Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
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Hi so what is the timeline for this ACC ack in water fully operational
thank you
thank you
The improvements happened between Virginia blocks as the design was tested in practice and optimized. Between Seawolf, Connecticutt and the first Virginias gains were very limited. From what I heard Seawolf is quieter at higher speeds because it is more optimized for silent dashes compared to Virginia which is slightly quieter overall and especially at very low speeds.
We know for sure that Astute and Virginia are quieter than Yasen.
The problem is that in the current (let's call it 4th) generation of submarines "louder" means a very different thing than in the past. Decibels are are a relative measure so a difference of 5dB between 110 and 115 is not the same as 130 and 135 - tens/hundres of meters and tens/hundreds of miles.
Another thing that is important is that modern silencing technologies do not only dampen the generalized noise level and specific frequencies but they also dampen the dynamic characteristic of noise so that identification of the noise signature becomes harder at larger distances. You hear noise but you can't tell what it is - e.g. if it's the sub or the decoy - because the characteristic thuds, cracks and whistles are dulled. If you have to close distance to id - it's a risk. Not how far, but what you can hear.
Then you looked at the wrong figures.
Project 877 was a significant improvement over 641 and 641B of the Soviet Navy and had good characteristics for its time but in the 80s Nacken and Vastergotland classes were quieter. Germany used Type 206A and the submarines built at the time were for export - different variants of Type 209 - so they were somewhat comparable. Type 212A however was designed as a big leap in terms of capabilities. It is comparable with and better than the Gotland which is significantly quieter than 877 or 636.3. 212A to Kilo is F-22 to F-14.
The 877E in Polish service was thoroughly tested in Baltic, North and Norwegian sea conditions against NATO and Swedish submarines and surface ASW. It was also tested against modernized Kobben submarines in Polish service, transferred from Norwegian navy. Those received new sonars and combat systems during upgrade in Norway in late 80s and the new systems were a generation ahead of the systems on the Kilo which was laid down as 877 for Soviet navy, then selected for sale to Poland with only some combat and sonar systems downgraded. The Kobbens were louder mechanically but had superior electronics. Kilo was quieter mechanically but had worse electronics. Kilo had other major changes: more space for crew, better ergonomics, safety was finally properly resolved, quality of parts was higher. Foxtrots were clunky diving coffins. Kilos were proper submarines. People have no idea just how bad the Soviets were at ship design early in the Cold War. Poland kept two WW2 submarines in service until the 1970s because the Soviet contemporaries were worse. Then we leased the Whiskeys and it was not an improvement apart from better sonar. A lot of the opinions about Kilos are consequence of relative leap in quality compared to previous classes.
As long as it used batteries and kept below 10 knots Kilo did well as any modern conventional submarine would. The problems started at higher speeds and in particular when it used diesels. Soviet diesels and mechanics was not in the same league as German systems. That caused Kilos to be "ambush-only" submarines that are practical only for defensive operations close to bases. On batteries they are "black holes" but as soon as they start moving under snorkel they can be found fairly easily. The misconception comes from the fact that Foxtrots didn't need to be found because they were unbelievably loud.
Where the Kilo does perform well is the usual hard parameters of diving, structural survivability etc. Soviets built very resilient boats but they did not put as much effort into silencing conventional subs as they did with nuclear ones because their doctrine did not require conventional subs to be undetectable in the same conditions. They were disposable ambush subs for coastal waters, although they were used offensively. For example I know of one exercise shortly before the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in which both a 641 and the 877 moved to North Sea to practice offensive ambushes on NATO vessels. The purpose of those submarines was to come close to the shores and hide in the regular maritime transit lines and lay in wait. They were not to transit in open sea because - particularly the Foxtrots - they were loud and Soviet navy was aware of that.
As for Type 212A - around 2010-2015 it was the quietest and most advanced coastal submarine in service. It was better than the Gotland, better than the Upholder and better than the Kilo. There was a serious effort to sell them to the Polish navy around 2013-2015 but it didn't happen for political reasons. A lease was offered and initial testing was done with Polish navy officers so we know exactly how good the 212A is. Where it has weaknesses is in general performance outside of shallows like the Baltic. It dives well because Italy required that modification for its Todaro but Soryu has better overall performance for open sea.
As for 636.3 there is very little in terms of silencing improvement. The upgrade mostly concerns changes to machinery and parts that were forced by the collapse of Soviet industrial base and new generation of electronic systems. 636.3 is objectively the worst currently produced conventional submarine but Russian propaganda very stronk and submariners are quiet as fish so normies don't know any better.
