Extraordinary Russian Comments on Typhoon submarines to carry 200 cruise missiles

It being more than a week to April Fool’s Day the Russian Government still floated the possibility that  two mothballed Typhoon SSBNs might be converted into enormous SSGNs. As the particular Typhoons have been in corrosive seawater "storage" for 13 to 15 years - updating and modifying them might take more than 5 years and cost $Billions that the Russians do not have.

ARTICLE

Defense World.Net

 http://www.defenseworld.net/news/24507/Two_Russian_Typhoon_class_Subs_To_Carry_200_Kalibr_Missiles#.XJQ2uiIzbX5 on March 21, 2019 reports:

"Two Russian Typhoon-Class Subs To Carry 200 Kalibr Missiles"

"Two Russian Typhoon-class submarines, Arkhangelsk [launched 1986, decommissioned 2006, “still in reserve”] and the Severstal [launched 1989, decommissioned 2004, “still in reserve”] will be rearmed and developed in order to enable them to carry 200 Kalibr missiles each.

The Project 941 or Typhoon-class submarines had been withdrawn from service and kept at the dock of the Zvyozdochka Ship Repair Center in Severodvinsk [Russia’s Northern Fleet complex] slated for their subsequent disposal.

“We now plan to re-equip these submarines with [probably mainly land attack, but also anti-ship] Oniks, Tsirkon [aka Zircon] and 200 Kalibr missiles,” TASS reported [on the Typhoons also confusingly called “Akulas” in Russia] quoting Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev as saying [March 20, 2019].

"The dimensions of these submarines allow arming each of them with at least 200 cruise missiles," he said.

“American Ohio-class submarines can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Chinese Project 055 destroyer is capable of carrying 112 cruise missiles. But our frigates belonging to the Project 22350 can currently carry only 16 of them. Subsequent frigates will get 24 of them. It is still insufficient,” he added.

Russia has also begun developing a modernized frigate under Project 22350, that is capable of carrying 48 Kalibr cruise missiles.

"The Northern Design Bureau has completed designing frigates of Project 22350M capable of carrying up to 48 Kalibr cruise missiles,” TASS quoted a source from the design bureau as saying Sunday.

The Kalibr missileswere used by Russia in Syrian operations [and see]. The Kalibr is Russian group of surface ship-, submarine-launched and airborne anti-ship and coastal anti ship (AShM), land attack cruise missiles (LACM) and anti-submarine missiles.

The country also plans to develop ground-launched, longer range version of the Kalibr cruise missile in 2019-2020, Sputnik quoted Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying in early February [2019].

The longer range version could be in excess of 310 mile range which is the limit imposed under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.”

COMMENT

The Russian plan might be authentic and perhaps more importantly also hold propaganda value to exceed the cruise missile capacity of each US Ohio-class SSGN. The rather vague Russian comments are surprising as the two mothballed, by now very rusty, very old Typhoons (Arkhangelsk and Severstal) have sat in water virtually forgotten for over 13 years.

The major modifications of converting Typhoon SSBNs into SSGNs might be to:

-  treat and/or derust each Typhoon's massive steel outer hull and Titanium its multiple inner-pressure hulls. Russia may have lost the highly expensive industrial capability to work Titanium for submarines.  

-  heavily modify each of the Typhoons 20 x single ballistic missile (just over 2.4m diameter launch tubes into 20 unique multipurpose tubes that can each carry 10 Kalibr cruise missiles.

-  develop a thoroughly modernised combat system electronics suite for the major change of weaponry. 

-  and probably replace the corroded? defueled? 2 x 33 year old nuclear reactors on each Typhoon.

The cost of updating the 30+ year old Typhoon “Arkhangelsk” and Severstal” in question may be more expensive than building 2 new current/modified Russian Borei class SSGNs.

Russia already has Kilos, Oscars, Akulas and Yasens that can already fire Kalibr cruise missiles. Large Oscars (eg. the Project 949AM variant will (Starshiy advises) be able to vertically launch 64 Kalibr missiles as well as Oniks and Zircon. The first Oscar with this Kalibr capability is K-132 Irkutsk (which may come into service in 2021, followed by K-442 Chelyabinsk and K-456 Tver.

So the benefit of Typhoon SSGNs may be mainly Putin phallic propaganda.

It will be interesting if this probable Russian propaganda further encourages those in the US who have been pushing for 4 or 5 additional future Columbia class subs to be SSGNs.

(Photo above) At 24,000 tonnes (surfaced) and 48,000 tonnes (submerged) the Soviet-Russian Project 941 Typhoons (photos above and below) are the largest and most expensive submarines ever built. Expensive in part because each uses 1,000s of tonnes of Titanium for its multiple pressure hulls. Titanium is hugely expensive to mine, process, work into sheets and to weld on a 1,000s tonnes scale. Like the Titanium pressured hulled Alfas the Typhoons have been dubbed "golden submarines". Their production did much to bankrupt the unbalanced Soviet economy by the late 1980s.

Diagram above indicates the Typhoon's intricate, multiple, Titanium pressure hulls. The diagram is on several sites including “Sebastien Roblin’s,   Russia's Typhoon Submarines are the Biggest Ever (Now Armed with 200 Cruise Missiles?)” The National Interest, March 30, 2019.

Pete