Unfortunately, the new Russian submarine does not belong to the fourth generation of diesel-electric submarines.
On April 22, 2010 in St. Petersburg, members of the state commission finally signed the act of acceptance from JSC Admiralty Shipyards of the lead diesel-electric submarine (diesel-electric submarine) of project 677 "Lada" "St. Petersburg". Both the customer - the Russian Navy and the executor - JSC "Admiralty Shipyards" have been waiting for this event for 12 years and 4 months. This is exactly how much time has passed since the submarine was laid in December 1997.
Diesel-electric submarines of project 677 "Lada" were developed at the Central Design Bureau of Marine Engineering (CDB MT "Rubin") under the leadership of General Designer Yuri Kormilitsin. According to officials, this ship belongs to the fourth generation of submarines. But is it really so?
THERE IS WHAT TO BE Proud of
Of course, the new submarine has a number of fundamental differences from its predecessors. First of all, it should be noted the high degree of automation of the processes of centralized control of all ship systems and weapons from operator consoles located in the main command post.
The power of the torpedo rocket complex has been increased. This was done by well-known design bureaus, research and production associations and research institutes, including TsKB MT Rubin, NPO Aurora, FSUE TsNII Elektropribor, OKB Novator and NPO Agat. As a result of their joint work, the anti-ship CLAB-S appeared. This is an integrated missile system, which is a unique development, virtually unparalleled in the world.
Russian scientists, designers, builders, in fact, made a breakthrough in the technical and economic characteristics and technology of creating the Lada project. During the development work, dozens of new solutions were proposed. All weapons, boat systems and materials are the latest in science and technology.
The submarine has more than 170 instruments and systems that have not yet been produced in Russia. The boat has a new navigation system weighing only 50 kg. Previously, one gyrocompass weighed so much. For the first time, the design used technologies previously used only in the aerospace industry.
For example, the hydroacoustic complex is built on the latest element base and with the latest mathematical support. A highly sensitive noise direction finding antenna is located in the bow. A fundamentally new universal multifunctional periscope has been installed. The lifting and mast devices are telescopic. All of them, except for the commander's, do not penetrate the solid corps. A new system for receiving radio information from the shore in a submerged position has been introduced.
The Achilles' heel of all our boats, with the exception of the diesel submarine of Project 636 ("Kilo" according to the western classification) and the nuclear submarine of Project 971, was considered to be high underwater noise. For 18 years - in 1968-1986, four (!) Resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR were devoted to solving this problem. Every six years a task was given to reduce the noise level by 2-3 times. Three prescriptions of the highest political and state leadership of the country were successfully fulfilled. But the requirements of the fourth document, as they say, hung in the air, since work on the topic was interrupted due to lack of funding. At the same time, it should be emphasized that on nuclear multipurpose submarines of project 971A, for example, it was possible to reduce the level of underwater noise by 30 decibels, that is, in terms of the sound pressure level - 30 times, and in terms of the level of radiated sound power - a thousand times!
The noise level of "St. Petersburg" should approach the background values of the sea. And in terms of stealth - to surpass all the submarines built earlier in our country, including diesel boats of Project 877, which are called "Black Hole" in the West - they make such little noise when they go under water.
How can this be achieved? The author of these lines received the answer to this question at the Krylov Shipbuilding Research Institute (KSRI). For boats of the fourth generation, special noise-absorbing rubber coatings with a thickness of only 40 mm have been created, down to low frequencies. They are two times thinner than those that we used earlier. The new coating consists of 7-8 layers of various perforations and rubber profiles. The idea is simple: the more air pockets, the more efficiently it absorbs noise of different frequencies and at different depths. This was reported by the head of the department of ship and industrial acoustics of the institute, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Ernst Myshinsky.
So the statement made by the first deputy general director of the state corporation "Rostekhnologii" Alexei Aleshin that "Lada" is the brightest promising project in which more than 120 innovative technologies are used is basically correct. But only in part, considering that the design of the "Lada" began in 1989 at the central design bureau of marine engineering "Rubin". What 20 years ago may have been innovation, today is already the last century. Moreover, not all the ideas of the designers were realized in metal.
WHAT IF TO COMPARE?
For all that, our "Lada" has broken many world records, in particular in terms of construction time - an unprecedented displacement of 1765 tons for a submarine.
For comparison: the lead diesel-electric submarine U-31 of project 212A in the series was laid down at the Kiel shipyard Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG (HDW) a year after ours (in 1998), and six years later, on July 29, 2004, it was transferred to the naval to the forces of Germany. The surface (normal) displacement of this diesel-electric submarine is almost like that of the Russian one - 1,700 tons.
While Admiralty Shipyards were building one Saint Petersburg, the Bundesmarines received four submarines from Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG: U-31, U-32, U-33 and U-34.
