Russian Nuclear Submarine Force: Discussion

Podlodka77 wrote:
Project 09852[/b]; K-329 Belgorod is delivered.

Project 09851/09853; Project 09851 submarine is the most secretive of all the Russian submarines under construction and is scheduled to be operational by 2025. The list also states the start of construction of submarine project 09853 from 2023, as well as two more submarines of that project in 2024 and 2025.

Some people seriously underestimate the consequences of Poseidon carriers introduction.
The situation here is an analogue of the whole doctrine change that US made in the 80s, while deciding to change the air defense penetration method from high&fast to low&slow.
That required a whole reconstruction of the Soviet AD system and tools, and was one of a serious punches made to the Soviet economy.
Now we have the same story, only made underwater and by the Russkie.
There are no tools to solve the Poseidon factor, that is a 100 kts/1000m running torpedo with unpredicted trajectory&unlimited range of operation.
Zero, null, nada.

ALAMO wrote:

Podlodka77 wrote:
Project 09852[/b]; K-329 Belgorod is delivered.

Project 09851/09853; Project 09851 submarine is the most secretive of all the Russian submarines under construction and is scheduled to be operational by 2025. The list also states the start of construction of submarine project 09853 from 2023, as well as two more submarines of that project in 2024 and 2025.

Some people seriously underestimate the consequences of Poseidon carriers introduction.
The situation here is an analogue of the whole doctrine change that US made in the 80s, while deciding to change the air defense penetration method from high&fast to low&slow.
That required a whole reconstruction of the Soviet AD system and tools, and was one of a serious punches made to the Soviet economy.
Now we have the same story, only made underwater and by the Russkie.
There are no tools to solve the Poseidon factor, that is a 100 kts/1000m running torpedo with unpredicted trajectory&unlimited range of operation.
Zero, null, nada.

I agree..
I think that Sevmash will completely switch to the construction of "special purpose" submarines (as the Russians call 09852 project K-329 Belgorod and submarines of project 09851/09853 Khabarovsk) at the end of this and the beginning of the next decade, as well as 885M.
Currently, 10 submarines are being built; 5 projects 885M, 4 projects 955A and one 09851 project.
Construction contracts have been signed for two more 955A submarines. I'm just curious if the first submarines of project 955 will be converted to replace the "special purpose" submarines B-129 Orenburg (project 09786 and converted from 667BDR Kalmar/NATO; Delta III) and the submarine BS-64 Podmoskovye which is converted from project 667BDRM Dolphin /NATO; Delta IV and now belongs to the project 09787.
If the Russians are already planning to do this, then probably two more Project 955A submarines will be built - 14 Project 955 and 955A submarines in total. The moment when the construction of SSBN submarines of the project 955A is nearing the end, then the construction of submarines 885M (or successors in the form of a new project like 545A) will increase, and the same applies to submarines of project 09853.

Regarding titanium, are the Yasens and Boreis not titanium?

They mentioned titanium construction in the Telekanal Svezda episodes.

Those are definitely not titanium subs.

Mir wrote:Those are definitely not titanium subs.

What makes you so sure?

Podlodka77 wrote:
I think that Sevmash will completely switch to the construction of "special purpose" submarines

They don't really need a lot of those subs - all these special purpose subs will be built in small numbers with only about 3-4 Khabarovsk's planned.

I think the Borey's will soon make way for the Husky/Laika subs and once they finished the 885M's they will probably look at the Arctic - which to my mind is actually part of the husky project anyway.

Naturally they will continue developing special purpose subs but they will remain small in numbers.

The-thing-next-door wrote:

Mir wrote:Those are definitely not titanium subs.

What makes you so sure?

There might be some titanium piping in those subs but the last submarines with a complete titanium hull were built 40 years ago and very few were built because it was very expensive and time consuming to construct these subs.

Only 7 Project 705 Lira/Alfa, 4 Project 945/945A and a single K-222 (Papa) were entirely built from Titanium.

One easy way to confirm what the Yasen and Borei's inner hulls are mode of it to look at the displacement and maximum diving depths compared to a titanium submarine

Since titanium has roughly half the density of steel and a similar strength a steel submarine would either have a much higher displacement/internal volume or a vastly inferior diving depth.

The-thing-next-door wrote:One easy way to confirm what the Yasen and Borei's inner hulls are mode of it to look at the displacement and maximum diving depths compared to a titanium submarine

Since titanium has roughly half the density of steel and a similar strength a steel submarine would either have a much higher displacement/internal volume or a vastly inferior diving depth.

Quite right but I have to tell you that the actual diving depths of navy submarines are highly classified - take all of it with a pinch of salt.
One thing is sure though - the Los Angeles boats are not "deep diving" subs!

