounds that they have because there would have been no requirement.

Equally the Russians, if they had money during the 1990s would have already had longer rod penetrators in service as they were needed. They have developed a larger calibre gun to allow for future armour protection increases in western tanks but have decided there is room for further growth with 125mm rounds that will make it effective for the foreseeable future.

Improving ammo is not cheap... it is actually quite expensive and includes production of enough rounds to get it into service in significant numbers to make the cost worth it, but it is still cheaper than introducing a new calibre.

A new larger calibre would make guided rounds and HEAT rounds more effective.

In other words what I am saying if the Russians can detect and track new US subs it is not in their interests for the US to know that because it might be some trick they are using that could easily be defeated.

I remember one time reading about a western force that transmitted IFF signals to enemy aircraft back when IFF systems were new. They could use the IFF responses to detect the aircraft type and location without using radar. IFF systems got more sophisticated and only started responding to specific signals... but you see what I mean about sneaky tricks?

Interesting news , Any idea how did they manage to then know after a month of being undetected that she was there for weeks undetected.

In the same way similar events happened in the last 40 years obviously also at inverted sides :

- A first brief contact ,usually at very high depth for Russian attack submarines, (not useful at prevent that submarine from sliping outside the surveying rings that are promptly put around the contact point to track it) providing a general vector of the enemy submarine unity.

- Few even more brief, not "profitable" contacts (usually resonant, near isotropic ones, in close littoral areas) long the entire period of stationing of the intruding submarine in its area of operation.

- A stable contact ,usually with the enemy submarine intentionally surfacing for few minutes , when this unity leave its area of operation.


Therefore is important to point out that when a NATO or Russian Navy official say that an enemy submarine has operated ,in a specific area of theirs competence, for a certain time window and undetected it refer to situations where the few data coming from theirs sensors echelons, in that time frame ,turned out as absolutely insufficient to provide a positional coordinate useful at execute an eventual engagement of the enemy submarine.


Intentionally lying for any reason to the Central Command on a similar strategically critical and complex detection process of enemy boomers and attack submarines is not only a very serious purpose but also an incredibly difficult one because it would require to erase and/or warp data coming from an incredibly high number of different assets Sea, Undersea, Air and Space-based pertaining to different Armed Forces branch and thousands of operatives.


Naturally all of that (in particular from Russian POV) remain true only within a strictly conventional conflict scenario.....

Interesting that is also possible Mindstorm.

If Akula-2 can evade USN modern submarine of 4th Gen and can operate for weeks in US backyard then it is really a good compliment for the skills of crew and submarine.

I am sure USN submarine might be operating in Russian backyard , do Russian Navy has any time went public with such data ?

The Akula class will be undergoing modernisation soon it is reffered to as 971M class ( the M perhaps stands for modernised ) though details are not known but what is certain is they will acquire Kalbir and new class of torpedoes and Perhaps better sensors and quitening.

Can you tell us if this article in Russian has any interesting details on Yasen class ? Thanks

Pr 885 Yasen

Yasen-1
Yasen-2
Yasen-3


Not sure what it says but looks interesting

Would be nice to get a head count of all Bars boats in service, and check if any were actually deployed during the time.
Easy way to see if this is indeed internal consumption.

EDIT: Austin, will xlate anything interesting later today, busy @ the moment.

This site says
http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-273.html

The Nerpa is an Improved Akula 971U and not an Akula-2

So what the IN has is an improved Akula and not an Akula-2 as indian media puts it ?