Greetings from the 90s
On April 4 of this year, an important event took place: the Americans commissioned a new type 4 Virginia multipurpose submarine - USS Delaware. An important event, important primarily for the opponents of the United States, since for the Americans themselves it is almost an ordinary one: the submarine has already become the eighteenth submarine of this type entered into the US Navy. Earlier, the Pentagon also put into operation a trio of multipurpose Seawolf. They are far from new, but in terms of the sum of qualities they even surpass Virginia, belonging to the same generation as it.
Only one submarine can compare with these boats in the world now - the Russian multipurpose nuclear submarine of Project 885 Yasen, which has now become Project 885M. As a reminder, now the Russian Navy has only one submarine of this family. We are talking about the K-560 Severodvinsk submarine, which was introduced into the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy back in 2014. The second such boat, K-561 Kazan, was launched in 2017 and is still being tested. It can be considered the full-fledged birth of a new type of Russian submarine fleet.
"Severodvinsk" has become a long-term construction with a capital letter: it was laid down in 1993, and then de facto mothballed until better years. As the years passed, the boat was already outdated in some respects. Kazan, which became the first submarine of the modernized project 885M, is designed to correct this situation. Of course, the combat capabilities of the submarine must increase, and the old "childhood diseases" must be eliminated. The task, I must say, is not as simple as it seems, and it requires compromises: the new version of "Ash" has already lost some of the capabilities of its progenitor.
New old boat
Izvestia has recently paid attention to the evolution of the submarine, although it must be said that the differences between the conventionally old and conventionally new projects have been written for a long time. Firstly, the appearance of the submarine has changed. In comparison with "Severodvinsk" submarine K-561 "Kazan" has become shorter: its length is not 139 meters, but 130. The living compartment was cut by four meters. The bow of the submarine, in comparison with the lead ship, has become sharper: this is not visible in the photographs, since the main part of the bow of the submarine is hidden under water. The new boat also has increased dimensions of the stern plumage. All this became possible, among other things, thanks to the use of more advanced and compact electronic weapons and automation equipment.
“Since then (since the laying of the Severodvinsk submarine. - Author's note), a lot has changed. Improved sonar equipment and a new element base have appeared, - says military observer Dmitry Boltenkov. - And it would be stupid not to use it in the construction of the nuclear submarine. For example, a change in the shape of the ship's bow may indicate that an antenna of a more advanced, but at the same time, compact hydroacoustic complex was placed at its tip."
The main conceptual difference is the reduction in the number of torpedo tubes. Now they are not ten, but eight. Torpedo tubes, as before, are located in the middle of the submarine. They are installed between the inner "strong" and the outer "light" hull of the ship in the wheelhouse area.
According to data from open sources, the Kazan ammunition is 30 torpedoes. What kind of torpedoes are they? Another question, the information here is more than contradictory.“Until now, Project 955 ships of the Borey type and 885 of the Yasen type were equipped with Fizik torpedoes. Ammunition for them is 40 and 30 units, respectively. Now all of them will be replaced with more advanced "Cases", "TASS wrote at the end of February 2020.
It is difficult to say how accurate this information is. In any case, it is known that the outdated Soviet torpedo USET-80 is still in service with the Russian Navy. In the same February, the notorious bmpd unit wrote that in the recently published photos of the torpedo deck of the newest strategic submarine Borey, you can see a full USET-80 ammunition load. “Alas, this is the reality of the Russian Navy,” the author concludes.
Zircon strike
Of course, torpedoes are only part of the arsenal of Project 885 and 885M submarines. The boat can carry a wide arsenal of missile weapons, in particular, the Caliber cruise missiles and the Onyx anti-ship missiles. The submarine "Severodvinsk" has eight vertical missile silos behind the fence of the retractable devices, and the new "Kazan" has ten. Each silo houses four Onyx cruise missiles, or five Caliber cruise missiles.
In theory, they allow solving a wide range of tasks, in particular, effectively fighting even the most modern surface ships of a potential enemy. On the other hand, it is fair to say that nowadays you will hardly surprise anyone with such weapons, as well as their quantity.
It is appropriate to recall the American Virginia, which many media outlets for some reason consider "worse" than the 885 project. At the same time, they often overlook the point that the promising Virginia Block V should receive an additional VPM (Virginia Payload Module) payload compartment. We are talking about a compartment with 28 vertical launchers, which, together with the already existing twelve launchers, increase their number to 40.
In this regard, Russian specialists have their own conditional answer. We are talking about equipping the Yasen submarine with a new Zircon hypersonic missile, which, according to media reports, will have a range of about 400-600 kilometers with a maximum speed of Mach 4 to 8 (according to some reports, they want to increase the missile speed in the future up to 12 thousand kilometers per hour).
It is pertinent to recall that in March, TASS reported that they intend to use the K-560 Severodvinsk for the upcoming tests of the hypersonic Zircon, and not Kazan, as previously assumed. Until recently, it was the first submarine of the improved design that they wanted to make a new "test site", but this was prevented by protracted tests.
However, this does not mean that Project 885M boats will not be carriers of a hypersonic missile. In general, the Ministry of Defense wants as many new surface ships and submarines as possible to receive new weapons. Earlier, the media once again reported on plans to arm a promising fifth-generation multipurpose nuclear submarine, Project 545, known as the Husky and Laika, with the Zircon. By the way, it can be considered as a good illustration of the evolution of Russian multipurpose submarines. If you believe the model shown at the National Center for Defense Management of Russia in December last year, then Project 545 will be smaller than both Severodvinsk and its development in the face of Kazan.
It will be a relatively small submarine, the main trump card of which should be exceptional low noise. Obviously, if the project succeeds, then these boats will be operated for a very long time on a par with the 885 / 885M project, until the latter will go down in history.
