Russia’s Sevmash shipyards lays down three new submarines

Three new submarines - the Knyaz Oleg (Borei project), the Krasnoyarsk (Yasen project) and the Khabarovsk - were laid down on Sunday at Russia’s Sevmash shipyards, Sevmash director general Mikhail Budnichenko told Russian President Vladimir Putin from Severodvinsk
 

 

“Today, under the state arms programme endorsed by you and in compliance with the schedule set by the Russian ministry of defence, Sevmash laid down three new atomic submarines - the Knyaz Oleg, which is the fifth Borei, the Khabarovsk and one more Yasen, the modernized project 885M,” Budnichenko said during a videoconference session with the president who was onboard the Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft carrier cruiser in Severomork.

A representative from the Russian defence ministry told Putin, who is Russia’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief, that the projects were properly financed. “So, let us wait for Sevmash to do its job in strict compliance with the contract terms,” he said.

 

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, also present at Sevmash, said that the governmental military industry commission was working in collaboration with directors of sectoral enterprises to solve various problems, including social. “Because what matters most is people, their wellbeing, opportunities for self realization. Everything is normal in general,” he said.
 

 

On Sunday, the Russian Navy Day, President Putin visited the home base of Russia’s Northern Fleet in the city of Severomorsk in Russia’s northern Murmansk region, where he laid a wreath to the monument to Severomorsk heroes, inspected a lineup of warships and reviewed a parade and a theatrical show.

 

In his congratulatory message, the president reassured that the state would spare no effort to further develop Russia’s Navy, including the Black Sea Fleet. “Our special priorities include the strengthening of the combat might of the Black Sea Fleet. We will renew its ships, create a state-of-the-art military and social infrastructure,” he vowed.

 

Last year, he said, Russian ships had performed 43 missions, including to protect Russian civil vessels from pirates. The strength and glory of the Russian Navy “will only grow,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, reviewing a parade on the occasion of the Russian Navy Day onboard the Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft carrying cruiser.
 

“The Navy’s combat readiness and mobility will grow, its material and technical facilities will be built up, the coastal infrastructure will be modernized. New ships will be built,” Putin pledged. He noted that last year, as many as 26 warships had been floated out and seven ships had been transferred to the Navy, including the Yuri Dolgoruky and Alexander Nevsky strategic nuclear submarines. Apart from that, the Severodvinsk nuclear submarine with cruise missiles, which has already passed builder’s tests, will soon take up combat duty. Sixty more ships, boats and support vessels are under construction. Eleven vessels have recently been laid down.
 

 

The Knyaz Oleg strategic missile cruiser will be the fifth 995A Borei class submarine, while the multipurpose nuclear submarine Krasnoyarsk will be the fourth 885M Yasen class vessel.
 

The Sevmash shipyard has already handed over two Borei-class nuclear submarines to the Russian Navy: the Yuri Dolgorukiy and Alexander Nevsky. The third sub of this type - the Vladimir Monomakh - is expected to come into service with the Russian Navy in 2014.

 

The Yuri Dolgorukiy nuclear submarine, the first modernized Borei class ship, is still under construction. It was laid down in Severodvinsk in July 2012 in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
 

 

The Russian Navy was adopted the Severodvinsk Yasen-class multi-purpose nuclear attack submarine for reliability field testing in late 2013. The second 885M Yasen-class submarine Kazan was laid down in 2009. The third submarine Novosibirsk was laid down in 2013.

Russian submarines heading to waters near NZ

The Russians are coming, again, in submarines to waters near New Zealand. 

The state-run Itar-Tass agency says Russia will send submarines armed with nuclear ballistic missiles to the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean. 

"The revival of nuclear-submarine patrols will allow us to fulfil the tasks of strategic deterrence not only across the North Pole but also the South Pole," an unnamed official in the military General Staff was quoted as saying. 

Given that the South Pole is 1500 kilometres from the sea, it suggests the new Borei-class submarines, with 16 long-range nuclear missiles, might end up in the Ross Sea. 

"As the Russian Navy receive the Borei-class missile submarines, they will not only continue to patrol the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but will resume execution of combat missions in those regions of the world's ocean, where in the late 90s of the last century used to be the Soviet Navy, and where they have ceased to appear following the collapse of the Soviet Union," the report said. 

It echoes the Soviet days and in 1982, when a Russian submarine was photographed by the Royal New Zealand Air Force east of New Zealand. 

The air force still has submarine-hunting capacity in the form of its six P3 Orions, but it seldom practises finding them now. 

