GarryB wrote:
It really depends on their goals... if the goal is to make a smaller lighter slightly less well armed submarine that can be produced and operated in much greater numbers because of a smaller crew and better automation and systems then it might be worth the reduction in weapons per boat to increase the available weapon numbers at sea per fleet.
With the Kilo to Lada move the Lada is as well armed as the Kilo, if not more so, with a lighter sub with a much smaller crew... if they can get it doing what they intend it to be able to do it is an excellent trade off in most terms.
The replacement for the Yasen is a bit like the Borey replacement for the Akula... there was little chance Borey could carry more SLBMs than Akulas, but the idea was that instead of having 6 Akulas you could have 12 Boreys.
Having more attack cruise missile subs is probably more useful than having fewer with more weapons per boat.
Some new technologies they might be able to add on to any old design, while other technologies will require to be part of the design before the sub hits the water for the first time.
Obviously without knowing what these new technologies might be this is all very speculative, but in terms of stealth you can't create a stealth fighter by adding stealth stuff to a non stealthy design. You can only get a MiG-29 or Su-27 so far when it comes to being stealthy because fundamentally they carry their ordinance externally and the lines and shaping of the wings and bits was not created originally with stealth in mind.
The first MiG-29s were criticised because the gaps between the surface panels were so big you could get your finger into them... but obviously surface drag is not effected by such things anyway so in terms of performance it didn't matter... and in terms of cost to make... it made them cheaper and easier to make because the tolerances were quite large. When stealth becomes a factor however that is a problem and a problem they sorted out.
the size of the ship does not determine its cost or the complexity of construction.
A Yasen and a Husky will have similar prices and build times if they carry similar weapons systems, reactor size and power, command and control, sonar, etc.
In fact the first 3 Boreys were made from sections of Akulas, the difference is the length of the submarine, the section has a similar width in the AKulas, Yasen and Boreys
The Akulas are 110 to 113 meters long, the Yasen-M 130 (The first 139 m.) and the Borey 160 m. the first three and 170 m. the Borey-A.
However, the maximum width is about 13 meters in all cases, the design of the section being very similar, since it is necessary to insert the systems, missile launchers, nuclear reactors, etc....
The difference is in the number of sections that are added, the submarine being more or less long, to accommodate more or less weapons, more or less crew.
If you make a submarine similar to the Yasen-M with the length of an Akula, you only lose weapons capacity, you cut the missile launchers VLS in half. In the rest the submarine will be fundamentally the same and will have a price and construction time not very different
For example, the difference between the first Yasen and the Yasen-M is that they are more modern and automated , which reduces the crew from more than 90 to only 64 people, therefore the reduction in the need for crew living space determines a decrease. in the size of the ship with the same features, being able to reduce the length from 139 to 130 meters.
Submarines of previous generations had different widths because they had a different structure, about 10 meters in the 2nd generation and 8 meters in the 1st generation.
ALAMO wrote:
Talking about "fewer weapons" requires a wider comment. The truth is that Russian subs usually carried more weapons than their opponents. French Rubis class nuclear attack sub carries only 14 (fourteen!) units, mixed SM39 and F17. Kilo has 18 pcs being about the same size and conventional...
Vanilla 688 carried 25 pcs, while the newer Trafalgar class - 30. Soviet 971 class carries 40 pcs, while 945 - up to 45 ...
Taking that as a base, we can inspect closer a hunter submarine of the 705 project, that carried 18 pcs indeed, but was much, much more compact rather than other nuclear subs. Equal to small Rubis...
Considering today's technology, replacing 650mm tubes with huge ammunition, and adding VLS compartments, I suppose one can get a 30-40 pcs of on board ammunition even for relatively small submarine, like 3000+ ton.
That is not possible nor will it happen, submarines will grow in weapons capacity and length. You are not going to build a nuclear submarine the size of a conventional one so that it carries few weapons.
Close range combat between submarines in the middle of the ocean is a thing of the past that rarely happened in reality beyond movies like "The Hunt for Red October".
In addition, Russia can use the Varshavyanka and Lada for this purpose in areas near the coasts.
The US Virginias have grown from 115 meters and a VLS for 12 missiles to
140 meters in the V block, adding an additional VLS section for 28 more missiles, totaling 40 missiles plus 25 weapons in the torpedo compartment in both cases.
However the Virginia width is only about 10 meters, similar to Victor class of 2nd generation
Surprisingly, it has an astronomical crew of 135 people, more than double the crew of the Yasen-M.
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