It is also impossible not to pay attention to a number of performance characteristics of Russian and German submarines. Our maximum diving depth is 300 m, the German one - 400. Our crew has 35 people, the German - 27, that is, we compensated for the imperfection of technology by increasing the number of people on board the submarine by 8 people.
In terms of armament, "St. Petersburg", according to official sources, is also, unfortunately, inferior to the Kiel submarines. The Russian diesel-electric submarines have six torpedo tubes, the German ones have eight each.
As a propulsion system on the German submarine used fuel cells, colloquially referred to as "hydrogen batteries". It is an air-independent power unit from Siemens. Energy is released from eleven hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells with a capacity of 120 kW each and is transmitted through proton-exchange membranes to the main engine. "Hydrogen batteries" made it possible to increase the autonomy of submarine navigation by several times in comparison with traditional batteries of diesel-electric submarines.
WHAT DO WE HAVE?
Thirty years ago, Lazurit Central Design Bureau, NPO Kvant and Cryogenmash began to create propulsion systems with electrochemical generators (ECH) for submarines. The S-273 submarine of project 613 was re-equipped according to the project 613E "Katran". If ordinary submarines at two-node speed without recharging the batteries could stay under water for no more than four days, then when using ECH, the period increased to a month.
The second direction of Russian designers is the creation of closed-cycle diesel engines. Project 615 with a single engine, embodied in metal in the middle of the last century, has become unique all over the world.
Since 1978, the head developer of propulsion systems with ECH has been the Special Design Bureau for Boiler Building. It turned to the experience of the Ural Electrochemical Plant and NPO Energia in the creation of ECH for spacecraft. This is how the Kristall-20 submarine engine appeared, which used oxygen and hydrogen. The latter was in a bound form - in an intermetallic compound.
It was assumed that Lada would receive an anaerobic power plant based on ECH. However, the submarine "St. Petersburg" does not have it. And this, alas, means the following: for the first time Russia was unable to create a new generation submarine.
WAIT AND SEE
This is fraught with negative consequences both for the Russian Navy and for military-technical cooperation with other countries.
It is sad to state this, but the failure to create the fourth generation submarines will greatly shake the Russian position in the world market of submarine shipbuilding. Our regular customers, China and India, are able to independently build third-generation submarines. Venezuela intended to buy our Lada. But instead of Lada, we offered a completely different third-generation project 636 submarine, for which Caracas thanked us politely, but did not give us money.
Meanwhile, while we cannot cope with the diesel-electric submarines of the fourth generation, Sweden, Japan and other countries have already begun to work on the creation of boats of the fifth generation.
However, it is more important for us to satisfy the demand for diesel submarines of the Russian submarine fleet. There are only a few of them left. In the Barents Sea, hardly four diesel-electric submarines will be able to go to sea at the same time, two in the Baltic, one in the Black Sea, and five in the Far East.
Everything is relative. In 2003, when the submarine forces had not yet been formed, the fleets included 21 diesel-electric submarines, including 19 diesel-electric submarines of project 877 and two - project 641B. Of these, only nine submarines were in the composition of the constant readiness forces. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of them had various operating restrictions. Over the past seven years, new boats have not been built, and many of the old ones had to be taken to the sludge.
At the beginning of the century, the entire submarine fleet of Russia accounted for 15 percent of the combat strength of the submarine forces of the Soviet Navy. In the first decade, this figure dropped even further. Therefore, now we need to arm not India and China, but our own fleet. And the government had such plans.
Speaking at the laying ceremony for the Project 667 Kronstadt submarine in 2006, Vladimir Alexandrov, General Director of the Admiralty Shipyards, said: “The fleet insists on the early construction of two brigades of six submarines each.” Aleksandrov explained that such submarines are usually built within 28-32 months, depending on the level of funding. Much more months and years have passed, but new boats have not appeared in the fleets.
By the way, the figure itself - 12 diesel-electric submarines - raises doubts. Because the calculations of the use of submarines in a combat situation show us a different composition of forces and means. From many years of experience in the operation of strategic nuclear missile submarines, it is known that to ensure their combat stability, each ship must have three multipurpose nuclear submarines. And to cover them, in turn, you will need three diesel-electric submarines. In life, this norm has not been observed for a long time. And what will happen next?
Until 2015, our Navy was supposed to receive 40 fourth-generation diesel-electric submarines. However, after such a long and not very successful "epic" with the creation of "St. Petersburg", this program is likely to be revised.
It is planned to build a series of eight Project 677 submarines. At present, there are two submarines on the stocks in varying degrees of readiness - "Kronstadt" and "Sevastopol". Now that the production cooperation has been created and the construction technology has been worked out, one can expect that the fleet will begin to receive at least two combat "units" annually. But, as they say, wait and see …
