Project 971 nuclear-powered submarine
Posted on 07/02/2006 5:56:27 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
N-sub for Indian Navy goes on trial in Russian seas
PTI
Saturday, July 01, 2006 19:43 IST
MOSCOW: A Nerpa nuclear-powered submarine to be leased to the Indian Navy has begun sea trials.
The submarine, which went on sea trials on June 24, would be leased to the Indian Navy after its formal induction in to the Russian Pacific Fleet next year, Vedomosti daily reported on Saturday.
The Amursky Shipyard based in Komsomolsk-on-Amur just across the Chinese border launched the construction of Nerpa nuclear-power submarine (project 971, type Shchuka-B) in 1991.
"The contract concluded with India (around 2004) on completing the construction and leasing of this submarine along with another submarine of the same type also constructed by the Amursky Shipyard to the Indian Navy led to renewal of the construction," the daily writes noting the secret character of the deal.
Many times Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov has avoided answering the question whether such contract has been concluded with India.
"In India the programme is coded as 'the perspective warship,' its financial implications are also not revealed.”
“According to an official of one of the defence enterprises, India will spend not less than USD 400 million on completion of the construction of submarines," the daily said.
Project 971 nuclear-powered submarine
India is getting screwed by buying all this old Russian junk.
Did the Rooskies throw in a lead cup for each crewman ?
They just finished building it. It's new Russian junk.
& Pray, who will sell SSNs or assist India in making such vessels???????
Throwing your lot in with the autocratic backstabbing russians is suicide if a global conflict ever happens. You are choosing the wrong side. Im sure the US would build nuke subs for India if it wanted to buy them.
A US SSN would cost about 10 times as much as a Russian SSN.
(Of course, it would be safer for the crew, and better)
The Soviet Union leased a Charlie class SSGN to India back in the 80's I think. Most of their Navy is Soviet built or Soviet equipped or Soviet influenced.
mark, to get the nuke deal itself has been a great challenge. do you think US senate will ever approve sale of nuke subs to India? never.
and rukies, even if they sell junk, they sell it at the price of junk! and with them we have a 'trusty' after sales support. not the same with US. case in point: F-16s of Pakistan AF. in 90s, they have been grounded due to non-availability of spares. so as a weapons supplier, US is not as trustworthy as rukies. this is just my opinion, not all of India's.
Is this the Akula class nuclear sub?
They could try designing and building their own. That's what we did.
After all, they have droves of engineers training right here in the good ol' US of A.
This isnt junk. I am more worried about Russia selling these to the Chicoms.
building a nuke sub aint easy. i believe the indians already have plans to build one on their own.
I heard that India was going to bid for Subs that were supposed to be built for the Chicoms. I am sure the Russians would be uneasy selling these to the Chinese. Any idea??
(N)Ping.......
I never said it was easy. We've been building them for 45 years now, though.
That's already happening.But having a boat in ready service helps in a lot of ways.
Ive heard very little about Russia building or leasing N-subs to China.The PRC may not have great subs,but they have been building these for over 30 years now.They are most probably getting technical assistance
Yes-Akula 2 class I think.
I read somewhere that Chinese are acquiring (or in process of acquiring) the Sovremenny class or the Typhoon class subs.
They have brought Sovremennys-2 older versions & 2 newer ones.There have only been rumours about Typhoon sales/lease.These subs are pretty old & they would anyway need to develop missiles for those.The Russians though have reportedly given considerable assistance to the Chinese Type-094 class SSBN programme.
India is doing just that which is why this Akula is for lease,not purchase.The problem with waiting for indegnious technology is that you can do little to cover up existing gaps.Even the most optimistic estimates say that it will be after 2012 that 2 Indian built N-subs can be deployed.The Akulas are hence needed to bolster numbers esp with India buying & building new aircraft carriers.
You mean the Sovremenny destroyers? I believe the answer is yes and they come equipped with the sunburn missiles. I dont know about the Typhoons. Are they are meant to be a short term replacement for the Xia subs?
Maybe the price is lower? Or maybe India remembers that USA sided with Pakistan all these years when it was Soviet Union and then Russia which sided with India?
This might be a factor too. Russia is not so quick to impose sanctions on her clients.
Or maybe we dont want to give them Nuclear Subs just yet. :-). Remember that India and the US are just starting a strategic relationship. The Russians on the other hand have no problem in trusting the indians and giving them nuclear subs.
if it is old ruskie junk how come it was able like the rest of thr ruskie junk defeat US tech in wars against pakistan
If someone sinks their sub, or it is lost in an accident, do they have to pay for it? Or is it insured? Do they get to lease a new one?
The idea of leasing weapons is a bit strange to me...
Hard to know about those specifics.From the little that has been said of the newly built Akula-2 subs,it's been bandied that India has financed the construction of 2 boats.So that almost sounds like a 'lease-then-buy' agreement.
Because they were up against Pakistanis using old US tech.
I believe the Indians are also using T-90 Russian tanks. The crews have rigged them up so they can fire the main gun from outside because they tend to blow up. The only thing that should be bought from the Russian arms industry was designed by General Kalashnikov.
& you base your statement on your extensive association with the Indian Army armoured formations,right?