Fascinating theory
And how in detail one would extrapolate the mass proportions between the hull structure made of Ti and the other aggregates on board like the machinery, reactor, shafts, weapons, supplies?
Oh, I know!
From the arse!

ALAMO wrote:Fascinating theory
And how in detail one would extrapolate the mass proportions between the hull structure made of Ti and the other aggregates on board like the machinery, reactor, shafts, weapons, supplies?
Oh, I know!
From the arse!

They would be similar for a similar sized submarine.

Another fascinating theory!
Lets say, a single reactor sub manned with 120 people adds to the two reactor and two propeller one manned by 60?
A single hull one to the double hulled?
Or .. ekhm .. triple, maybe?
And again, what is the proportion of hull structure weight in the weight of a whole submarine?

Where will you find the weight data?

Ohh ... don't tell me!
I know - from the same place!

Mir wrote:
Quite right but I have to tell you that the actual diving depths of navy submarines are highly classified - take all of it with a pinch of salt.
One thing is sure though - the Los Angeles boats are not "deep diving" subs!

Using steel monohulls it is no surprise that the pindo submarines cannot go very deep before crumpling.

Steel being around twice the density of titanium and having similar properties means that a steel hulled submarine will have less spare displacement for weapons than a titanium submarine meaning you need more submarines to carry more weapons and since most steels do not form protective oxide layers you will need to spend much more money on a steel submarine's maintenance.

It also begs the question of how exactly one maintains a multi hull steel submarine?

They can't go deep mostly because the LA was made to be inexpensive mass produced piece to face the Soviet massive numbers.

ALAMO wrote:They can't go deep mostly because the LA was made to be inexpensive mass produced piece to face the Soviet massive numbers.

No pindo military sub can go deep other than maybe the seawolf.

They have used substandard steel for the hull construction for two decades.
Sailing close to surface is a sign of a common sense I would say

Mir wrote:

The-thing-next-door wrote:One easy way to confirm what the Yasen and Borei's inner hulls are mode of it to look at the displacement and maximum diving depths compared to a titanium submarine

Since titanium has roughly half the density of steel and a similar strength a steel submarine would either have a much higher displacement/internal volume or a vastly inferior diving depth.

Quite right but I have to tell you that the actual diving depths of navy submarines are highly classified - take all of it with a pinch of salt.
One thing is sure though - the Los Angeles boats are not "deep diving" subs!

Not that much classified since they export subs. They have to tell diving deapths when presenting the subs.

Numbers on the internet aren't the real ones but gives a very good estimation.

@Isos

We are actually discussing nuclear submarines here - they are not generally export material but Australia changed all that so it would be interesting to peek at the brochures of the "new" Aussie nuclear subs - "CAUTION!!!: DO NOT EXCEED 100 METERS!"

(small print: If you do the exceed the set limit the 1 year warranty will be null and void with immediate effect.)

Nuclear subs don't use better materials than SSKs.

Only some russian titanium subs could dive very deep. Rest use similar stuff to SSKs but are bigger.

I agree their actual values are secret but don't expect them to go 1km bellow surface.

Both US and Russia track each other and have good estimations so the numbers on the net are good indications about their capabilities.

@Isos

Most Russian subs use double hull construction and the steel quality is of (much) higher quality used in other nuclear subs. That gives them an advantage in many respects. One is they can dive much deeper than the competition.

I know. Kilo has a double hull too. It's materials and design is on par with Akula class IMO if not better for Improved kilos.

Akula is bigger and is probably going further down however.

600m is a good thing to achieve. And they don't go that low usually since it is very dangerous.

The daily routine depths the Soviets were running since the 70s were one of the main reasons of a whole ADCAP thing. It was not much about the lethality of the torpedo, its homing systems etc, but the depth they could reach. Soviet 70s gen of subs just dived below the engagement envelope of bloody torpedos, pushing all of NATO to emergency replacement programs. That was a whole generation of new torpedos emerging in the 80s and 90s. They just had to catch up the diving Soviet subs ...

That's dumb. It's pretty easy for the US to improve their torpedo to go 100 or 200m more down.

The reason of the higher max deapth is that they can play with the different levels of water temperature and salinity/saltiness (true english world anyone ?) which impacts the sonars.

Creating a new sub to surpass the enemy's current torpedo is dumb. He can improve the torpedo in matter of months.

I take all the credit for waking up this section...  
It's nice that people get away from the special military operation.
And let me add that Russia announced in May that it tested the K-561 Kazan at the maximum depth of application, and that depth is 600 meters. That's twice as much as diesel-electric submarines.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14672145

The working depth for project 885/885M and 949A submarines is 520 meters. For project 971 submarines, it varies from variant to variant and ranges from 480 to 520 meters.