Project 949A: Oscar-II

Well that is interesting too... the Oscars were very useful tools, but had one trick... anti surface vessel capability.

Even without an upgrade to UKSK like tubes the land attack capabilities for Granit make it rather more flexible and powerful.

Replacing them with Onyx means capacity for Zircon when it gets into full production.

72 supersonic missiles able to hit land and sea targets... soon to be 72 hypersonic missiles able to hit land and sea targets is even more potent for the future.

It is only becoming more useful and more powerful...

GarryB wrote:Well that is interesting too... the Oscars were very useful tools, but had one trick... anti surface vessel capability.

Even without an upgrade to UKSK like tubes the land attack capabilities for Granit make it rather more flexible and powerful.

Replacing them with Onyx means capacity for Zircon when it gets into full production.

72 supersonic missiles able to hit land and sea targets... soon to be 72 hypersonic missiles able to hit land and sea targets is even more potent for the future.

It is only becoming more useful and more powerful...

What target you have on land that require granit/onyix or cirkon?

Simple kalibr is more than enough.

And you can launch that from normal vessels.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:Simple kalibr is more than enough.  And you can launch that from normal vessels.

72x of them? from "normal" vessels? FFS thats equivalent the upgraded Adm Nahkimov (80) while Gorshkov "only" have 16...

I don't see why we are having this discussion.  Why would anyone doubt the value in upgrading the Anteis to 949AM?

Been trying to say that all along...

Big_Gazza wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:Simple kalibr is more than enough. And you can launch that from normal vessels.

72x of them? from "normal" vessels? FFS thats equivalent the upgraded Adm Nahkimov (80) while Gorshkov "only" have 16...

I don't see why we are having this discussion. Why would anyone doubt the value in upgrading the Anteis to 949AM?

The Oscars are extremely expensive.

They built to hunt enemy capital ships.

And the P-700/800 extremely expensive as well.

Correction... the Oscars WERE extremely expensive because of their satellite datalink capabilities and their unique systems including other communications equipment.

These days the Sigma C4IR systems adopted by all Russian vessels is perfectly capable of doing that job and is standardised amongst the entire Russian Fleet.

The odd big missiles were also expensive... they were networked with each other using datalinks too, that could communicate with each other and had a satellite link to pass information back to the sub that launched them.

Newer missiles can do even better with more nodes in the network to communicate together, but the technology is cheaper and smaller and lighter and more reliable.

A new Oscar could be 1/3rd the size and cheap to build, but as they have already been built it makes sense to simply upgrade them with newer electronics and newer missiles... and triple the payload capacity of the vessels.

What target you have on land that require granit/onyix or cirkon?

There are plenty of land based targets that are well defended that would take quite a few subsonic cruise missiles to defeat.

A supersonic or hypersonic land attack missile can ensure a kill with fewer shots.

During Desert Storm several US cruise missiles were shot down with weapons like OSA... if the target is deep inland the defences can be alerted and while a low flying cruise missile is always a difficult target, it is not perfect or invulnerable.

Oscar submarines are the most expensive military ships ever built, in the same cost class as nimitz carriers.

Every one of them is as heavy as an SSBN, but with the capabilities of a seawolf/akula.
The yassens is the cost effective version of the oscars, still mindblowing expensive.

If you want to do land attack then a cheap virgina class submarine more than enough, using oscar/seawolf/yassen for that purpose is a waste of money.


Same for using supersonic missile.

???? Russia does not have any Virginia class subs...

What she does have is some Oscar class subs whose main armament is no longer in production.

What makes sense is to adapt them with new electronics and systems to utilise the new standard universal cruise missile launcher... that is what UKSK stands for...

By equipping the Oscars with these launchers it means they become multi role vessels... able to hunt carriers and carrier groups... first with mach 2 plus Onyx or Brahmos, and later with mach 6 plus Zircon, but it also means they can be used against land and sub surface targets too...

The Onyx is being replaced by Zircon... the other missiles it carries will no doubt also be replaced with newer faster and or longer ranged versions...

Would like to see some sources before I believe a single Oscar sub costs more than a Nimitz class carrier... that is rather hard to believe.

The Oscars are SSGNs, and would not be comparable with Akula SSBNs or Pike SSNs.

I have long been a fan of Soviet SSGNs... from Echo to Charlie, to Papa and now Oscar...

They can upgrade the granits with new electronics.

If they can shave off say 100-500 kg from the weight of it with new electronics that increase dramatically the capability and range of it.


Of course Of course if you can upgrade them with p-800 then it is a good move, but the original weapon system is capable as well.

And you can't forget that the oscars has six torpedo tubes, so you can shoot kalibr or onyx from them without modification.


If you arrange the subs by capability then the vriginias are in the same class like the kilos, but of course with nuclear propulsion, and the oscars are in the same capability group as the yassen, akula or seawolf.

The oscars price could be somewhere between 0.5-0.8 nimitz.

Compare them to the seawolfs.

They can upgrade the granits with new electronics.

But why?

