US Navy specialists called the Soviet nuclear submarine of Project 705 "wonderful" Alpha"
At the end of 1958, when the state tests of the first domestic nuclear submarine were underway, the State Committee for Shipbuilding announced a competition for the development of proposals for the next generation nuclear submarine.
As a result, design developments appeared in SKB-143 (now SPMBM Malakhit), which were then embodied in the second generation ships of projects 671 and 670. One of the results of the competition was the development of a design idea for creating an automated small displacement submarine and its preliminary appearance was determined. The author of the idea is one of the winners of the aforementioned competition, a talented designer Anatoly Borisovich Petrov, who headed a group of young scientists.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN WITH
The head of the bureau and the chief designer of the first domestic nuclear submarine, Vladimir Peregudov, strongly supported the idea of the ship, told Academician A. P. Aleksandrov about it and asked him to accept A. B. Petrov with a report on this ship. And in the early spring of 1959, Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov received Petrov and the author of these lines at the Institute of Atomic Energy. The conversation lasted more than two hours. The academician listened to us very attentively, asked a lot of questions, thinking with us, joked, kept himself simply and at ease. And Petrov and I did not feel any pressure from his enormous authority. He did not show the slightest tinge of superiority, condescension, or precept. It was a conversation between colleagues and like-minded people. Anatoly Petrovich asked to bring tea and continued to ask us lively about the peculiarities of the new ship. Hearing about the single-hull architecture, a small buoyancy margin and the associated rejection of the requirements for surface unsinkability, he said that it was great and organic, but the sailors would not agree to it.
As a result, Aleksandrov asked to send development materials, promised full support for the project. It was late. Upon learning that we were leaving on the same day, he ordered to take us to the train.
In June 1959, A. P. Aleksandrov, directly at the SKB, organized a large meeting with the participation of Academician V. A. The work unfolded.
Mikhail Georgievich Rusanov was appointed chief designer. It was a remarkably good choice. Rusanov was deeply imbued with the design decisions of the ship and began to implement them with extraordinary persistence and enthusiasm. At first he worked with A. B. Petrov, but then they parted ways. An unusually talented and gifted engineer Petrov could constantly come up with and propose more and more new ideas, in many respects determining the main directions of the development of submarine shipbuilding. However, he was not given the opportunity to implement them, to constantly eliminate the next technical and organizational problems. Rusanov performed this brilliantly. He took upon himself an enormous responsibility and made it, without exaggeration, the meaning of his existence. All the forces and time released to him he gave to the creation of this ship.
The main innovative technical solutions of the project, which determined its appearance, were as follows:
- comprehensive automation of technical equipment, a threefold reduction in the crew, a single central control panel for the ship, a titanium hull;
- a reactor power plant with a liquid metal coolant, the use of alternating current with a frequency of 400 hertz, a modular steam turbine plant, the use of a pop-up rescue chamber for the entire personnel;
- the use of split rudders and combined retractable devices, the use of hydraulic torpedo tubes.
And all this should be implemented on condition that a small displacement is obtained.
Dozens, if not hundreds of different organizations took part in the creation of the ship - design bureaus, factories, research institutes. They were fascinated by the novelty and uniqueness of the project, the ability to creatively solve interesting technical problems, carried away by the enthusiasm and dedication of the SKB-143 employees, and above all the chief designer Rusanov. New industries and technologies were developed, in particular titanium metallurgy for serial construction, automation and automation of technical equipment, a small-sized reactor plant with a liquid-metal coolant and a high-power modular steam turbine plant, new radio-electronic complexes for hydroacoustics, radar, navigation and radio communications. It was possible to create the latest equipment, monitoring and control devices, new design schemes for all systems and devices of the ship.
We can say that the 705 project raised the level of scientific and design developments in shipbuilding, energy, radio electronics, as well as the culture of work in factories, pilot plants and scientific laboratories to a new level. And all this happened in the 60s of the last century, and we did not have digital electronics and computers at our disposal. When in 1999 the author of these lines made a report on Project 705 at the Warships-99 international symposium in London, those present, and this is the elite of the world shipbuilding, stood up. As a result, such a ship was born. The first submarine of Project 705 was built at the Leningrad Admiralty Association in 1971, the last in the series, the seventh in 1981. Our fleet received four ships from the Leningrad Admiralty Association, three from the Northern Machine-Building Enterprise.
