Project 949A: Oscar-II

Russia launch P 700 missile from 949A submarine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WL_awEpScw

Big_Gazza wrote:I'll repost what I previously wrote regarding the 1164 Atlant cruisers, ammended to suit:

With the advent of new hypersonic missiles, I wonder what the Pr 949A could be retooled to carry? Imagine a modern scram-jet powered missile in the weight class of a P-700 Granit, ie a Mega-Tsirkon/Zircon with an over-dose of growth hormones...  

Maybe the Navy has their eyes on a new generation of modern hypersonic carrier-killers, and think that the 949A might be a suitable interim platform?

I guess for an Atlant it is worth having such missiles because range matters as the US carrier's plane with new antiship missiles have more range than a Tzirkon which is said to have 1000km.

But for a submarine it is better to have more missiles. There is no way they can track a submarine 1000km away. More missiles means more will go through and more ships hit.

Even if, its range and parameters would be wasted. It requires a high altitude&speed starting envelope to have a decent range and speed.
I wouldn't care that much for P-500/700/1000 missiles, those are still formidable weapon platforms.
The only better out there are actually new generations of Russian missiles themselves.
Even if we consider the fast missiles that Japan, or Korea, or China has - those still lack the net-centric modes, are much smaller, and none of those are armored.
It is extremely hard to shoot down heavy missiles salvo, and in practice, all CIWS systems that NATO has are useless for that job. Not only gun caliber is too small to make a fast kill of a heavy, armored missile, but the range is too small, too. Even if those would score a kill, these monsters fly fast enough and are made solid enough, that with a high probability, the target would have been hit with debris, burning fuel anyway. Debris including armor plates, armored warhead, tanks, etc - a big, heavy pieces flying Ma2.0.
The only real reasons to withdraw them from service is the fact that they don't produce them anymore, so they run out.
And the fact that you can have a similar punch in bigger numbers now, using smaller, modern missiles.

949A don't have the stealth

Are you crazy ? They are very hard to track. And they will be modernized with Borei technology to reduce their noise.

A sub, no matter how noisy it is, is hard to track if its crew is well trained by just playing with water caracteristics. Ships can't detect them at more than 30km. In rough waters that can be a 2 or 3 km.

On the opposite a carrier makes a lot of noise and can be spotted hundreds of km away specially when the aircraft are being used on the deck.

Kinzhal is essentially Iskander... if you ground launch it from a ship or a sub then its effective range becomes 480km which is not useful enough.

Zircon has better range and speed and was designed for surface launch...

On the opposite a carrier makes a lot of noise and can be spotted hundreds of km away specially when the aircraft are being used on the deck.

True, but the aircraft they carry including anti sub helicopters and fighters and AWACS or AEW mean they are rather better defended when subjected to attack.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Isos wrote:

949A don't have the stealth

Are you crazy ? They are very hard to track. And they will be modernized with Borei technology to reduce their noise.

Settle down buddy.  I mean that 949A are not as quiet as 885Ms or 955s.  The noise-reducing technologies of the new subs is not the sort of thing that can be readily retrofitted to older boats as its about structural features, materials, suspended equipment modules and anti-vibration mountings.  Retrofits to 949s would require extensive (and expensive) rebuilds.

Some tech such as active-noise cancelling might be feasible, but would be all-new designs and configurations to account for the radically different vibrational modes and noise sources of the 949. Again, expensive to retrofit.

No, I think the 949s will remain noisier than the new boats, and by a significant margin, so they need to deploy a primary weapon system that can be used to strike the seppo enemy at great range so they can remain safe from hostiles.

They don't need to be as stealthy as Yasen. Their job is to launch missiles 500km away. Again sonars have useful ranges of 10-30km. Above that they would detect only high speed torpedos or very old SSN. Oscar are more stealthy than first Akula and almost on par with upgraded Akulas.

What they need is more missiles and not bigger missiles so that they are sure they can saturate AEGIS systems.

The overall results are the best answer
They fucked each and any time when challenged.
In a controlled environment of the latest tests, the success rate used to be 50% or below.
How do you consider it would work with all the countermeasures applied?

This nonsense again?

Kinzhal is not Iskander

Of course... they are totally different...

The Iskander is a solid fuelled rocket that is designed to be a precision guided hypersonic manouvering rocket that flys a specific flight path on the way to the target and perform evasion manouvers when enemy air defence radars are detected to make interception difficult specifically for SEAD roles defeating enemy air defence systems and is about 7m long and about 4 tons in weight with a payload of about 500kgs.... took decades to develop but was largely based on the OKA or SS-23 Spider ballistic missile.

