MOSCOW, November 21 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Navy will get up to ten new diesel submarines by 2020, a Navy spokesman said, following the laying-down ceremony for the diesel submarine Rostov-on-Don at the Admiralty Shipyard on Monday, November 21.
“The Russian Navy expects to get 8-10 diesel submarines by 2020,” he said. “These submarines will make up the underwater component of the fleets in coastal seas and will be integrated into the unified system of Armed Forces Command.”
“Diesel submarines are used in areas where nuclear submarines cannot or should not be used,” the official added.
The Defence Ministry also plans to build at least eight new Borei-class submarines that should become the main naval component of Russia's strategic nuclear forces.
Borei-class submarines are designed by the St. Petersbug-based Naval Design Bureau Rubin. Each submarine can be armed with 12 ICBMs with MIRVs. They will also have an escape capsule for all crewmembers. A Borei-class submarine is 170 metres long and 13.5 meters wide, it can sink to a depth of 450 metres and has a crew of 17 sailors.
The Borei claims to be a state-of-the-art submarine, featuring characteristics superior to any submarine currently in service, such as the ability to cruise silently and be less detectable to sonar. Advances include a compact and integrated hydrodynamically efficient hull for reduced broadband noise and the first ever use of pump-jet propulsion on a Russian nuclear submarine.
The submarine will be armed with Bulava missiles. The Bulava carries the NATO reporting name SS-NX-30 and has been assigned the GRAU index 3M30. In international treaties, the common designation RSM-56 is used.
Russia plans to build more than 10 Project 885 multipurpose Yasen-class nuclear submarines under the state armament programme until 2020.
“Sevmash [shipyard] should build more than 10 nuclear submarines of this class, armed with Oniks supersonic cruise missiles or the like with a range of several hundred kilometres, rocket-launched torpedoes and torpedoes,” an official in the government’s Military-Industrial Commission told Itar-Tass eatrlier.
The submarines may carry both nuclear and conventional weapons and are intended for destroying submarines, attacking surface ships, navy bases and seaports, and other costal infrastructure.
The fourth generation nuclear-powered submarine Severodvinsk of the Yasen class started mooring trials at the Sevmash shipyard late last year.
The Project 885 submarine was designed by the Malakhit design bureau in St. Petersburg. The Sevmash shipyard launched the project in 1993. The protracted period of construction was caused by economic difficulties, and also by the need to design a new architecture of the hull and armaments.
The Severodvinsk is expected to join the Navy in 2011. Russia intends to produce six more vessels of this type.
The Severodvinsk is the first in the Graney class (Yasen in Russian classification) of nuclear powered attack submarines. A source in the Russian Defence Ministry told Itar-Tass earlier that at least six submarines of the Graney class would be built within the next eight years. Construction of the second submarine in the series, the Kazan, started in July 2009.
Vessels of the Graney class will be the most silent submarines in the world. They will have a maximum speed of 16 knots surfaced and 31 knots submerged. They will be 119 metres long, 13.5 metres wide and 9.4 metres high. The submarines will be armed with 24 cruise missiles of the type SS-NX-26.
The Severodvinsk is scheduled to be adopted by the Navy this year. In July 2009, Sevmash started building a second Project 885 submarine named Kazan.