Project 949A: Oscar-II

From Rubin http://www.ckb-rubin.ru/en/projects/naval_engineering/nuclear_powered_cruise_missile_submarines/

In 1980s, the third generation nuclear submarines, Projects 949 (Oscar I) and 949A (Oscar II), armed with anti-ship cruise missiles were built to Rubin's designs. These submarines feature high underwater speed, excellent manoeuvrability, easy control, considerable diving depth and low noise. The option to fire all missiles in one salvo backed with the satellite target designation ensure selectivity and accuracy in reaching sea targets with cruise missiles. During continuous patrols, submarine habitability is supported by research-proved environment (air, humidity, temperature, etc.), medical care, alimentation and recreation.

Advanced concepts implemented in Projects 949 and 949A found solid proof in operation.

That salvo firing capability is pretty much phenominal , say at 400 km from CBG it can fire all 24 Missile at the target based on Satellite Data or Data from its own Passive Sonar and just sprint out at 30 knots.

A CBG facing 24 Shipwreck approaching at her is really a tough nut.

That salvo firing capability is pretty much phenominal , say at 400 km from CBG it can fire all 24 Missile at the target based on Satellite Data or Data from its own Passive Sonar and just sprint out at 30 knots.

A CBG facing 24 Shipwreck approaching at her is really a tough nut.

Yes Austin moreover taking in consideration the offensive/defensive features that was implemented in the design :

One lead missile per every 24 in the salvo flies at high altitude to reconnoiter the target, using its radar in active and passive modes. The active mode is used in quick "looks," then turned off to increase the penetration probability. The lead missile assigns targets to all subordinate missiles and communicates with the other lead missiles in the massive salvo to coordinate the attack. To achieve this, the missile is equipped with a powerful digital computer with three processors.
The missile has an onboard integrated electronic-countermeasures suit for avoiding enemy anti-missile attacks using a combination of maneuver and deception jamming. The computer could order the missile to one of various stored courses with multiple altitudes. At high altitude, the missile speed is Mach 2.5, while at low (sea-skimming) altitude, it is Mach 1.5. Vital parts of the missile are armored to increase penetration against fire from Phalanx-type close-in weapon systems and against fragments of closely exploding air-defense missiles. The missile has a nuclear warhead with a selectable yield of 200 or 350 kT, or a conventional 750 kg unitary shaped charge, or bomblets (primary for anti-ship attack, but also useable against land targets: 750 x 1 kg, a mix of incendiary, AP, HE, which can be varied to meet requirements).

Returning to the center of this topic we can say that ,at the end of the day, the question of P-500/P-700 and P-1000 of theirs outstanding capabilities and theirs unique CONOPS, is exactly the same linked to subamrines/ships employing a weapon like RPK-7 weapons against enemy submarines.

Sometimes we hear some people making very naive assumptions (questioning the utility of missiles with 500-600 or 700 km of range) simply because in theirs brain become totally unconceivable that a weapons carried on a particular platform could employ target positional coordinates coming from dozen if not hundres sensor suits external to its structure. ; so the usual naive question you ear from those scarcely informed people is " What is the point to have a so devastating and complex weapon capable to strike at over 600 km of distance if the radar horizon of the ship carrying it is 70-80 km at maximum ? ...Those Soviet was completely mad ".

Yes Shipwreck is one big missile , its a pity they are replacing it with smaller Onisk.

Also i have learnt Yasen does not carry 65 cm TT , so only 533 mm TT

Austin wrote:Yes Shipwreck is one big missile , its a pity they are replacing it with smaller Onisk.

Also i have learnt Yasen does not carry 65 cm TT , so only 533 mm TT

Well I dont think Onix lost any of Granits goodies.

Mindstorm wrote:

Returning to the center of this topic we can say that ,at the end of the day, the question of P-500/P-700 and P-1000 of theirs outstanding capabilities and theirs unique CONOPS, is exactly the same linked to subamrines/ships employing a weapon like RPK-7 weapons against enemy submarines.

I read that Soviets employed number of IR/radar/optical satellites to track US CBG and to have clear picture what was going on on the battlefield. System was called Legenda. It was conceived to work with Granit missile as would give it coordinates of CBG. Those would than be relayed to ground based stations or directly to submarines. Im not sure if those info could be directly feed in the missile allowing Oscars to run away in safety and providing missiles with info.

Those where monstrosuos systems by that time. Also info could be shared by Tu-95/22M3 and all others.

I think you guys are missing a serious point... when the Granit was made... in the Early 1980s... which you might not remember, but I certainly do.

I had a book on computers and it said beware of people trying to sell you a 64K computer, because you will never type that much in a week. 32K computers are fine.

Now let me clarify... back then there were no computer shops, there were radio and electronic shops, but they didn't sell computer software till later on.

