How the fourth generation Russian nuclear submarines were created and what they were capable of
A little more than a year ago, the K-560 Severodvinsk submarine, the first multipurpose submarine of the Yasen project, also known as Project 885, entered the Russian Navy. And the first submarine laid not in the Soviet Union, but already in Russia: "Severodvinsk" took place in 1993.
For obvious reasons, the construction of the first ship of the Yasen project took 20 years. But, despite this, "Severodvinsk" as the lead boat of the project and the rest of the submarines, which should be put into service by 2020, fully meet the challenges of the time and the concept of a modern military fleet. Although the fate of the fourth generation submarines was very, very difficult …
We need fourth generation submarines!
The beginning of work on the fourth generation submarines is usually attributed to the second half of the 1970s. The topic was dealt with simultaneously in the USSR and in the USA - the main rival powers of the bipolar world competed among themselves in all areas.
In the Soviet Union, three main design bureaus were engaged in the design of the next generation of submarines: the Leningrad Rubin and Malakhit and the Nizhny Novgorod Lazurit. In accordance with the then dominant naval doctrine in the new generation, nuclear submarines of all three main types were supposed to appear: with ballistic missiles, with cruise missiles and multipurpose. The first and the second, as usual, were trained in Rubin, the third in Malakhit and Lazurit.
The designers of the Rubin were to create a nuclear-powered submarine with anti-ship cruise missiles. It is these boats that are commonly called "aircraft carrier killers" in the West. Lazurit specialists set about creating an anti-submarine submarine - the same as the project 945 Barracuda submarine with a titanium hull, developed a little earlier in the same design bureau. And at Malakhit they worked on the most promising project - a multipurpose submarine capable of carrying torpedoes, cruise missiles, and rocket torpedoes on board.
The development of a new generation of weapons, unless it is conducted in a war, is never quick. So work on new Soviet submarines dragged on until the second half of the 80s. In proportion to the effort expended and the improvement of the characteristics of future boats, both their price and the complexity of construction and maintenance grew. And finally, the moment came when it became clear: it would not be possible to maintain the same multi-type character of attack submarines in the Russian Navy. It was necessary to look for an option that could combine the capabilities of torpedo submarines, boats with cruise missiles, and anti-submarine submarines.
Create one of the best three submarines
This option ultimately became the project 885 "Ash" of the Leningrad design bureau "Malakhit". The new "Malachite" submarines were to become the first submarines of such a wide specialization in Russia. However, this decision, being completely revolutionary for our country, was successfully applied in other states. And the changing configuration of world politics and the obvious change in the challenges that the navy has to accept, indicated that such station wagons would very soon come to the fore in the fleets of the whole world.
The basis for the Malachite project - and at the same time the boats that were to be replaced by a new submarine - were the multipurpose submarines of projects 705 (K) "Lira" and 971 "Shchuka-B" and boats of the project 949A " Antey ", aimed at fighting aircraft carrier formations. It was clear that in appearance, which ensured the highest underwater speed, the new boats would be similar to the Lyra and Shchuk-B, and in size, allowing them to accommodate cruise missile launchers, to the Antei.
Project 705K. Photo: topwar.ru
But there were no such projects in the USSR until then. In fact, the designers of "Malachite" had to repeat the feat of the T-34 designer Mikhail Koshkin - to create in a burst of insight a universal submarine capable of solving almost any problem, except perhaps for ballistic missile strikes. It is not surprising that such a difficult task took more time to complete. The project, which could be launched into series, was ready only by 1990. That is, just when the country that ordered such an unusual submarine ceased to exist. And it was completely unclear who, how and when would give the order to start building a new project 885 Yasen submarine, which was supposed to become the basis of the USSR submarine fleet - a state that no longer existed.
Twenty years and nine days of the prehistory of the first "Ash"
Despite the catastrophic blows that the new Russian government inflicted on its main and only allies - the army and the navy, there were cold heads in the country who understood: if new boats were not laid down now, then perhaps no one would ever build them. And they managed to get the first submarine of project 885 Yasen to be laid down on December 21, 1993 at Sevmash. The new boat was added to the lists of the Navy ships 11 days earlier - on December 10, 1993, and received the side number K-560.
