SEVASTOPOL, April 6. /TASS/. The crew of the diesel-electric submarine Alrosa delivered torpedo fire against underwater and surface targets during drills in the Black Sea, the Black Sea Fleet’s press office reported on Thursday.
"The crew of the diesel-electric submarine Alrosa belonging to the Black Sea Fleet is practicing elements of the course task L-3 that is an integral part of the program of the submarine training in accomplishing assigned missions. In the course of practicing the elements, the crew conducted torpedo fire against underwater and surface targets," the press office said in a statement.
During the drills at a naval range in the Black Sea, the submariners made a deep dive and practiced the algorithms of operations to control the sub and employ weapons at various depths, and also various methods of surfacing, it said.
At the next stage of its training, the crew will lay minefields and practice operations to avoid an attack by anti-submarine warfare aircraft, it said.
The Alrosa was built at the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union and belonged to the experimental Project 877. As its specific feature, it is driven by a waterjet engine instead of propeller propulsion, which ensures its maximal stealth. Owing to this, the submarine with waterjet engines was dubbed the ‘black hole’ abroad. Soon after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Alrosa remained Russia’s sole combat-fit submarine in the Black Sea.
It was reported in May 2022 that the submarine’s repairs were over and the Alrosa had acquired new combat and technical capabilities that put the submarine on a par with six subs that had arrived for the Black Sea Fleet in recent years.