Russian President Vladimir Putin recently visited Severodvinsk, where he took part in the ceremony of decommissioning and launching the newest nuclear-powered missile submarine. Then he visited a ship of the same type, which was already in service with the fleet. What kind of ships were they and why is this event so interesting? Launching of the fifth Yasen-M.
More precisely, officially this procedure is called withdrawal from the workshop. But getting out of the workshop into the fresh air eventually turns into launching the ship, where it will then be completed. However, there will be no special completion, the submarine was launched in a very high factory readiness. The Perm nuclear-powered submarine-launched missile cruiser (APRK), or, as this class is also called, the Perm nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine, belongs to the Yasen-M 885M project. He is the fifth representative of this project and the fourth serial. The lead cruiser Kazan does not count in this case. And there is also the only representative of the 885 (08850) Yasen project, the Severodvinsk K-560 missile defense system. Where do the Ash Trees serve
Currently, the following ships of the Yasen and Yasen-M types are in service with the Russian Navy: K-560 Severodvinsk, K-561 Kazan, K-573 Novosibirsk, K-571 Krasnoyarsk, K-562 Arkhangelsk. Severodvinsk, Kazan and Arkhangelsk are part of the 11th Division of submarines of the Northern Fleet, which is based in Western Siberia. And Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk joined the 10th Division of submarines of the Pacific Fleet at the base in Vilyuchinsk in Kamchatka. Perm will also be included next year. After Perm, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh, and Vladivostok are being built. But the Ashen-M series won't end there. They say that the Bratsk cruiser is already under construction, although no official laying has been announced. That's often the case with submarines, even in peacetime. First, the groundwork is being prepared, sections are being slowly assembled, and the laying can take place later. Also, at least two more ships are planned, and they should start building soon. Moreover, as reported, the last three ships in the series (if they become the last, which is not certain) will already have some kind of new modification. But how they will differ is, of course, still a mystery. The long history of the firstborn
Severodvinsk K-560 is a kind of happy and unhappy ship. On the one hand, it was founded a long time ago, as early as the end of 1993. It was launched 17 years later, in 2010. It was tested a year later, and was commissioned in 2014. Anti-record on anti-record, but it's completely understandable why this happened. In the 90s of the last century, the ship was simply not built at all. The development of key components and assemblies also stood still. When they remembered about him under Putin, it became clear that much needed to be created anew. The project was redesigned. And more than once. That also made construction longer. Then he was painfully brought to mind for a long time – he had to learn a lot anew. And it was painfully different from the previous ships of the APRK class. For example, it is not double-hulled, when a solid body is almost everywhere surrounded by a light body. This is how the absolute majority of our submarines are built, and the one–and-a-half hull scheme is a light hull at the ends and in some places along the sides, rather than around a solid one. Double-hulled boats are more resilient, more maneuverable in depth, they have more space, but it is also more difficult to make them noisier than single-hulled or half-hulled ones. And although our designers are able to achieve the required levels of noiselessness, this time we decided to try something else. Yasen-M is a brand new ship
And then it became clear that the components, assemblies, and systems developed for Yasen no longer meet the requirements for advanced weapons. More precisely, we need to take a new step forward. And some things were generally made piece by piece, and then the manufacturer "failed". There was such a thing in the 90s. This is how the Yasen-M project appeared, which differs from Yasen even in size. It turned out to be slightly shorter and smaller in displacement. Severodvinsk has a total underwater displacement of 13,800 tons, while Kazan has an unknown displacement, but it is several hundred tons less. The "filling" is also very different. There's a new powerful Ajax sonar system with antennas all over the hull. And on the Yasen there is an Irtysh Amphora, with a large spherical antenna in the nose, but without covering the entire hull with antennas. There's a new BIOS, a combat information and control system, the "brain" of the ship, and so on. In fact, a new ship has been released in an updated outer shell. Even the reactors there are different. The K-560 has a reactor of the previous, 3rd generation, and the Kazan has the newest, 4th generation, which requires core recharge only once every 25-30 years, rather than every 5-6 years, as before. It is even more powerful and noiseless. Turbogenerators, electric motors, and everything else are quieter. Most importantly, unlike Severodvinsk, all Kazan components were already mass-produced. Long trials