In 1972, the navy was ordered to sea as intelligence suggested a Soviet submarine was near New Zealand. 

Several ships and the air force were well out to sea when they heard, on what was then the NZBC, that a Soviet hydrographic submarine had docked in Suva that morning. 

Just before Christmas in 1982, the diesel-powered Soviet Foxtrot submarine Regul was spotted on the surface near Tahiti sailing with a research vessel. 

It continued towards the South Island and was last seen near the Chatham Islands. The Soviets said they were doing oceanographic work.

Three years later, there were headlines and claims that the French submarine Rubis was in the Waitemata Harbour, supporting the agents bombing the Rainbow Warrior. It was never proved.

German and Japanese submarines operated near New Zealand during World War II. 

U862 captain Heinrich Timm claimed later that while they were off Hawke's Bay, crew landed to get fresh milk from the dairy herd they saw. 

In the 1870s, New Zealand built 17 harbour forts around the country, fearing that Tsarist Russia, in the wake of the Crimean War, might invade. It was never clear why it wanted Auckland.

Russia to pass Borei and Yasen nuclear submarines into service

According to the Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy, Russia will receive two nuclear submarines - Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh - and one multi-purpose submarine - Severodvinsk - before the end of 2013. If it happens, it will mark the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Russia passes new nuclear submarines into service.

Officials specified, however, that strategic submarines would be passed into service only after control launches of the Bulava missile that are scheduled to take place during the second half of this year.

The control test launches of Russia's Bulava missile are expected to end successfully. During the latest launches of the missile, there were no system failures observed.

Many of the previous test launches of the missile were unsuccessful, which led to the appearance of skepticism among the military administration of the country. Some officials even suggested not to finance the works on the development of the new missile. Yet, engineers overcame all obstacles, and the missile was passed into service.

All of the above-mentioned submarines are going through last stages of tests. Strategic missile submarines Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh, as well as the multipurpose Severodvinsk cruiser, show very good results of their operation. All disadvantages and flaws revealed during the tests will be easily fixed.

According to the plans of the Navy command, strategic submarines of Project 955 should become the basis of naval strategic nuclear forces of Russia after 2018. Before that, submarine maker Sevmash Enterprise had not produced one single nuclear submarine for nearly ten years. The last multipurpose nuclear submarine Gepard of Project 971 was transferred to the Northern Fleet in December 2001.

 It is worth mentioning that strategic Borei subs were designed at the St. Petersburg-based Design Bureau of Marine Engineering - Rubin. Specialists used state-of-the-art technologies in the electronic equipment of new submarines. Each nuclear-powered vessel will carry 12 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Submarines of this project are outfitted with a quick rescue chamber designed for the whole crew. The submarines are 170 meters long and 13.5 meters wide. They can submerge at the depth of 450 meters; the crew consists of 107 people (including 55 officers).

 

According to the plans of the Ministry of Defense, at least eight Borei class submarines are expected to be built. According to some reports, the defense ministry has decided to limit the order to six, although the information has not been officially confirmed.

Fourth-generation multi-purpose submarine of Project 885 Yasen, Severodvinsk, was designed in St. Petersburg. The construction was started at Sevmash in 1993. The construction period took so much time due to economic difficulties and the introduction of fundamentally new design of the body and equipment of the submarine. The Severodvinsk was launched on June 15, 2010.

On the Severodvinsk, for the first time in Russian shipbuilding practice, torpedo tubes were located in the central, rather than in the nose part of the sub.

Eight vertical launchers were used for missile weapons. The complex of weapon includes supersonic cruise missiles, universal deep-homing torpedoes and mines. The sub was equipped with advanced communication and navigation systems and a fundamentally new nuclear power plant. The total displacement of the vessel makes up 11,800 tons. A Yasen project submarine can develop the speed of more than 30 knots; the crew counts 85 people.

Russian SSBN Fleet: Modernizing But Not Sailing Much

The Russian ballistic missile submarine fleet is being modernized but conducting so few deterrent patrols that each submarine crew cannot be certain to get out of port even once a year.

During 2012, according to data obtained from U.S. Naval Intelligence under the Freedom of Information Act, the entire Russian fleet of nine ballistic missile submarines only sailed on five deterrent patrols.

The patrol level is barely enough to maintain one missile submarine on patrol at any given time.

The ballistic missile submarine force is in the middle of an important modernization. Over the next decade or so, all remaining Soviet-era ballistic missile submarines and their two types of sea-launched ballistic missiles will be replaced with a new submarine armed with a new missile (see also our latest Nuclear Notebook on Russian nuclear forces).