Project 636.3 is produced because it's available and cheap and there is almost no additional burden for re-training of crews because it is the same Kilo with newer systems. Even the crew structure is identical. 877 is to 636.3 as F-16 Block 25 is to F-16 Block 50.
636.3 are being built because Russia urgently needs new submarines. The old ones are 35 years on average and modernization is uneconomical because they use older unsupported systems. There is no alternative to 636.3 because Russia has no other working design.
677 is louder because it is a Kilo in a smaller hull. Initially Lada was designed as an AIP submarine but the AIP never worked so they had to fit a diesel generator inside to keep the program going to get paid. Russia had no good diesel and none designed specifically for Lada so it was a horrible mismatch that required a major redesign just to make it work at all. Lada is a submarine designed for a quieter AIP propulsion. There's only so much you can do when you have to build it with the wrong kind of machinery. The only reason that they are being built is because Kilos are obsolete and a new design has to be tested in practice.
EOT
I'm not disagreeing with most of what you are saying here, but it would still be hard to be conclusive on Yasen being louder since the first improved Yasen just joined service and they have several more under construction. We've heard the latest Yasen is close to Virginia class in noise level, but Virginia class spans a pretty wide range. A block 4 Virginia class will be quieter than a block 1 Virginia class.
We are not talking about 877 here. The 877s were about the same level in stealth as Type 209. There was huge improvement in noise isolation from 877 to the current 636s.
It doesn't matter if kilos have worse electronics, since we are just talking about the impact of size with respect to noise level.
hmmm, you should have your conventional submarines go a lot slower than 10 knots. The numbers I've looked at had submarines going half that speed.
It really wasn't. The quietest submarines even back in early 2010s were Japanese ones. Which coincidentally are also the largest conventional subs.
What I'm stating is based to conversations with ex-submariners from America and Australia. I don't really care what the Russians say.
and newer systems is all you need for the subs to be a lot quieter. The difference between the first LA class and the last one is immense.
Post-Toshiba Kilos were significantly quieter than pre-Toshiba ones. I guess it's possible Type 212A is quieter than the recent Kilo class, since what I saw were compared against earlier Type 212. But based on what i heard, Russians made significant improvement to their quieting technology. That along with large size allow the recent Kilos to be as quiet as the most advanced European conventional subs.
Uhhh just for the f-16 part… are you sure? There should be multiple body frame enhancements from 25 to 30 to 40, and 50 was actually the rework of all the enhancements and integrated all inside of the body
not even mentioned about the all the electronics and weaponry upgrades… and there was a digital flcs major upgrade on block 40
so block 25 and block 50 should be regard as many significant improvements from like 4th gen to maybe 4.25 gen
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Apologies for continuing OT but it might be actually pertinent.
Design matters - but it is not immediately obvious to people who don't design things on regular basis and lack understanding of what factors come into play during design and development process.
Put these two things together some conclusions are possible, but of course not without error margins.
If you built SSN688 today using original design it would be quieter than the actual SSN 688 because of general advancements to technology but it would still not outperform the actual SSN751 because of differences in design.
Yasen (Project 885) is a 1980s design. In Soviet shipbuilding plans it is the SSGN equivalent of Akula (Project 971) SSN. 885M should therefore be considered the equivalent to 971M (so called Improved Akula). It is often incorrectly assumed that Oscar (Project 949) and Charlie (Project 670) are successive generations when they are a parallel divergent evolutionary paths taken in early 70s due to technological limitations of missile technology. The primary factor driving those design decisions was tactics: Charlie II carried 8x 3-ton P-120 missiles while Oscar carried 24x 7-ton P-700 missiles and the missiles were the reason why Oscar was being built until the 1990s. Yasen is the convergence of those design philosophies made possible by the development of vertical launch and Kalibr missiles in the 80s.
Severodvinsk was laid down in December 1993, just a month after last 971 (Samara) and two years after the prototype 971M. Then the crisis hit and shipbuilding and development came to standstill for about a decade. When the work resumed in late 2000s it was essentially the same design with some components updated. 885M was a major redesign that was only possible because the only 885 was already in commission and thus allowed to test the solutions.
Matching 885 to USN subs puts it near San Juan. it is Akula with VLS designed to counter SSN688/i tech. Seawolf was designed to counter Akulas and Yasens, but no Yasens were built in time.