You got computer software in a book shop... and it was in computer magazines that listed the programs, which you bought and took home and typed out.

Floppy drives were too expensive and hard drives were simply not an option.

In fact by the time the IBM PC came out the 3.5 in floppy was brand new technology... which is why they are the A: drive, because the older 5 1/4 in drive were much larger physically but with the same or less capacity, so the 5 1/4 drive became the B: for all those people who had lots of the old 5 1/4 disks for previous computers.

The Hard Drives came much later.

I remember getting a tape drive... which was basically an audio cassette tape player that could be connected up to the computer. You typed out the program and then saved it to tape... it sounded like that screech you heard with the old dial up internet connections and I guess they were the same thing really.
Once you had saved it onto tape and recorded the position you could later on position the tape in the right place and press play and then press start on the computer and it would upload the software so you didn't have to type it all out again every time you wanted to play... Amazing technology.

Anyway... a modern missile with all sorts of two way datalinks, a high resolution radar and modern electronics and a vew thousand million lines of code today will likely be even more smart and tricky and capable...

The Oniks is a very long and relatively slim aerodynamic weapon that uses a ramjet propulsion system instead of the turbojet of the Granit, so I would rather suspect that the reduction in weight is largely due to the removal of an engine that weighs about 1 ton and its replacement by an hollow tube with a few moving bits and fuel lines that is a ramjet.

The advantage of the Oniks of course is that a much wider range of platforms can now carry it, unlike the Granit which was carried by only the largest vessels in the Russian fleet. Now even corvettes carry UKSK launchers...

WoW .. thats a nice find. Tnx.

So now we will see drastic increase of Oscar class subs. Good. They are mighty.

Belgorod will be completed as special purpose sub, we already knew that. Not sure what he means by others to be completed- the leftover hulls at Sevmash sure as hell won't be, they are way too far from completion. I guess this is general intention to keep the boats around, like they have said in the past. The fleet has already been going overhaul/light modernization + modest life increase, and when that resource runs out, they are planned to be in dock for a more thorough modernization (the one that will replace main battery).

This 1,500km range missile is very interesting, because sub launched Klub is known to have a range of 2,500km.

The mention of the US ABM system is perhaps the clue.

I rather suspect the Oscar class is being revitalised with Klubs, not for land attack... which would of course be pointless in attacking land based assets like the radars and command centres that control the ABM systems because the flight times of cruise missiles are measured in hours rather than minutes.

To be effective in an ABM role I rather suspect they are talking about the anti ship versions of Klub for domestic use that wont have its range limited by export treaties and agreements, and considering the targets will be US AEGIS class ships in the Northern sea and the Arctic ocean under the flight path of Russian ICBMs then I can only assume the plan is for the Mach 3 anti ship model of Klub, which it seems has a range of 1,500km in the domestic version which I would assume means a fairly long 1,450km subsonic flight... much of the initial flight at medium altitude to conserve fuel and increase average flight speed, till it gets to near the radar horizon of the target ships and drops down and probably performs horizontal turns till it gets to the radar horizon of the target and then launches is solid rocket powered terminal section with guidance system and payload at mach 2.9 at very low level.

Obviously the modern AEGIS class vessels will be a tough nut to crack, so I rather suspect that rumours of 36 or 72 Klubs per tube might not be an exaggeration as the more missiles it can direct at the targets the more the targets will be directing their radars down instead of up.

Another aspect is that I would prefer the Oscars to be Oscars and not frankenstein Boreis or Yasens.

Oscar-2 Noise level is quite respectable lower than Akula-1 , Check US Navy Intelligence Estimates ( ONI )



Oscar-2 submarine will be upgraded with Kalbir and Onisk missile and noise level will be reduced.

That chart is meaningless, to be honest.

WHat basis do you have for saying they are noisy?

TR1 wrote:That chart is meaningless, to be honest.

They are just trends on how noise has progressed on Broad Band spectrum , its not avery accurate figure and thats the closest you get for any official acknowledgment

The Russian Navy is way ahead of you George1...

The old single purpose dedicated tubes are being replaced by UKSK type tubes that can carry and launch all new naval cruise missiles... including antiship, land attack, and anti submarine.

The new hypersonic 1,000km range missiles for the Yasen will likely be compatible too as they will almost certainly be very long and slim missiles.

Just looking at the modules for the UKSK launcher I rather suspect that if you wanted to fit a very large missile you could replace 4 tubes with a single very large missile so a single UKSK launcher bin with 8 missile tubes could carry two very heavy missiles too.

Perhaps this new missile, though by all reports it is suggested that the new cruise missile for the Yasen will be carried in its 24 tube vertical launchers. This would suggest to me that it is similar in size to Granit and might be a Granit with a ramjet propulsion. Note Moskit and Onyx are much smaller lighter missiles, with Moskit 4.5 tons and Onyx 2.5 tons,and Granit at 7 tons.