The new fleet will carry more nuclear warheads than the one it replaces, however, because the Russian military is trying to maintain parity with the larger U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Sluggish Deterrent Patrols

The operational tempo of the Russian SSBN fleet – measured in the number of deterrent patrol conducted each year – has declined significantly – actually plummeted – since the end of the Cold War.

At their peak in 1984 – the year after the Russian military became convinced that the NATO exercise Able Archer was in fact disguised preparations for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union, Russian SSBNs carried out 102 patrols. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, operations quickly declined in the second half of the 1980s. But even as the Warsaw Pact collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the fleet was able to muster a slight comeback in 1990.

As the Cold War officially ended in 1990, the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia descended into financial recession, the SSBN force increasingly stayed in port until in 2002, when no deterrent patrols were conducted all.

Since then, the performance has been a mixed bag. After a slight whiff of new life with 10 patrols in 2008 (up from 3 in 2007), the number of SSBN patrols has declined again to around five in 2012.

The recent decline contrasts with the Russian Navy’s declaration last year that it would resume continuous deterrent patrols from mid-2012. Assuming the five patrols occurred throughout the year and not just in the last six months, the fleet would have had a hard time maintaining a continuous at-sea presence with only five patrols. Theoretically, it could be done if each patrol lasted an average of 73 days. That is how long a U.S. SSBN deploys on a good day. But Russian SSBNs are thought to do shorter patrols, probably 40-60 days each, in which case most of the five patrols would have had to occur between July and December to maintain continuous patrol from mid-2012.

Even if the navy were able to squeeze a more or less continuous at-sea presence out of the five patrols, it would at best have consisted of a single SSBN – not much for a fleet of nine submarines or demonstrating a convincing secure retaliatory capability.

Perhaps more significantly, the five deterrent patrols conducted in 2012 are not enough for each SSBN in the fleet to be able to conduct even one patrol a year. The five patrols by nine SSBNs indicate that only five or less submarines are active. That means that submarine crews do not get much hands-on training in how to operate the SSBNs so they actually have a chance to survive and provide a secure retaliatory strike capability in a crisis. Crews probably compensate for this by practicing alert operations at pier-side at their bases.

Unlike U.S. SSBNs, which can patrol essentially with impunity in the open oceans, Russian deterrent patrols are thought to take place in “strategic bastions” relatively close to Russia where the SSBNs can be protected by the Russian navy against the U.S. and British attack submarines that probably occasionally monitor their potential targets.

The Russian navy remembers all too well the 1980s when the aggressive U.S. Maritime Strategy envisioned using attack submarines to hunt down and destroy Soviet SSBNs early on in a conflict, a highly controversial strategy [see here and here] that could likely have triggered escalation to strategic nuclear war. Hunting Russian SSBNs is no longer a primary mission for U.S. attack submarines, but it is probably still part of the mission package and one that Russian planners cannot afford to ignore. As a result, Russian SSBNs probably continue to patrol in the areas used in the late-1980s and early-1990s (see map) to provide maximum protection.

Force Structure
Russia currently operates 10 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), of which three Delta IIIs based in the Pacific are outdated and six Delta IVs based in the Barents Sea have recently been refurbished to serve for another decade or so. The 10^th SSBN added in January 2013 is the first of a new type of Borei-class SSBNs that are scheduled to replace all Deltas by the mid/late-2020s.

The first Borei-class (Project 955) SSBN, Yuri Dolgoruki, entered service after more than 15 years of design and construction, marking the first time in 25 years that the Russian Navy had commissioned a new SSBN. A second Borei has been launched and a third is under construction. Russia has announced plans to build a total of eight Boreis. Each Borei is equipped with 16 SS-N-32 (Bulava) SLBMs, a missile that Russia has declared can carry up to six warheads.

The fourth and subsequent Borei-class SSBNs will be of an improved design, known as Borei-II or Project 955A). Russian news media is full of rumors that the improved Boreis will be equipped with 20 SLBMs instead of 16 on each of the first three boats. Some Russian officials dispute that, saying all Boreis will be equipped with 16 missiles.

This force structure plan has implications for Russia’s nuclear posture and strategic priorities. The replacement of the Delta SSBNs with eight Borei SSBNs will reduce the size of the Russian SSBN fleet and the number of SLBMs, but result in a 23-percent increase in the number of sea-based warheads because the SS-N-32 carries more warheads than the SS-N-18 and SS-N-23 SLBMs it replaces.

In other words, Russia will be placing more eggs in fewer baskets at sea, which increases the importance of each SSBN – something strategists say is bad for crisis stability.