Virginia and Astute we built with CAD/CAM. I began working in the 90s at the very moment when CAD/CAM was being implemented in industry as a standard so I have very good comparison of traditional and digital methods. The difference is as colossal as with the Toshiba-Kongsberg except it affects everything, not just noise levels. CAD/CAM is essential to cross certain performance thresholds.
885M was re-designed using some CAD/CAM but Russians were learning it as they were learning how to change the 885 design. Furthermore during the crisis in the industry the transfer and evolution of knowledge was stopped by an institutional equivalent of a stroke. The reason why it took 11 years from launching of Severodvinsk (885) in 2010 to commissioning of Kazan (885M) in 2021 was that Russia had to rebuild its industrial base and in particular its human capital. So what they did was tremendously difficult.
The bottom line is that Russia is currently building ships that are evolutionary equivalent of late 90s-early 00s western subs. They are 20 years behind and the divergent design strategy (size, hulls etc) is what closes the gap somewhat. So it's back to the 1980s and there's no obvious way out of it now. And that affects their entire industry - not one specific project.
And this is why I said it is pertinent to the topic.
When you understand the nature of the problems of Russian submarine production after 1991 you can match it with what we know of Chinese production. ith regard to SSN/SSBN technology over the last 30 years China is in a situation similar to France's except they have an industrial base that is currently second only to American submarine shipbuilding. It is a very unique position so it's difficult to gauge what exactly is the most likely outcome. Chinese submarines are interesting to me because they are both a design problem and a manufacturing strategy problem. It's what happened in the aerospace industry in the 80s/90s. It's like a single-nation space race - there's really no equivalent currently anywhere in the world.
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Type 209 is a family of submarines of different sizes spanning 40 years.
General noise level of a submerged static SSK is near zero regardless of size.
The one thing that is consistently ignored in considerations is real life tactical scenarios. Submarine warfare is not a silence contest. Submarine recon missions that take a significant part of peacetime deployments absolutely are. But there's a reason why we have separate words for peace and war.
That's standard operation for preservation of energy. Not so much for noise reduction because in littorals and under battery power 5 to 10 knots is not that significant. Also in coastal waters submarines need to be able to dash silently because the hydrology allows them to hide better than in open ocean.
Again: tactics before technical data.
Also: littoral tactics are to ocean tactics for subs like jet aircraft are to helicopters. Shallow littorals are to ocean as low altitude flight is to outer space.
Also: subs don't fight subs. Tactics says ASW + subs
Size is one factor.
I know very little about Japanese subs but I am open to the idea that they are significantly better than German ones in open sea conditions. Germany over-specialized for shallow littorals because that's where their subs were meant to operate.
I was talking about the results of extensive practical testing that Polish Navy made possible after 1991, and especially after joining NATO in 1999.
We know what the baseline 877 capabilities are and therefore it is so much easier to estimate what the Russians can do with 636.3 Yes they could have used rafting but we know that the effect will be limited by the fact that 636.3 is a modified 877 design and Sweden and Germany designed their submarines from scratch to optimize rafting.
SSN-668 and SSN-751 are two different submarines maintained within the general procurement framework for budget purposes.
SSN-668 was also a new overall design compared to Thresher/Sturgeon so the few first boats weren't as good as the later ones.
I wouldn't enter the argument if I didn't have something substantial to add.
Polish "Orzeł" is a "post-Toshiba Kilo". It was one of the few systems purchased from USSR that wasn't significantly downgraded for political or economic reasons.
But the shift in manufacturing quality occurs in late 70s and early 80s. There are no real "pre-Toshiba" Kilos, only "how-much-Toshiba". The improvements of silencing in SSNs came with design changes as Soviets had to learn through practical testing what worked and what not and that took about a decade. The tech was there in the 70s.
There are additional improvements in manufacturing that affected 636.3 performance compared to 877 but they are not as significant as people make them out to be. It is Russian PR and propaganda to boost sales.
Type 212A is the baseline. The "A" indicates modifications to the original Type 212 design that came from Italy's participation in the program that was already approved by the German government.
They absolutely did. But it needs to be understood in relative terms. They made progress compared to their capabilities in the early 1980s which was the last time any significant change in the industry occurred and that progress is embodied by the 2010s series of 636.3. So Russia made one step forward when Germany made two or three because while production was limited funding for R&D wasn't,
In silencing terms Russians benefit from overall design approach - i.e. larger subs, hulls etc - but that also only benefits them in some areas of submarine operations.