Actually,India & Pakistan more or less had technological parity for most of their early wars.If anything,the Pakis had superior tanks & aircraft upto 1965.
Just repeating what I've read here and elsewhere. Are you saying that India has not had issues with their Russian tanks?
Yes,they have had issues,but not of the kind you seem to imply.A good chunk of the problems like the failure of imported Euopean thermal imaging sets & low quality munitions can't be blamed on the tanks.
Some folks on here sure do get testy when Commie gear gets badmouthed.
The article says their leasing it.
A lot of folks on here sure love shooting their mouth off without knowing what they are talking about.
However if you matched apples to apples (in both equipment and training) then the 'crap' is not as crappy as you lead us to believe. The usual matchup analogy i like to bring up is what would happen if Indian Russian-made Sukhoi-30MKIs flew against Pakistani US-made F-16As. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel! But does that mean that the F-16 is crap ...nope, that plane has proved itself over and over and over again.
It is just that in that one situation, in the format that the Pakistanis currently have it in (they are supposed to buy newer versions with far better missiles), and against that specific adversary (Indian SU-30MKIs backed by Phalcon AWACs), the Pakistani F-16s would literally be nothing more than targets.
Similar thing when looking at the performance of (say) Iraqi MiG-29 Fulcrums against the USAF! The MiGs had zero chance of doing anything. For the matter, you could have given the Iraqis F-15Cs and the results would have been the same .....a very short lifespan for any pilot who took off.
Now, Russian equipment does have inherent problems, for instance the level of quality doesn't matchup against that offered by the West on an apple-to-apple basis. But calling it junk, particularly based on combat performance against opponents who were vastly superior, is simply misleading. In many of those cases you could actually give our enemies similar US equipment (e.g. give the Iraqi airforce F-15s and F-16s, and give the Iraqi mechanized divisions Abrams tanks) and the result would have been 100% the same. Vanquished Iraqis and victorious US Armed Forces. Our training and support is simply far more superior than anything available in the world .....the fact that we also have superlative equipment is SIMPLY icing on (a very good) cake.
Anyways, the AKula + that the Indian navy is getting is not junk. It will literally dominate the area once India receives it. And once you consider that the potential foes for India are nations like Pakistan and China (and NOT the United States or Japan) then it becomes obvious that this sub WILL BE lethal. There is a tendency in FR for FReepers to instantly compare any foreign military purchases with the best that the US can offer (e.g. when the MiG-35 was offered to India some posters started referring to it as 'Raptor bait,' when the fact of the matter is that Indian warplanes will probably never face USAF/USN warplanes in anger).
India is not trying to get a sub that can go against USN Carrier groups (although that was actually the original intent of the AKula when the idea was initialized during Soviet times). India is getting the sub as a buffer against China and Pakistan.
In that content, it is not junk.
While it would probably be outclassed by an American Seawolf or Virginia-class sub, I seriously doubt that India and the US are planning on getting into a shooting war anytime soon. At the same time, the Akula-2 should be more than a match for any Pakistani submarine it might go up against in an actual combat situation. In addition, it should be able to hold its own against pretty much any Chinese subs that it might encounter.
Do you have any idea of the timeline for India to build its first homegrown nuke? I know that they are going to town on the preparations for building their first carrier (the keel laying is scheduled for October), but I haven't heard anything about their submarine program.
It took them 16 years to build it?
Atleast they decided to complete it-look at the number of abandoned building projects they have!!!
The Akula-2 or any Indian N-sub won't bother with Pakistan.There are enough Indian SSKs based on the West Coast & they could in theory carry Tomahawk sized cruise missiles or even surface ships.These ships are more likely to be deployed on the Eastern Coast of India for possible deterrence against China.I don't know whether India will send it's N-subs prowling off the South China Sea given it's minimum nuke deterrence policy.
India in principal began a programme to build N-subs in the 70s under Indira Gandhi,culminating in a lease of a Soviet Sub by her son .Very little concrete info is available on the Indian ATV programme other than it is making some progress with Russian help on it's reactor & that it is being built at Vizag on the East Coast(not Mumbai which builds SSKs) with possible date for operations around 2010 or later.The weird thing is that there could be around 3 sub building lines in India by 2010-2 for 2 different SSK models(one French & one Russian) & one for the ATV!!!
Interesting thing is that it's becoming more open for defence companies to hawk their wares for it.A few years ago,Israel said it would help India in it's N-sub programme & last year Thales said it was offering optronic masts for it.So let's wait & see!!!
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031211/world.htm#5
Israel may help India in N-sub project
Jerusalem, December 10
Israel has expressed willingness to cooperate with India in its nuclear submarine programme, Israeli defence sources said.
This understanding was reached during the visit of a high-level technical team from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) headed by the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, Dr V.K. Aatre, towards the end of last month, the sources said.
The development could possibly mean an end to Indo-Russian cooperation in this field as Israel rapidly progresses towards becoming India’s main source for defence procurements. India had leased for three years a Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine, INS Chakra in 1988, but returned it after the expiry of the lease. It had in 2000 announced new negotiations with Russia. — UNI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1662678/posts
Thales UK offers to sell sub-systems for India's N-subs
Good synopsis here....
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