The rest of the navy is moving on to newer missiles... Onyx and Zircon... why leave your Oscars behind with a Ukrainian missile that is no longer in production?

BTW they have already added land attack capability which suggests they already upgraded the electronics anyway.


Installing the new standard universal launcher for cruise missiles means the subs can be reloaded by standard vessels and at any Russian port and can be loaded with a range of weapons offering flexibility and new capabilities.

Torpedoes are best kept loaded for self defence... ready to fire vertical tubes are always ready to launch.

Granit was an impressive weapon but newer missiles are available and can be carried in larger numbers in tubes that offer a range of loading options for a range of targets.

Size is expensive but also offers endurance and a capacity smaller vessels can never compete with.

Compare them to the seawolfs.

There is nothing in the west to compare them with because none of the wests opponents/rivals have operational carrier groups yet.

GarryB wrote:

They can upgrade the granits with new electronics.

But why?

The rest of the navy is moving on to newer missiles... Onyx and Zircon... why leave your Oscars behind with a Ukrainian missile that is no longer in production?

BTW they have already added land attack capability which suggests they already upgraded the electronics anyway.


Installing the new standard universal launcher for cruise missiles means the subs can be reloaded by standard vessels and at any Russian port and can be loaded with a range of weapons offering flexibility and new capabilities.

Torpedoes are best kept loaded for self defence... ready to fire vertical tubes are always ready to launch.

Granit was an impressive weapon but newer missiles are available and can be carried in larger numbers in tubes that offer a range of loading options for a range of targets.

Size is expensive but also offers endurance and a capacity smaller vessels can never compete with.

Don't dispute that, my point is if they upgrade the granits with the onyx electronics then the missile will have extended range or payload.
That is a cheap option compared to anything.

Don't dispute that, my point is if they upgrade the granits with the onyx electronics then the missile will have extended range or payload.
That is a cheap option compared to anything.

It's useless. In the near futur all Russian ships will have UKSK to lunch kalibr/oniks. While the granit can be carried by few big ships, you can have 72 oniks in one Oscar and around 80 on 1 kirov it means 72 and 80 targets. With the precision of a kalibr or an oniks the weigh of the warhead is not important.

For a max range the granits will have to fly very high so they will be spottede far away. Kalibr land Attack can go 2000 km at an altitude always less than 500m. In such attack the typical detection range is 20 km and you have to have your air defence systems at a precise place to destroy them. An ossa will destroy a cruise missile if goes in its direction, if it enters just 5 sec in its engagement zone the missile will probably survive.

Cruise missile are very Dangerous weapons. Even an air defence like Russia's one won't be able to stop an attack of a big salvo. The best way to deal with it is to buy enough Pantsir and tor to cover all your country with them and use an AWACS like a yak-44 that will scan for them, this is the best option.

Granit flying at 15km altitude will be shot down by a modern system easily. That's not a super fast missile (mach 2.2 which is not a big problem for modern anti air radars and missile) and it's not a stealth design.

Isos wrote:

Don't dispute that, my point is if they upgrade the granits with the onyx electronics then the missile will have extended range or payload.
That is a cheap option compared to anything.

It's useless. In the near futur all Russian ships will have UKSK to lunch kalibr/oniks. While the granit can be carried by few big ships, you can have 72 oniks in one Oscar and around 80 on 1 kirov it means 72 and 80 targets. With the precision of a kalibr or an oniks the weigh of the warhead is not important.

For a max range the granits will have to fly very high so they will be spottede far away. Kalibr land Attack can go 2000 km at an altitude always less than 500m. In such attack the typical detection range is 20 km and you have to have your air defence systems at a precise place to destroy them. An ossa will destroy a cruise missile if goes in its direction, if it enters just 5 sec in its engagement zone the missile will probably survive.

Cruise missile are very Dangerous weapons. Even an air defence like Russia's one won't be able to stop an attack of a big salvo. The best way to deal with it is to buy enough Pantsir and tor to cover all your country with them and use an AWACS like a yak-44 that will scan for them, this is the best option.

Granit flying at 15km altitude will be shot down by a modern system easily. That's not a super fast missile (mach 2.2 which is not a big problem for modern anti air radars and missile) and it's not a stealth design.

So, I agree with that the best options for oscars is to update them with new missiles.

The cheapest is to upgrade the granits.


The prohibitive factor against the use of granit/onyx against land target is the cost of missile and the cost of platform.

Both missile using expensive monopulse radar with on flight interconnection, use high speed ( match 3-4) and long range.

Using them against land target is like shooting a 400 $ drone with a patriot missile.


And no, the granit has ramjet, not turbine (as in the original military material)

The 50s vintage Bristol Thor ramjet managed 2.7 match speed.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Thor

Saying that the Granit has 2.5 match is like saying the CCCP was two and half decade behind the british in the missile design.

Upgrading old Granits will never be cheaper than just buying new Onyx.

It sounds simple in theory but practice is different thing altogether.

a significant portion of the weight of the Granit will be fuel, so it will probably be flying at mach 2 near the start of its flight but by the time it gets to the target area it will likely be flying faster.