Kinzhal a solid fuelled rocket that is designed to be a precision guided hypersonic manouvering rocket that evades enemy air defences for SEAD type targets like AEGIS cruisers and the carriers they escort, it is about 7m long and about 4 tons in weight with a payload of about 500kgs and was developed very very quickly.

The Iskander from a stationary ground launch can reach targets at about 500km with a flight speed of about mach 6-7.

Kinzhal is launched from an aircraft flying at over Mach 2.2 at an altitude that likely exceeds 15kms and achieves a flight range of 2,000km and a speed of mach 9-10.

Yeah... different as night at day...

No air intake on either missile so we know they must be rocket powered... the difference in speed and range would be perfectly normal for a solid rocket motor powered weapon being ground launched and being air launched.

Not that it is important but the Wiki entry suggests the Kinzhal is based on the Iskander, though it talks about stages and neither missile seems to be multi stage.

What they need is more missiles and not bigger missiles so that they are sure they can saturate AEGIS systems.

I think what he is getting at is that if speed can make a lot of difference and it seems to... then adapting an older much bigger and much heavier missile to new fuels and new propulsion systems could lead to these very high speeds.

Obviously new materials would need to be used to make them... you couldn't just change fuel in a vulcan and that is all.

The point is that a ramjet and a scramjet are not much different except the fuel burning capacity and of course square intakes make adapting to different speeds easier for scramjets while ramjets often have round MiG-21 type intakes because they are simple too... just move the centre nose cone forward or back to change the volume of air flowing through.

Scramjets clearly need the rather more precise control of a square intake and intake ramps etc.

By taking a Vulcan and replacing the ramjet with a scramjet and new fuel, not only would you massively increase top speed, but also massively increase range.

The scramjet will enable much higher speeds to be achieved but the increase in size would allow a lot more fuel and therefore that much higher speed to be maintained for longer...

Just as a rule of thumb say Zircon is 2.5 tons and of that say 2 tons is fuel... so flying at mach 10 for 1,200km means that... simplifying things... say the initial solid rocket booster accelerates both missiles to top speed very quickly, so the Zircon will be flying at 3.2km/s for about 375 seconds (just over 6.2 minutes) to move 1,000km on 2 tons of fuel. Vulcan, being about 7 tons could be 6 tons of fuel... so three times more so the scramjet will burn for three times longer... so ignoring that it would also likely be going faster (and also slower at the start when it is very heavy), then that means enough fuel to run the scramjet for 1,125 seconds, or about 18 and three quarter minutes.

That means a Vulcan with a scramjet and new fuel that weighs 7 tons could travel for 1,125 seconds at mach 10 which is 3.2km/s, which is 3,600km... which would be quite a handy stand off launch range for older ships and older subs.

It wont have the effect of a dozen Zircons, but any ship it does hit will not continue the fight... Russia does not need to sink every US and HATO ship... attacking a few key ships will lead to that carrier battle group to turn around and sail away from combat after they rescue as many of their sailors as they can.

Modernization requires funds needed elsewhere. For building new subs for example. Perhaps modernized 949AM are going to be used more in land operation support roles (48 kalibers salvo?)

They might fill it with Ovtet anti sub missiles and have it make lots of noise to attract enemy subs and then start slamming them with 48 rocket powered anti sub missiles...

The upgrade of Granit probably would not be worth it as it is out of production AFAIK... they will likely use remaining missiles in exercises and training MIG-31 crews trying to shoot down enemy missiles.

For the Vulcan it might be worth it for the remaining Slava class ships so they can keep their existing launchers, but I am not sure... probably not worth the effort... you certainly can't just take a mach 2 aircraft and pop out the engine and put in a new engine and replace the fuel type and expect it to be fine flying at mach 10... it would melt and be destroyed in mid air at half that speed...

I would say leave them as Vulcans and just make Zircons to replace Granits or perhaps long range land attack cruise missiles instead.

That would be perfectly logical and sensible use for them.

Even without modification they are powerful weapons able to seriously threaten most ships from any navy.

It would be unusual for a sub to still be competitive after 10 years in service without any upgrades or improvements so this improvement for 10 years is fine because in 4-5 years they will be getting new weapons and equipment that will likely improve them for the next 10 years too.