The trials of Kazan were also lengthy – three years. In general, lead submarines are always tested for a long time. There are many more problems and shortcomings than on production boats. The volume and depth of the tests are also seriously different. For example, only the lead boats are tested by diving to the maximum depth, while all others are tested only at the working depth. Boats have three "features" at depths. Working depth, maximum and calculated. The first means that a boat can "dive" into it as many times as necessary and stay there for as long as necessary without the slightest damage to a set of durable hull, etc. The maximum depth is the maximum to which a boat can dive a finite number of times and stay there for a limited time without damaging the durable hull. And still, such "dives" do not happen without consequences. Boats rarely try to do this, and the lead boat usually serves less than the others because of such dives. Although sometimes there are exercises for actions at or near extreme depths – a few years ago there were even group exercises in the Atlantic. And the estimated depth is that boats are never submerged at the will of the crew. Beyond this depth, the boat is estimated to be crushed, which is why it is calculated. The cruisers following the Kazan were built faster and tested too. Arkhangelsk entered testing in the middle of last year, and at the end of the year it took up the St. Andrew's flag. It was he who was visited by the president, who inspected the ship and had a tea party with the officers in the wardroom, where he was invited along with the commander and the accompanying admirals. The fact is that the cabin in the Russian Navy is a special place, and even the commander of the ship, the "first after God" on the ship, usually does not eat in it, eating in his cabin, cabin or wherever. He may be invited to the wardroom, where the senior assistant commander is in charge, as it happens. All other distinguished guests are also invited there. It's packed to capacity with weapons
The Yasen‑M project cruisers are more than impressively armed. The main missile armament is housed in universal vertical silo launchers. There are 8 of them on ships. Each silo is designed for several transport and launch containers with different missiles at once. If you load the Kalibr type with a range of up to 2.6 thousand km or the latest Kalibr-M with an even longer range, then each installation can accommodate 5 missiles. If we use Onyx or Onyx-M anti-ship missiles, with a range of 600-1000 km, then 4 can fit. The same number of Zircon hypersonic missiles are loaded, with a range of 1-1. 5 thousand km. The boat can also use Otvet anti-submarine missiles. In total, it turns out that APCs of this type carry from 32 to 40 missiles. A group of 6 boats will give a total salvo of 192 to 240 missiles. Non-strategic strategic weapons
So far, only 3 frigates are armed with the surface version of the Zircon, but almost all ships with vertical launchers will be armed. There is also a ground version of the system. The Zircon is not just a rocket, but to some extent, as Putin noted, it is a strategic weapon. And here's why. At one time, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate near the American coast greatly frightened the American authorities and the military. The fact is that such missiles have speeds of up to 10-12 M (the speed of sound) and are capable of flying to a maximum range of more than 1000 km in 5-7 minutes. And with a nuclear warhead, 1,500 km in 8-10 minutes. Nuclear warheads are lighter, and their range is always longer, by 30-50 percent. The nuclear-powered Zircons are capable of wiping Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, Kings Bay, and New York naval bases from the face of the earth in a matter of minutes. All this is covered in a time from 3 to 5-7 minutes. And from this point of view, a third of the Eastern United States is under attack. Military bases, industrial areas, everything you need. And most importantly, the US leadership in Washington won't even know what happened in 3 minutes and won't be able to give the appropriate order. And if the strike is non-nuclear, then it may turn out to be an effective last warning before a nuclear one. But at least the frigate can be detected and tracked and tried to sink before it can execute the launch order. And if it's an Ash Tree, look for it like the wind in a field. The former commander of the NORAD (North American Air Defense) spoke about the danger of this in Congress a couple of years ago. So the Zircon is a weapon with strategic capabilities, without being classified as a strategic force in itself. Moreover, it was tested in the conditions of SVO – strikes, as they say, were launched from a coastal launcher several times and were successful.
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