According to the press service of the shipbuilding enterprise JSC "Admiralteyskie Verfi" (St. Petersburg), one of the most complex and controversial projects in the modern history of the Russian Navy will soon get off the ground. On July 9, the management of the shipyard and the Ministry of Defense signed a contract, according to which the construction of a diesel-electric submarine Kronshtadt of project 677 Lada will continue. Four years after the suspension, construction will resume and in the coming years the fleet will receive a new submarine.
Diesel-electric submarine B-586 "Kronstadt" was laid down eight years ago, at the end of July 2005. It was planned that at the beginning of this decade, she will enter the ranks of the Russian navy after the lead submarine of the B-585 project "St. Petersburg". However, the failures in testing the first submarine of the "Lada" type first affected the pace of construction, and then led to its freezing. Numerous design flaws, due to which the Saint Petersburg submarine could not achieve the required performance, led to the suspension of the entire program for the construction of diesel-electric submarines of project 677. Until recently, the constructed units of the Kronstadt design were on the slipway and waited for the decision of the leadership of the military department and industry … Construction will now continue.
Submarine B-585 "St. Petersburg" pr.677 in Kronstadt, November 2010 (photo from the archive of Vladimir Vladimirovich, The announced date for the delivery of the new submarine to the customer is 2017. By this time, it is planned to complete the assembly of all structural elements, install new equipment and conduct all the necessary tests. As reported in the official material of "Admiralty Shipyards", the construction of a new diesel-electric submarine will continue in accordance with the updated project. CDB MT "Rubin", which is the author of the original project 677 "Lada", took into account all the shortcomings of the lead submarine and accordingly updated its technical aspects. It is argued that Kronstadt will receive a new electric propulsion system, a new control system for ship's technical means, new navigation equipment, etc.
Let us remind you that the lead submarine of Project 677 with the name "St. Petersburg" was launched back in October 2004 and has been under testing ever since. It was originally planned to transfer this submarine to the customer in 2006, but a number of technical problems led to several time delays. As a result, the Ministry of Defense agreed to accept the diesel-electric submarine B-585, but exclusively for trial operation. Almost all identified problems of the submarine "St. Petersburg" related to the imperfection of its power plant. So, the main engine was able to reach only two-thirds of the design power, and the actual autonomy was about half the required. Because of these shortcomings, they decided to use the submarine as a platform for testing new technologies and equipment.
An interesting fact is that in the official message of the shipyard, Project 677 submarines are referred to as "non-nuclear submarines." From this, we can make some assumptions about the essence of the innovations, which may be applied on the new submarine "Kronstadt". One of the main trends of recent times in the construction of submarines is the creation of the so-called. air-independent power plants. Such systems, regardless of the specific scheme used, provide the submarine with the ability to stay under water for a relatively long time and thereby increase survivability and combat potential. Submarines with air-independent power plants are often singled out as a separate class of non-nuclear submarines (NNS).
General view and a fragment of quasi-conformal noise direction-finding antennas of the GAS (bow and side) of the SJSC "Lira" (photo probably PLA "Kronshtadt", 2009, from the Deep Blue Sea archive, So far, there is no official data on the use of a fundamentally new power plant on the Kronstadt submarine, which does not require frequent surfacing. Recently, however, the topic of creating a domestic air-independent power plant (VNEU) has been raised with enviable regularity by officials and discussed by the interested public. For example, in the context of the further fate of the submarine "St. Petersburg", its use was repeatedly mentioned as a stand for testing technologies related to VNEU or even a prototype of such a system. But, according to available data, the head Lada still has the same basic equipment as at the time of completion of construction.
Thus, some reports and guesses suggest that "Kronstadt" can be equipped with at least VNEU elements. In this case, even with the most unfavorable development of events, the Russian Navy will receive a submarine with a new power plant for our shipbuilding. A submarine equipped with VNEU will receive a number of advantages over existing diesel-electric submarines. First of all, it is the possibility of being submerged for a long time. This will significantly reduce the likelihood of detecting a submarine ship by anti-submarine aircraft or enemy ships. Another advantage of a boat with VNEU, which will allow it to compete in some parameters even with nuclear submarines, is its relatively small size and less noise. Thus, the detection of non-nuclear submarines becomes much more difficult.
Submarine B-586 "Kronstadt" in the shop of FSUE "Admiralteyskie Verfi", Saint Petersburg, November 10, 2006 (photo from the havron archive,
Submarine B-586 "Kronstadt" in the shop of FSUE "Admiralteyskie Verfi", St. Petersburg, April-June 2006 (https://forums.airbase.ru)
According to a number of sources, Project 677 Lada was originally supposed to include an air-independent power plant. However, in the first half of the nineties, due to the difficult economic situation in the country, promising systems had to be removed from the new submarines. The lead submarine "Saint Petersburg" was built exactly in accordance with the revised and "cut down" project 677. In this case, it turns out that at present the employees of the CDB MT "Rubin" are returning to "Ladam" what was taken from them twenty years ago.
Currently, the development of a full-fledged VNEU for new domestic non-nuclear submarines continues. There is no need to talk about the details of this project yet: all information about it is limited to only a few short messages. It is known that the new power plant should be ready by 2016. Thus, it is likely that the third submarine of project 677 can receive a promising VNEU.
Unfortunately, the full official information about the details of the project 677 update has not yet become public. However, the available fragmentary information about the future of the Lada submarines allows us to hope not only for the continuation of their construction, but also for the development of new technologies. In the future, these technologies will make it possible to improve not only Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt or other diesel and non-nuclear submarines, but also the next projects of submarines for the Russian Navy.