The original technical solutions made it possible to create a nuclear submarine with a displacement of only a little over two thousand tons with tactical and technical characteristics that are not inferior to the performance characteristics of any other nuclear submarines.
For the first time in the world, a titanium alloy was used in the construction of a series of warships. This served as a powerful impetus to the development of titanium metallurgy, the development of new structural materials based on this metal.
The first nuclear submarine entered combat formation with integrated automation of the main technical means, a small number of personnel, an original layout of the shelter compartment, limited by bulkheads designed for full outboard pressure, and including the main command post, living quarters and service premises. Above the compartment was a pop-up rescue chamber for the entire personnel.
What was new was the decision to use electrical equipment with a frequency of not 50 hertz, as it was accepted, but 400 hertz, which ensured the creation of small-sized electrical equipment. The liquid-metal coolant at the power plant made it possible to drastically reduce its size and weight, as well as significantly improve maneuverability in terms of gaining and releasing power. At the same time, the main power plant (GEM) required a new approach to the operation of the reactor, since the constant operation of the primary circuit pumps was necessary due to the threat of freezing of the alloy and the failure of the installation. This complicated the basic support and maintenance of the ship at the base. It was correct to say that the high technical level of the ship and its outstanding combat characteristics required a new, more perfect organization of maintenance and basing.
During the construction and operation of Project 705 submarines, the bureau carried out continuous intensive work on a constant search for design and engineering solutions aimed at increasing the reliability of equipment, as well as reducing noise. This concerned, first of all, the systems and devices of the power plant (steam fittings, attachment points for steam pipelines, leaks in steam generators, etc.).
Below are the main elements of the project 705 submarine (according to NATO classification - Alfa) in comparison with the data of the American nuclear submarines of that time.
The data in the table eloquently testify to the exceptionally high performance of the Project 705 nuclear submarine.
LIGHTWEIGHT, FAST AND MANEUVERABLE
The operation of these submarines has confirmed their high tactical and technical characteristics. Despite many unfavorable circumstances specific to this series of ships - the protracted construction period, the extremely low quality of infrastructure in the basing areas (here we must add the novelty and a sharp difference from all previous nuclear submarines), the Project 705 nuclear submarines proved to be reliable and efficient ships … The intensity of their use was quite high, they regularly made autonomous campaigns, participated in almost all exercises and maneuvers of the Navy in the Atlantic theater, showed high efficiency, each had several contacts with foreign submarines and, due to their high maneuverability and speed, received certain advantages over them. In 1983, the Navy unit, which included Project 705 submarines, was recognized as the best in the Navy.
With a maximum travel speed comparable to the speed of anti-submarine torpedoes, "Alpha" could develop full speed within one minute from the moment the command was given. This allowed her to enter the shadow aft sector of any surface ship and submarine. According to the submarine commanders, it could turn around practically "on a patch."
There was an incident in the North Atlantic when one of the Alphas hung on the tail of a NATO nuclear submarine for more than 20 hours as it made desperate attempts to escape. Tracking stopped only on command from the shore.
According to the testimony of the submarine crews, who highly appreciated the combat qualities of these ships, Project 705 submarines were superior to other nuclear submarines in the following properties:
- a significantly higher readiness to go to sea from the initial state with the power plant not put into operation due to the higher (almost three times) speed of commissioning, a significantly higher maximum speed, which opens up the possibility of rapid deployment to the destination areas;
- high maneuverability, which makes it possible to more successfully evade all types of existing foreign anti-submarine torpedoes (before the adoption by the US Navy of the MK-48 torpedo) and provides a sufficiently long tracking of foreign nuclear submarines;
- the automation of the control processes of the ship, weapons and power plant, even for the level of that time, was effective and reliable, the service life of the automation equipment for general ship systems and power plant on all ships was more than doubled.
Nevertheless, the construction of these nuclear submarines was discontinued and the project did not receive further development. This was largely due to the premature choice of an unworked reactor plant with a liquid metal coolant (the PPU ground stand was never created) and, unfortunately, affected the fate of the advanced and unique design solutions of the Project 705 submarine. The general level of the state of the domestic industry and production technologies, infrastructure and basing conditions, as well as the training of personnel and the organization of service in the navy could not ensure the full and reliable operation of these ships - they were too ahead of their time.