Example: 636.3 is capable of 6-7 days of battery life and basic operations. 212A can wait it out until 636.3 has to surface to recharge when quality of diesels and machinery come into play. If 212A has to engage before 636.3 is out of power it can prob action under fuel cell power while Kilo is restricted to their batteries and thus force it to recharge early.
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I'd like to end it here. I wanted to supplement additional information and make a few corrections rather than challenge the entire argument. The two important factors are difference between hydrological environments and between wartime and peacetime mission profile. If you have further specific questions: PM or relevant thread.
Design matters - but it is not immediately obvious to people who don't design things on regular basis and lack understanding of what factors come into play during design and development process.
Put these two things together some conclusions are possible, but of course not without error margins.
If you built SSN688 today using original design it would be quieter than the actual SSN 688 because of general advancements to technology but it would still not outperform the actual SSN751 because of differences in design.
Yasen (Project 885) is a 1980s design. In Soviet shipbuilding plans it is the SSGN equivalent of Akula (Project 971) SSN. 885M should therefore be considered the equivalent to 971M (so called Improved Akula). It is often incorrectly assumed that Oscar (Project 949) and Charlie (Project 670) are successive generations when they are a parallel divergent evolutionary paths taken in early 70s due to technological limitations of missile technology. The primary factor driving those design decisions was tactics: Charlie II carried 8x 3-ton P-120 missiles while Oscar carried 24x 7-ton P-700 missiles and the missiles were the reason why Oscar was being built until the 1990s. Yasen is the convergence of those design philosophies made possible by the development of vertical launch and Kalibr missiles in the 80s.
Severodvinsk was laid down in December 1993, just a month after last 971 (Samara) and two years after the prototype 971M. Then the crisis hit and shipbuilding and development came to standstill for about a decade. When the work resumed in late 2000s it was essentially the same design with some components updated. 885M was a major redesign that was only possible because the only 885 was already in commission and thus allowed to test the solutions.
Matching 885 to USN subs puts it near San Juan. it is Akula with VLS designed to counter SSN688/i tech. Seawolf was designed to counter Akulas and Yasens, but no Yasens were built in time.
Virginia and Astute we built with CAD/CAM. I began working in the 90s at the very moment when CAD/CAM was being implemented in industry as a standard so I have very good comparison of traditional and digital methods. The difference is as colossal as with the Toshiba-Kongsberg except it affects everything, not just noise levels. CAD/CAM is essential to cross certain performance thresholds.
885M was re-designed using some CAD/CAM but Russians were learning it as they were learning how to change the 885 design. Furthermore during the crisis in the industry the transfer and evolution of knowledge was stopped by an institutional equivalent of a stroke. The reason why it took 11 years from launching of Severodvinsk (885) in 2010 to commissioning of Kazan (885M) in 2021 was that Russia had to rebuild its industrial base and in particular its human capital. So what they did was tremendously difficult.
The bottom line is that Russia is currently building ships that are evolutionary equivalent of late 90s-early 00s western subs. They are 20 years behind and the divergent design strategy (size, hulls etc) is what closes the gap somewhat. So it's back to the 1980s and there's no obvious way out of it now. And that affects their entire industry - not one specific project.
And this is why I said it is pertinent to the topic.
When you understand the nature of the problems of Russian submarine production after 1991 you can match it with what we know of Chinese production. ith regard to SSN/SSBN technology over the last 30 years China is in a situation similar to France's except they have an industrial base that is currently second only to American submarine shipbuilding. It is a very unique position so it's difficult to gauge what exactly is the most likely outcome. Chinese submarines are interesting to me because they are both a design problem and a manufacturing strategy problem. It's what happened in the aerospace industry in the 80s/90s. It's like a single-nation space race - there's really no equivalent currently anywhere in the world.
------------
Type 209 is a family of submarines of different sizes spanning 40 years.
General noise level of a submerged static SSK is near zero regardless of size.
The one thing that is consistently ignored in considerations is real life tactical scenarios. Submarine warfare is not a silence contest. Submarine recon missions that take a significant part of peacetime deployments absolutely are. But there's a reason why we have separate words for peace and war.
That's standard operation for preservation of energy. Not so much for noise reduction because in littorals and under battery power 5 to 10 knots is not that significant. Also in coastal waters submarines need to be able to dash silently because the hydrology allows them to hide better than in open ocean.
Again: tactics before technical data.
Also: littoral tactics are to ocean tactics for subs like jet aircraft are to helicopters. Shallow littorals are to ocean as low altitude flight is to outer space.
