MOSCOW, May 28 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Defence Ministry has signed contracts with Sevmash and Rubin for five Project 955A upgraded Borei A submarines, United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) spokesman Alexei Kravchenko said on Monday, May 28.
Two contracts have been signed under the state defence order for 2012: one with the Sevmash shipyard to build five serial upgraded Borei class submarines and with the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering for R&D for these submarines.
Borei-class submarines are designed by Rubin. They are armed with Bulava ICBMs. The submarines are 170 metres long, 13.5 metres wide, their collapse depth 450 metres and they have a crew 107 sailors.
According to USC President Roman Trotsenko, “This event [the signing of the contracts] is important for all domestic shipbuilders and workers of more than a thousand enterprises involved in the cooperation... as a result of the talks a compromise was reached and a mutually acceptable pricing formula was agreed to, which makes it possible to ensure the implementation of important contracts for national defence capability and to keep the shipbuilding industry busy until 2020.”
According to the Navy’s Main Staff, serial Project 955A Borei-class submarines will carry 20, not 16, Bulava ICBMs starting from the fourth submarine Svyatitel Nikolai.
Borei-class submarines are designed by the St. Petersburg-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.
The first Borei-class nuclear-powered submarine Yury Dolgoruky will join the Navy in the summer of 2012.
The Yuri Dolgoruky was the first strategic missile submarine to be launched in seventeen years since the end of the Soviet era. It was the first Russian (rather than Soviet) vessel. Currently, there are two more Borei class submarines under construction, named Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh. The planned contingent of twelve strategic submarines is expected to be commissioned within the next decade (five “Project 955” are planned for purchase until 2015).
The Defence Ministry said earlier that it planned to build at least eight new Borei-class submarines that should become the main naval component core of Russia's strategic nuclear forces.