Since 1986, the intensity of the use of Project 705 nuclear submarines, as well as other submarines and the fleet as a whole, began to decrease, they were not put into repair, the overhaul periods were over, the automation resources were exhausted, the reactor core resource was less than 30%. Since the beginning of the 90s, the financing of the fleet practically ceased, which entailed the actual destruction of these wonderful ships, far ahead of their time.
It remains only to express regret that not a single ship of such an outstanding project, which aroused the delight and envy of our potential enemy, was left at least as a monument-museum to the creative feat of the designers of SPMBM "Malachite", construction plants, contractor organizations and crews of these submarines.
Design ideas and technical solutions for the development of the 705th submarine served as the basis for many design and technological solutions in the creation of third and fourth generation nuclear submarines.
The fate of the ships turned out to be both wonderful and tragic. The same fate befell many authors, developers of the project, including the chief designer of the project, M. G. Rusanov, who devoted his whole life to him. It can be said without exaggeration - without the purposefulness, energy, erudition, experience and professionalism, the power of persuasion, the organizational abilities of Mikhail Georgievich, the project 705 ship would hardly have been created. In 1974 he was dismissed from the post of chief designer.
This also applies to Anatoly Petrov, whose design idea and the concept of an automated small displacement submarine formed the basis of the development. It's a shame that his name did not receive appropriate recognition.
LEFT ONLY AWARDS AND MEMORIES
Project 705 nuclear submarines have become an example of the creative take-off of domestic and world submarine shipbuilding. This was one of the most outstanding achievements of the bureau, which was also appreciated by our potential opponents. There were no analogues of the 705 in submarine building, and not only in Russia. Prominent American naval historian and analyst Norman Polmar called the Project 705 submarine "Wonderful Alpha" in his book Cold War Submarines. These submarines opened the way for a new direction in the creation of multipurpose submarines - comprehensively automated high-speed and maneuverable ships of small displacement. Unfortunately, the time of the end of the intensive operation of the series of nuclear submarines of projects 705 and 705K, comprehension of the experience of creating these ships and their further improvement coincided with the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of industry and the fleet. One of the commanders of the Project 705 nuclear submarine, VT Bulgakov, wrote: “Within 10 years, construction was completed, entered into the combat composition of the Navy, and a division of unique, unparalleled ships with hulls with unlimited shelf life was destroyed without a single shot.”
The thrust into the future has not received any reinforcements today; submarine building is developing further along a more traditional path. The modern level of advanced technologies shows the promise of Alpha's ideas and gives hope for its further development.
The high scientific and technical level achieved during the creation of the project 705 nuclear submarine was noted by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 16, 1981. The team of SPMBM "Malachite" was awarded the Order of the October Revolution, and 113 employees were awarded orders and medals. The Order of Lenin was awarded to M. G. Rusanov and L. A. Podvyaznikov. Among the co-authors V. V. Romin, who replaced M. G. Rusanov as chief designer in 1974, became a laureate of the Lenin Prize, and the State Prize was received by Yu. A. Blinkov, V. V. Krylov, V. V. Lavrent'ev, K. A. Landgraf and V. V. Borisov.
Here are the most distinguished of the awardees: A. B. Petrov, Yu. V. Sokolovsky, N. I. Tarasov, I. M. Fedorov, B. P. Sushko, M. I. Korolev, L. V. Kalacheva, V. G. Tikhomirov, V. I. Barantsev, V. P. Bogdanovich, B. V. Grigoriev, I. S. Sorokin, I. N. Loshchinsky, V. A. Ustinov, B. M. Kozlov, S. P. Katkov, V. G. Borodenkova, Yu. A. Chekhonin, V. A. Danilov, I. M. Grabalin, I. M. Valuev, B. F. Dronov, V. Ya. Veksler, G. N. Pichugin, N. A. Sadovnikov, V. V. Yurin, O. A. Zuev-Nosov, V. R. Vinogradova, Yu. D. Perepelkin, O. P. Perepelkina, M. M. Kholodova, A. I. Sidorenko, V. A. Lebedev, G. I. Turkunov and a number of other employees of the bureau.
It should also be noted that a large group of specialists from contractor enterprises, science and the Navy was awarded, and about 40 of them were awarded the Lenin and State prizes.
The creation of the Project 705 ship convincingly showed the high potential of science and industry of the Soviet Union in the 60-70s.