Also: subs don't fight subs. Tactics says ASW + subs
Size is one factor.
I know very little about Japanese subs but I am open to the idea that they are significantly better than German ones in open sea conditions. Germany over-specialized for shallow littorals because that's where their subs were meant to operate.
I was talking about the results of extensive practical testing that Polish Navy made possible after 1991, and especially after joining NATO in 1999.
We know what the baseline 877 capabilities are and therefore it is so much easier to estimate what the Russians can do with 636.3 Yes they could have used rafting but we know that the effect will be limited by the fact that 636.3 is a modified 877 design and Sweden and Germany designed their submarines from scratch to optimize rafting.
SSN-668 and SSN-751 are two different submarines maintained within the general procurement framework for budget purposes.
SSN-668 was also a new overall design compared to Thresher/Sturgeon so the few first boats weren't as good as the later ones.
I wouldn't enter the argument if I didn't have something substantial to add.
Polish "Orzeł" is a "post-Toshiba Kilo". It was one of the few systems purchased from USSR that wasn't significantly downgraded for political or economic reasons.
But the shift in manufacturing quality occurs in late 70s and early 80s. There are no real "pre-Toshiba" Kilos, only "how-much-Toshiba". The improvements of silencing in SSNs came with design changes as Soviets had to learn through practical testing what worked and what not and that took about a decade. The tech was there in the 70s.
There are additional improvements in manufacturing that affected 636.3 performance compared to 877 but they are not as significant as people make them out to be. It is Russian PR and propaganda to boost sales.
Type 212A is the baseline. The "A" indicates modifications to the original Type 212 design that came from Italy's participation in the program that was already approved by the German government.
They absolutely did. But it needs to be understood in relative terms. They made progress compared to their capabilities in the early 1980s which was the last time any significant change in the industry occurred and that progress is embodied by the 2010s series of 636.3. So Russia made one step forward when Germany made two or three because while production was limited funding for R&D wasn't,
In silencing terms Russians benefit from overall design approach - i.e. larger subs, hulls etc - but that also only benefits them in some areas of submarine operations.
Example: 636.3 is capable of 6-7 days of battery life and basic operations. 212A can wait it out until 636.3 has to surface to recharge when quality of diesels and machinery come into play. If 212A has to engage before 636.3 is out of power it can prob action under fuel cell power while Kilo is restricted to their batteries and thus force it to recharge early.
------------
I'd like to end it here. I wanted to supplement additional information and make a few corrections rather than challenge the entire argument. The two important factors are difference between hydrological environments and between wartime and peacetime mission profile. If you have further specific questions: PM or relevant thread.
Detachments of warships of the Russian Navy and the Chinese Navy met in the northern part of the Sea of Japan. The meeting took place as part of the Vostok-2022 strategic command and staff exercise.
The exercises of the Northern Fleet, the Russian nuclear missile cruiser "Peter the Great" launched a cruise missile of the "Granit" complex.
Details of the use of BMP-3M soldiers PMC Wagner.
The exercises of the Northern Fleet, the Russian nuclear missile cruiser "Peter the Great" launched a cruise missile of the "Granit" complex.
Details of the use of BMP-3M soldiers PMC Wagner.
There is no question design matters. As far as I can tell, Yasen class being single/hybrid hull is quite different from Akula class. It's a huge boat and cam 20 years after the first couple of Virginia class. Even if the Russian technology is far behind, it would not be surprising to me that Yasen class is as quiet as the early Virginia class boats.
China is a different story. It did not devote large chunk of naval budget on nuclear submarines. A lot of this takes decade to build up. As such, it will probably take a while to catch up.
was comparing the 877 to the 209s of the 80s.
well I did mention at low speed (5knots). sustaining 10 knots is very fast for SSK. In fact, subs that run on Stirling AIP simply can't even go that fast.
The difference between 877 and 636 is pretty big. Russians made significant progress in rafting and quieting technology by the time 636 came out. China has already retired its' 2 877s, but the 2 636s it got in the 90s are very much operational still.
again, I get more sources from American/Australian submariners, not Russians.
hmm, you are talking about battery technology here right now. That's different than just the noise level of the boat itself. The original discussion was about the impact of pressure hull size on the noise level.
The most important thing now.. how far say a Western Sub like say Virginia or LA class can possibly detect a Yasen or even a Kilo class ?
Because it will all boils down to that.
Because it will all boils down to that.
Short answer: it depends.
But the important part is that actual submarine combat does not boil down to that.