"Like" instead of "Husky". What will be the fifth generation Russian submarine
Operation "heir"
Russia has almost completely inherited the nuclear submarine fleet from the USSR. And with nuclear submarines, the Soviet Union had, to put it mildly, an ambiguous situation. The country of the Soviets still holds the "honorable" first place in the number of sunken nuclear submarines. In total, four such ships were lost: K-278 "Komsomolets", K-219, K-27 and K-8. The Americans sent "to the bottom" two of their nuclear submarines, Russia lost two more submarines, including the infamous "Kursk", belonging to the 949A "Antey" project.
By the way, about the latter. It is the submarine K-266 “Eagle” belonging to it that received among the Western sailors the unflattering nickname “the roaring cow of the Barents Sea”. Although, in fairness, this applies primarily to movement at particularly high speeds - 25 nodes and above. Here and the famous "Civulf" could not boast of good noiselessness.
Anyway, the problems of the Soviet boats were, and this can not be denied. Both with reliability, and with noise level. A notable step forward was the multipurpose submarines of the 971 “Pike-B” project: the first such ship was commissioned in the 1984 year. According to the American admiral Jeremy Burda, the American sailors in 90-ies could not identify the boat "Pike-B", which went at a speed of nine knots, which later gave reason to partially attribute the submarine not to the third (to which it formally belonged) and the fourth generation of the Premier League. But again, do not go to extremes and consider this project "invulnerable." Especially in light of the fact that the Yankees have already managed to build and put into operation seventeen "Virginia" of the fourth generation, and the total number of data submarines in the future will bring to 66. Arithmetic is clearly not in favor of the Russian Navy.
It is no longer possible to win in any “quantitative” way. The most thorny path remains – building up qualitative potential. This is how the successful Shchuka evolved into the Project 885 Yasen. Although the boats are different, the “kinship” is visible to the naked eye. Let us recall that Yasen is a large multipurpose submarine capable of carrying a wide range of weapons. There is only one nuance: currently, the fleet has only one such submarine – K-560 Severodvinsk. It was included in the fleet back in 2014. And this is against a “potential enemy”, which, as we already wrote above, has seventeen Virginias and three more Seawolves. Not counting the improved Los Angeleses and other unpleasant factors for the Navy, such as the high level of American anti-submarine warfare aviation.
"Dog" story
And so we again returned to the further development of the ideas embodied in the design of 971 / 885 projects, such as reducing the size and size of the crew, as well as increasing automation. What awaits us? In the future, both 971 and Ash will be replaced by the fifth generation super-submarine. And Russia is claiming to be the first country in stories, which will adopt such a ship.
It is not entirely clear how exactly the fifth generation of submarines will differ from the fourth. The analogy with the prospective American Columbia is not entirely appropriate here, since the latter will belong to a fundamentally different class of submarines - rocket strategic submarine cruisers or SSBN in American language. Our "hero" will become a multi-purpose boat.
Reasons to believe in success are. On April 17, a source told the TASS news agency that, at the end of 2018, the Malachite design bureau had completed research work under the HUSKI code, the purpose of which was to determine the appearance of a fifth-generation multipurpose nuclear submarine. The Ministry of Defense approved the results, although a year ago TASS reported that, according to his information, the scientific and technical work in the framework of the Husky submarine project was considered unsatisfactory. "After" Malachite "proceeded to the next stage of the creation of the submarine - OCD under the cipher" Laika "," the agency now said.
The interlocutor added that “one of its types of shock weapons there will be hypersonic Zircon rockets. " According to him, the submarine will receive a modular design and a single integrated combat control system using artificial intelligence.
And here the most interesting begins, because the word "modular" causes poorly concealed skepticism among modern naval specialists. Modularity was good in theory, in practice, changing the composition of the modules of weapons and equipment is difficult. In this connection, the story of the Danish patrol boats of the Fluvefisken type with their StanFlex modular system, which in fact turned out to be not what it was originally planned, is indicative of this. Easily replaceable (in theory) modules needed to be properly stored and guarded, and also to prepare crews for them. All this cost money and required strength, which led to a rethinking of the program. As practice has shown, the “temporary” module easily turns into a permanent, active right up to the moment of ship modernization. In this case, modularity, according to experts, can really be in demand.
What you sow ...
So what kind of “modularity” are they talking about, meaning “Like” / “Husky”? If we believe the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Alexei Rakhmanov, we will have something very strange in front of us, because depending on the situation, they want to install not just different sets of weapons, but completely different ones. “It will be a boat that will be unified - strategic and multi-purpose for a number of its key elements,” Rakhmanov said in 2014 year.
The statement rightly generated questions. Agree to submit a submarine, optionally carrying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads (for example, the same P-30) is very hard. The boat is either initially designed strategic or not. Ballistic missiles require an incomparably larger interior space than any "Caliber" or even the mythical "Zircon", which are threatening to arm a new submarine. Thus, either the head of the USC did not quite correctly put it, or he was misunderstood, which is unlikely.
Be that as it may, there is much more chance that under the guise of “modularity” a promising Russian fifth-generation submarine will be able to take on various tactical means. For example, the boat will be able to carry advanced rocket-torpedoes for the destruction of enemy submarines or the above-named "Zircons", designed to combat surface connections. Finally, the third option is to use the boat as a full-fledged SSGN (nuclear submarine with cruise missiles) for massive attacks of enemy fortifications located on land. Creating a new strategic submarine is a completely different matter. And he will require other solutions.
Interesting timing of the submarine. “If we finish developing the fourth generation boat in 2017-2018, and if we don’t start developing the fifth generation boat in those years, we will release it no earlier than 2030 of the year,” Rakhmanov said in 2014. It must be assumed that since then the time has not moved much forward, although in 2017, the Vice-Admiral of the Navy Viktor Bursuk was full of enthusiasm. "Approximately the tab is supposed to be in 2023 – 2024,” said the military.
It turns out that the program is at least alive. It is even possible that it will outlive other eminent "kinsmen": the program of creating an aircraft carrier and the program of the atomic destroyer "Leader". Neither one nor the other seems to be particularly needed by the fleet in the current realities.
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