Questions Thread: Russian Navy

The Tango class SSK was a good boat, but the Kilo was smaller and lighter with comparable weapons but faster.... the Tango was a good upgrade from the Foxtrot it replaced... all three... Foxtrot, Tango, and Kilo are long range conventional subs, they were all very good for their time.

Being long range subs they were (foxtrot and kilo) or would have been (Tango) popular on the export market, but the Tango never really went on the export market.

They retired the last one in 2016 which is a good innings for such a vessel.

Their operational costs are much lower than for nuke powered boats and they were more used for ambush operations in shallower waters against western SSNs, which were bigger and more cumbersome in shallow waters.

History is about to repeat with the Improved Kilos (project 636 that already replaced the early model project 877 kilos) being replaced by Ladas (Project 677).

Most SSNs are spy submarines... and Russia has its fair share of "special subs" too.

Yes, but Russia has more minesweepers than most other navies... they take the threat very seriously...

In the past I would have said Russia wouldn't care much because even if Russia was totally land locked they would still function, whereas it is the US that is heavily reliant of sea lanes operating normally for commerce to continue and feed their economy.

Now that the west has rejected them and is openly promoting the murder of Russians, Russia has to look to the rest of the world for trade and allies, so moving forward investment and spending on naval equipment is going to become much more important to their economy and their future.

The thing is that in the 1980s the Soviets developed sea mine fuses that they could attach to conventional aircraft bombs, which could be carried by normal aircraft flown out to sea and dropped as mines... shallow waters and choke points you could fly a bomber like a Tu-22M3 through that could drop three or four 3,000kg FAB-3000s that would make a big splash and then sink to the bottom and then wait for ships or subs to sail past and boom... in very shallow waters they could use FAB-100, FAB-250, FAB-500, FAB-1500... they have a wide choice of conventional dumb bombs they could fit with a tail fuse with a MAD sensor or a noise sensor...

I would say Poseidon is more impressive to be honest... and who knows... they might have a version that drops small nuclear mines as it travels to spread the destruction around.

Not sure anyone here would know and if they did I think I prefer they didn't say anyway....