Improvements in turbojet technology have led to the Kh-101 and Kh-102 being able to fly over 5,000km to their targets... I would suspect the improvements in electronics (in terms of weight and size and cost) since the granits first flew in the late 1970s and the improvements in ramjet technology over the same time period have led to improvements in performance too, however the granit is a very large missile that takes up a lot of space on a vessel.

Replacing them with smaller lighter missiles with similar performance just makes more economic sense.

There are no new Granits being made so the costs will only increase and new replacement parts have to be custom made for a small cache of weapons that will only get smaller.

On the other hand the Onyx can be mass produced and the more that are made the cheaper they will become.

More importantly the upgrades developed for the Onyx and later Zircon can be applied to every new Russian vessel in service and all new and prospective upgraded vessels.

The cost of the Granit has already been spent... as they are being withdrawn from service they are getting older with no new models being produced... when they expire they become useless without an expensive test and check and overhaul... it makes rather more sense to pick a target in Syria and launch it at the target... its 930kg armour piercing HE warhead would be devastating to most targets even if it did not explode... just look at Ominous Squids signature image to get the idea of what a high speed missile can do.

Keep in mind the Granit has a jet engine so for the first part of its flight it can cruise and conserve fuel and then for the last portion of its flight it can climb to high altitude and accelerate and then dive at high speed on the target in Syria... they wont know what hit them.

Against a target somewhere else it could adopt a different flight profile at different speeds to defeat air defences.

With Zircon they will have as many or even more options with a scramjet motor...

Again, I agree with that the Onyx is a better option than a granit, the point is the missiles going through main maintenance / upgrades as well, and these old stuff can get surprising capabilities by new electronic, including range or payload increase.

So we agree then... in the short term the Granit is there and has at least gotten land attack capability so it will not disappear over night, but the future is Onyx and then Zircon and whatever comes after them...

Four nuclear-powered subs to be upgraded, equipped with Kalibr missiles before 2025 - Russian Defense Ministry

BOLSHOI KAMEN, Primorye Territory. June 3 (Interfax) - The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to upgrade four Project 949A Antei nuclear-powered submarines for the Pacific Fleet, equipping them with the Kalibr missiles, before 2025, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said.

"Repairs and an upgrade of the Project 949 multi-role nuclear-powered submarines are scheduled. The old Granit missiles will be replaced with the Kalibr ones, which proved itself during the Syrian conflict among other things," Borisov said while visiting the Zvezda plant in the Far East on Saturday.

In addition, a part of the submarines' hull equipment will be replaced, and "essentially, a submarine will have new qualities in the old hull," he said.

"This is used in the current state armament program and is planned in the next one. An upgrade of the Kursk submarine is currently under way, it will be ready in 2021, and we are currently discussing plans to upgrade three more ships as part of the future state armaments program for 2018-2025," the Russian deputy defense minister said.

The plant is currently undergoing an upgrade as well, in particular, the new crane equipment is being fitted, he said.

"The plant will build the entire pleiad of ships, including for the purpose of developing the North shelf, such as gas tankers and other support vessels. We also have plans to use the plant's new capacities for building supersize ships for the Defense Ministry's auxiliary fleet," Borisov said.

Four nuclear submarines of the Pacific Fleet upgrade to 2025

http://www.interfax.ru/russia/565169

Right so it will be the full Onyx/Kalibr setup not just Onyx

hoom wrote:Right so it will be the full Onyx/Kalibr setup not just Onyx

They all fit in same launcher by default. Zirkon will too. No brainer.

Anteis will be packing Onix (and later Zircons) since anti-ship missions are their core purpose.

As for Kalibrs, there are other ships/subs for that stuff.

They all fit in same launcher by default. Zirkon will too. No brainer.

Point is we just recently had a big hoo-hah about whether it would be Onyx only = dedicated antiship or UKSK/equivalent with Kalibr massive land attack/detterent option.
Or just regular mixed-message intentional or not maskirovka

Big_Gazza wrote:Alternatively, they may be planning to carry the anti-ship kalibre model with the Mach3 sea-skimmer rocket-powered terminal attack stage.  Not much gets said about this variant, but its likely to be at least as lethal as an Oniks, and with its subsonic sea-skimmer approach it would be harder to defend against than an fast Oniks cruising at higher altitudes.

Quite the opposite.

The anti-ship version of Kalibr is subsonic in the initial part and supersonic in the final attack stage.

The Oscars were tasked with anti carrier roles because they and the Kirovs were the only vessels able to carry sufficient missiles potent enough to take on carrier groups... which are pretty much the best protected things at sea.

Now that every new Russian ship can carry Onyx and soon Zircon they might be considering a role change for the Oscars as their upgrade to carry 72 missiles including land attack cruise missiles becomes rather interesting in terms of interventions.

In fact a single Oscar could carry a mix of Zircon missiles for use against enemy carrier groups and also land attack cruise missiles for use against ports and infrastructure.

With torpedoes and missiles it would be quite capable of taking on a small country by itself. Having two or three could be all you need to take out a small country, or even a first rate military.