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Alexander Nevsky submarine to be handed over to Russian Navy Nov 15

The sea trials are to be completed on December 12 and the submarine will be handed over to the Navy on December 25-27

ST. PETERSBURG, July 6 (Itar-Tass) - The strategic nuclear submarine Alexander Nevsky will be handed over to the Russian Navy on November 15, Sevmash shipyard Secretary-General Mikhail Budnichenko said.

Prior to that, the Project 995 Borei-class submarine will fire a Bulava ICBM in September, Budnichenko told ITAR-TASS at the 6th International Maritime Defence Show in St. Petersburg on Saturday, July 6.

“The submarine started its second trial run yesterday. It will then return to Severodvinsk for working operations. Practical work with a Bulava is scheduled tentatively for September. This will be followed by inboard works and examination of mechanisms. The naval flag will be joisted on November 15,” Budnichenko said.

“The second serial Borei and the third in succession, Vladimir Monomakh, is finishing mooring trials. It has undergone a degaussing procedure. It will go for a trial run in the White Sea after Navy Day on July 29,” he said.

The sea trials are to be completed on December 12 and the submarine will be handed over to the Navy on December 25-27.

“In July 2012, the fourth Borei-class submarine Knyaz Vladimir was laid down under updated Project 955A,” Budnichenko said.

The Alexander Nevsky’s sea trials will include manoeuvre tests, electromagnetic field measurements, torpedo tests and others. The tests will be crowned by the firing of a Bulava ICBM in July on command from Moscow to be transmitted by a new automatic combat missile launch control system.

If the launch is successful, the Alexander Nevsky will have to undergo an overhaul at Sevmash upon return, after which, just like with the Yuri Dolgoruky, the customer - the Navy Main Staff - will sign the acceptance certificate for the submarine.

“The Alexander Nevsky, a second serial craft, will join the Navy this year and will be followed by the Vladimir Monomakh, the Knyaz Vladimir and other submarines, which will join our Northern and Pacific Fleets,” presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, who used to be a defence minister, said earlier.

He noted that Russia intends to build eight serial strategic submarines with new weapons by 2020. The Yuri Dolgoruky is the first in this series.

The Alexander Nevsky is the second Borei-class submarine. Its construction at the Sevmash shipyard began in 2004 and the submarine is a fourth generation strategic underwater missile cruiser.

The fourth generation Alexander Nevsky nuclear submarine ended a round of sea trials in the White Sea and returned to the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk in October 2012.

During the trials, the submarine’s systems were examined in different modes. “The assignments were fully completed,” Sevmash’s spokesperson Yekaterina Pilikina told Itar-Tass.

Previous sea trials had proved the submarine's excellent seaworthiness and manoeuvrability, Marat Abizhanov, who is in charge of the shipyard's military production, said.

“After the end of the sea trials, the Alexander Nevsky will move on to a new stage - state trials,” Pilikina said.

The Project 955 submarine is the first serial strategic rocket carrier of the Borei class. It is 170 metres long, 13.5 metres wide, maximum operating depth is 450 metres, and underwater speed is 29 knots.

The leading craft of the series, the Yuri Dolgoruky submarine, is ready to be transferred to the Navy.

Following the Alexander Nevsky, Sevmash laid down two other submarines of the same series - Vladimir Monomakh and Knyaz Vladimir.

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.

Borei class submarines are designed to serve as the basis of Russia's strategic nuclear capabilities for the decades to come.