"Severodvinsk" - and this is the name given to the place of birth of the new boat - became the first warship laid down in post-Soviet Russia. But for the first few years, it seemed to everyone who was involved in the construction of new ships for the Russian fleet that it would also be the last. Because they laid the foundation for the boat - and then, it seems, they forgot. In any case, funding for the construction of this submarine, like all other boats laid down a little earlier, in the last years of the Soviet Union, slowly but surely came to naught. And by 1996 it was completely gone: work on the construction of the boat was stopped for eight long years.
During this time, many events had happened that determined the further fate of the boat. In 2001, it was decided to redesign a boat under construction according to project 08850 - with new equipment and modernized weapons. At the same time, it was planned that the modified and completed boat would be launched in four years. But this period could not be met. By this time, they had only managed to complete the formation of the strong hull of "Severodvinsk", and the launch was postponed for another five years.
The new deadlines turned out to be more realistic - not least because the management and employees of Sevmash, seeing that their efforts were not only not wasted, but were again in great demand, worked with all their might. On June 15, 2010, Severodvinsk left the slipway shop for the Sukhona floating dock, and nine days later, on June 24, the boat was launched.
The submarine entered the first sea trials only a year later, on September 12, 2011. And more than two years later, on December 30, 2013, Severodvinsk, which during this time managed to make 14 exits to the sea with a total duration of 222 days, walk several thousand miles and make more than a hundred dives, was officially adopted by the Russian Navy. The date, one might say, is round: exactly 20 years have passed from the day of the laying by this time - and another 9 days …
Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Rogozin and Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov at the ceremony of laying down the fourth generation nuclear submarines at OAO PO Sevmash in Severodvinsk. Photo: / RIA Novosti
Family of seven "Ash"
On July 24, 2009, when almost a year remained before the launch of Severodvinsk, the next submarine of the same class, Kazan, was laid down at the same enterprise - Sevmash. More precisely, almost the same: over the 16 years that have passed since the laying of the first "Ash", the project has been significantly modernized. So both "Kazan" and the submarines following it are considered to be built according to the project 08851, aka "Yasen-M".
There are no significant differences in design between Severodvinsk and its actual Project 08851 sisters-thorns. Experts mention only the optimized outlines of the boats of the modernized project, which should have a positive effect on both speed and noise. But there are more than enough differences in the equipment! After all, even if at Severodvinsk some of the types of equipment included in the project were replaced by more modern ones by the time they were actually installed, then what can we say about Kazan and other boats.
The first and most important difference between boats of projects 885 and 08851 is the element base. In the "stuffing" of the first "Ash", which is natural for a boat designed at the end of the USSR, there were many units, mechanisms and devices that were produced at the enterprises of the fraternal Soviet republics. It was not possible to completely abandon the elements actually released in foreign countries by the time the first boat was equipped, although much had already been replaced by Russian components and assemblies. But on "Kazan" everything is Russian - as they say, from the first rivet to the last wiring. And not just Russian, but refined, modernized or designed over the past 10-15 years. It is no coincidence that in open sources you can find a lot of information about the "Severodvinsk", and often appeared before the boat itself left the slipway shop. But about "Kazan" and others - almost nothing.
Meanwhile, the Ash family already has five submarines. In addition to the first "Severodvinsk" and the lead "Kazan", these are the submarines "Novosibirsk", "Krasnoyarsk" and "Arkhangelsk".
Novosibirsk, which was assigned the tail number K-573, was laid down at Sevmash four years after Kazan: July 26, 2013. According to forecasts, it should be put into service no later than 2019, and some optimistic experts believe that it should be earlier, possibly already in 2017.
K-571 Krasnoyarsk was laid down at the North Sea shipyard a year after Novosibirsk, on July 24, 2014. And less than a year later, on March 19, 2015, Arkhangelsk was founded there as well. Both of these boats are to be commissioned no later than 2020 - at the same time as two more submarines of the Yasen project, which are planned to be laid down by the end of this year. The laying of the last, seventh boat of the project, according to the general director of "Sevmash" Mikhail Budnichenko, is scheduled for 2016, and commissioning - in 2023.