Conclusions and Implications

The Russian SSBN force is in the middle of a transition from Soviet-era weapons to a smaller but more warhead-heavy fleet of new submarines.

This means that the SSBN fleet will carry a growing portion of Russia’s strategic missile warheads – up from about a third today to nearly half by the mid-2020s.

The trend of increased warhead loading on sea-launched ballistic missiles is similar to the development on land where reduction of the Russian ICBM force will result in a greater portion of the remaining force being equipped with multiple warheads.

This is perhaps the most dominant trend of Russia’s nuclear forces today: fewer launchers but each carrying more warheads. Not that Russia will have more total nuclear warheads than before (their arsenal is declining), but that military planners have fallen for the temptation to place more nuclear eggs in each basket.

They appear to do so to compensate againt the larger U.S. nuclear missile force and its significant reserve of additional warheads. But it would be helpful if the Russian government would declare how many Borei-class SSBNs it plans to build in total and limit the number of missiles on each to 16.

The Russian modernization is motivating Cold Warriors in the U.S. Congress to argue that the United States should not reduce but modernize its nuclear forces. They are wrong for many reasons, not least because the two postures are very different.

The U.S. SSBN fleet is more modern with another 15 service years left in it, and it carries many more missiles that are much more reliable with more warheads. The U.S. could in fact easily reduce its SSBN fleet to ten boats, perhaps fewer.

Moreover, in contrast with U.S. SSBN operations, where each operational submarine conducts an average of 2-3 patrols each year, Russian SSBN crews do not get a lot of operational training with an average of less than one patrol per submarine per year.

Rather than opposing further reductions, U.S. lawmakers should support limitations on the growing asymmetry between U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces – an asymmetry that is significantly in the U.S. advantage – to help limit further concentration of nuclear warheads on Russia’s declining numbers of strategic missiles. That would actually help the national security interests of all.

Russia - Borei Bombers Delayed Yet Again

The new Russian Borei class SSBNs (ballistic missile nuclear subs or "boomers/bombers") was supposed to enter service at the end this year. Then problems were discovered in the software that runs the missile launching and other systems on the boat. Because of that the first Borei won’t enter service until next year. This boat, the Yuri Dolgoruky, was launched five years ago, after being under construction since 1996. Money shortages and technical issues slowed progress. Yuri Dolgoruky was further delayed after launch because of power plant and other equipment problems. Yuri Dolgoruky was the first new Russian SSBN since 1990 and there seemed to be no end of problems. Part of this is because the new Borei class boats makes extensive use of modern electronics. It’s all digital and flat screens inside. Lots of microprocessors and modern sonar, which the navy insisted would make these boats more aware of their underwater surroundings than previous designs. The possible complications from debugging all this new tech were never mentioned. 

Externally, the Boreis are closer in design to the older Delta IVs than to the more recent, and much larger, Typhoon boats. The Boreis are 170 meters (558 feet) long and 13 meters (42 feet) wide. Surface displacement is 15,000 tons, and 16 Bulava SLBMs (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) are carried. Work on the first Borei, the Yuri Dolgoruky, was delayed for several years because the first missile being designed for it did not work out. As a replacement, the successful land based missile, the Topol-M, was quickly modified for submarine use. This Bulava was a larger missile, cutting the Boreis capacity from twenty to 16 missiles. The boat also has four torpedo tubes and twelve torpedoes or torpedo tube launched missiles. The Borei also sports a huge sonar dome in the bow. 

The Boreis have a crew of 107, with half of them being officers (a common Russian practice when it comes to high tech ships like nuclear subs). Each of these boats cost at least two billion dollars. This high cost, by Russian standards, is partly because many factories that supplied parts for Russian subs were in parts of the Soviet Union that are not now within the borders of present day Russia, so new factories had to be built. All components of the Boreis, and their missiles, will be built in Russia. A dozen Boreis were originally planned, but for now only eight are being built. All are supposed to be in service by the end of the decade. The last five are referred to as Borei-A and will carry 20 missiles and contain a number of other improvements. 

The Boreis will replace the aging Cold War era Delta class SSBNs that are being retired because of safety and reliability issues. Nuclear submarines are one area of military spending that did not get cut back sharply after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but there are still limits to the navy budgets and the Boreis are being built, in part, to be cheaper to operate. Two Borei boats are now completed and waiting for all these glitches to be fixed before entering service. The more recent, but massive, Typhoon SSBNs will be retired in two years, mainly because they are so expensive to operate.