If this new weapon is 7 tons with ramjet propulsion then the development of scramjet technology from the Brahmos II program could be applied to this new weapon and greatly increase performance further.

George1 wrote: UKSK type tubes will be installed in Oscar II also? I thought they would just replace P-700 with Yakont

No UKSK on Oscar-2 , the granit launcher or a modified variant can accomodate 3 Kalbir or 3 Onisk

The current trend is to overhaul and extend life span of Anteiis by several years.
The Voronezh, and now the Smolensk, are examples of this.
The experience of this short modernization will be, according to Zvezdochka, be used to modernize/overhaul Bars attack boas.

Later in the decade, we will see the more radical re-armament of the vessels, bringing them up to latest standards. The hulls are good and very spacious, plenty of space for modernization.
I think this is excellent development which will allow numbers to be kept up (let's be honest, there won't be quite enough 885s even by 2020), give repair shipyards work, and keep the Russian Navy's trump card, underwater strike forces.

Τhat means 72 Oniks/Kalibr missiles?

Not confirmed AFAIK.

The original Oscar and Oscar II vessels dind't have 24 launchers for Granit, they had 12 twin missile launchers... 6 on each side with 6 main hatch doors.

The question is, when they say they can fit a triple Onyx launcher in the space of each Granit twin launcher, or each Granit missile.

Sounds cool that it might be adapted to carry 72 missiles in place of the 24, and in terms of weight it shouldn't be a problem as the Granit is 7.5 tons while Onyx is 2.5 in the air launched model and about 3.5 tons in the sub launched model. It will be heavier but we are not talking about triple the weight here.

I personally think the new triple pack of missiles is to replace the twin launcher, so the missile load will be 36, which is not as good as 72, but still better than 24.

The original Granit hunted in packs of 12, but I would expect the improved datalink capabilities of the Onyx should allow a volley of 36 missiles for each target if not more.

(Note they could launch hundreds of Granits at a target, but all 100 would not work together for the kill... you would have 8 groups of 12 missiles each working together and 4 missiles working together, so 9 missiles would climb and look for targets and pass targeting data down to the other missiles in the group and back to the launch vessels via satellite link, with all 100 attacking the battlegroup...

Experts suppose Antei-class submarines will be armed with new cruise missiles with range up to 1,500 km.

In particular, the newspaper cites Capt 1 rank (retired) Konstantin Sivkov, vice president of Geopolitics Academy saying that Antei-class subs would be equipped with Caliber missiles in order to destroy missile defense assets deployed in Europe.

The subsonic all the way land attack Kalibre has a range of 2,500km... I suspect a 1,500km range model could be the two stage supersonic version... which they might use to breach defences the subsonic model might not be able to penetrate. Alternatively it could be the assets they are talking about countering are AEGIS class cruisers, for which a mach 3 terminal stage might be the best weapon to distract the targets to look down when they should be looking up...

Well.anyway anything new related to Granit ? did they get upgrades or simply retired..replaced with something new ?

In terms of 949?

Still serving.

The Kuznetsov will likely lose its Granit launchers during its major overhaul. I rather suspect that vessels they want to retain long range anti ship capability, like Oscar class subs, and Kirov class capital ships that rather than upgrade Granit, they will more likely install launchers/adapters to allow Onyx missiles to be fitted in their place.

Remember that Oniks and Brahmos are the same size and basic shape, so when Brahmos II is ready with its scramjet propulsion and mach 6+ flight speed the Russian Navy can switch production from Onyx to Brahmos II but with no flight range restriction, so in many ways it will be Onyx II.

There is also talk of a replacement rocket based hypersonic missile they are working on, which makes sense and is possibly a backup in case there are problems or limitations with Brahmos II.

Certainly if Brahmos II is totally successful then it could become the standard heavy high speed AShM with UKSK launchers on subs and ships and of course adaptation for Flanker, PAK FA, and Su-34, and of course Tu-22M3M and Tu-142M/Tu-95MSM use for anti shipping roles, and as a shore based system to replace Yakhont/Onyx.

TR1 wrote:In terms of 949?

Still serving.

I see..thanks

And one more question.. is there still any prospect of saturation missile strike against ..say carrier fleet protected by ships that uses active radar homing missiles or at least SARH guided missile that uses phased array illuminator in the manner of Nederland's APAR.

As far as i know.. the bottleneck of the previous gen AEGIS system with AN/SPG-52/62 combo was limitations on how many missiles that can be guided simultaneously against a target (AEGIS cruiser only carries 4 AN/52, Arly carries 3)..having phased array radar or active missiles essentially eliminates this bottleneck ..as it allows the ship to engage more targets.