Seven submarines of the Yasen and Yasen-M projects should cost the Russian budget a total of 258 billion rubles. The most expensive, as is usually the case with new projects, turned out to be the lead boats - "Severodvinsk" and "Kazan": each of them cost 47 billion rubles. The other five boats cost less - only 32.8 billion rubles each. However, against the background of the total amount of appropriations for the construction of new warships for the Russian Navy, which should be allocated by 2020 - and this is 4 trillion rubles! - this price does not seem too high. Moreover, our fleet has not received new nuclear-powered multipurpose submarines for a very long time - since 2001, when the K-335 "Gepard" submarine of project 971 "Shchuka-B" entered service.
Submarine "Kazan", which tested the prototype of the state joint stock company "Irtysh-Amphora" in Severodvinsk. Photo: pilot.strizhi.info
Atomarin, which has not yet been in Russia
What are submarines of the Yasen project (together with Yasen-M) in terms of design, equipment and weapons? And in what way is their belonging not to the well-proven third generation of submarines, but to the new, fourth generation expressed?
You should start with the construction. Submarines of the Yasen project are one and a half hulls, that is, the light outer hull does not fully cover the inner one, but only partially: the spherical one is in the bow, the light superstructure is in the center, in the area of the wheelhouse fence and starting from the missile silos to the stern. This is an absolute innovation for domestic nuclear submarines, which have always been double-hulled. The designers were forced to take such a radical step by the demands of the military to make the boat as quiet as possible, and therefore as inconspicuous as possible. After all, it is the outer lightweight hull that plays the role of a kind of resonator for all the noise that a submarine can make.
The sturdy boat hull is divided into nine compartments. In the first, which is 12 m long, there is a central post - so to speak, the brain of the boat. And from here there is an exit to a solid wheelhouse, to a pop-up rescue chamber, which can accommodate the entire crew of the "Ash" - 90 people. The second compartment is 9, 75 m long - torpedo. Such an unusual arrangement of torpedo tubes - almost in the middle of the boat, and even at an angle to the longitudinal axis - has also never been used before on domestic multipurpose nuclear submarines. As a rule, torpedo tubes are located in the bow, but on the Yasen all of it is occupied by the antenna of the hydroacoustic complex. The third compartment, 5, 25 m long, is occupied by general ship instruments and mechanisms, the fourth, 9-meter, is reserved for medical and living quarters.
It is noteworthy that the second, third and fourth compartments account for almost half of the total length of the durable hull, and at the same time, it is here that there is practically no light hull - apart from the superstructure. But further, starting from the fifth, rocket compartment with a length of 12, 75 m, the boat becomes a classic double-hull, while the strong hull sharply decreases in diameter. The sixth compartment, 10.5 m long, is the reactor compartment, the seventh and eighth compartments, each 12 m long, are turbine and auxiliary, respectively.
Missiles, torpedoes and missile-torpedoes
But the boat itself without weapons and control systems is just a metal hull, even if it was created taking into account the most modern requirements. A submarine becomes a real combat ship when it is equipped with all the equipment intended for conducting combat operations.
And from this point of view, the Yasen submarines have amazingly powerful equipment! We should start, perhaps, with eight missile silos, the covers of which are located behind the wheelhouse fence. They contain transport and launch containers for cruise missiles of the operational-tactical complex "Onyx" - the main weapon of submarines of projects 885 and 08851. Each shaft holds four containers with cruise missiles, so that the total ammunition of the boat is 32 missiles. Moreover, in place of "Onyx", if necessary, you can install strategic long-range cruise missiles X-101 (or X-102, if the missile has a nuclear warhead).
In addition, the standard armament of the Yasen submarines includes the Caliber missile system, which includes anti-ship cruise missiles, cruise missiles for engaging ground targets and anti-submarine missiles. All these elements can be fired from boat torpedo tubes or from transport and launch containers in launch silos.
Finally, do not forget about the traditional armament of submarines - torpedoes. The Yasen submarines use the UGST universal deep-sea homing torpedoes specially designed for them: their ammunition capacity is 30 pieces. Moreover, all torpedoes of the traditional 533 mm caliber: the use of heavier 650 mm torpedoes on the boats of this project was abandoned already during the construction of Severodvinsk, although they were still present in the draft design of the boat.
Laying-down of the lead ship "Severodvinsk". Photo: militariorgucoz.ru
A very quiet submarine with a very keen hearing
A separate mention should be made of the Yasen submarine sonar complex - the eyes and ears of these multipurpose submarines. It was for the main element of the complex - the spherical antenna "Amphora" - that the designers sacrificed the classic placement of torpedoes in the bow compartment. Moreover, for the first time in the history of domestic submarine forces, all processing of hydroacoustic information is carried out exclusively by software. For this, in particular, the digital library of acoustic data "Ajax-M" is used. The entire hydroacoustic complex is sometimes mistakenly named after her, although in reality it bears the more complex name "Irtysh-Amphora-Ash", since in this form it is intended specifically for submarines of projects 885 and 08851.
Despite the fact that such technical and software solutions, which have long been used abroad, were a novelty for Russian designers, the characteristics and combat capabilities of domestic developments are in no way inferior to foreign counterparts. Moreover, this assessment is given not only and not so much by Russian experts, but primarily by their foreign colleagues. They were the first to sound the alarm about the appearance of the Severodvinsk submarine in the Russian Navy. After all, the sonar complex of Yasen submarines allows these boats to detect the enemy before he does it. Moreover, according to foreign experts, such early detection with the help of the Irtysh-Amphora-Ash complex is also subject to the closest competitors of domestic fourth-generation submarines - the American Sea Wolf and Virginia.
But it is not only the ability to “hear” the enemy that frightens foreign specialists and sailors. They are no less unnerved by the significantly lower noise level of the Yasen submarines than in previous domestic submarines. Separate efforts were directed to achieve such a low noise level of the boat - and they were crowned with success. So, the main power plant of the boat - the KTP-6-185SP reactor with a water-water steam generating unit KTP-6-85 - is a single body in which the reactor and its first cooling circuit are mounted. Due to this solution, it was possible to get rid of large-diameter steam pipelines and circulation pumps, which give a significant part of the noise of modern nuclear submarines. True, this, unfortunately, does not apply to the first boat, Severodvinsk: they did not have time to produce a new integrated reactor for it, and the VM-11, which was run in third-generation submarines, was installed, which is much more noisy.
We have already said that it was possible to reduce the noise level of the submarine due to the one-and-a-half-hull design. In addition, on the Yasen submarines, an active noise suppression system is used, which is equipped with the foundations of all critical units, and the traditional rubber-cord shock absorbers of devices and mechanisms have been replaced by much more efficient spiral-rope, non-combustible. To reduce the noise of submarines of the Yasen project, their main propeller is also working - a seven-blade propeller of a special design.
Untranslatable Yasen
In short, even taking into account the fact that more than three decades have passed from the beginning of the design of the first fourth-generation submarine of the Yasen type to its commissioning, these submarines today are fully consistent with modern tasks and challenges. Moreover, six of the seven submarines of the project will be built according to its modernized version, which provides for the use of much more modern mechanisms and equipment than the original one. According to both Russian and foreign experts, at least until the middle of the XXI century, the Yasen submarines will be able to fulfill all the tasks assigned to them. And by that time - and there is every reason to hope for this - the fifth generation submarines will have already entered service with the Russian Navy, to which, by the way, foreign experts at first referred to the Yaseny: these new Russian submarines turned out to be very unusual in concept and execution.
Incidentally, this is a remarkable fact that indirectly testifies to the actual attitude of the foreign military to the Ash project. Of all the submarines adopted by the Soviet and Russian Navy, only these in the NATO classification are designated by the same name - Yasen (sometimes according to the lead boat of the project - Severodvinsk). The formal explanation is simple: they say, by the end of the 80s, all 25 letters of the Latin alphabet, which traditionally denoted Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic Alliance, ended. That, however, did not prevent to use twice, for example, the letter "T": in the word Typhoon - to designate the submarine missile carriers of the project 941 "Akula", and in the word Tango - to designate the submarines of the project 641 "Som". But, apparently, "Ash" were such breakthrough submarines that in the West they decided to leave their own name behind them - and quite rightly. The Russian submarine of the fourth generation turned out to be untranslatable in every sense.
