Bulava SS-NX-30 SLBM
Borei class submarine
Posted on 12/22/2009 10:48:30 PM PST by myknowledge
Russia has delayed, for at least a few months, starting construction of their fourth Borei class SSBN (ballistic missile nuclear subs, or "boomers"). Russia wants to have the new Borei class boats replace the current Delta IV class SSBNs. The first Borei is already in the service, but not yet commissioned, and two others are under construction. The problem, and unofficial reason for the delay, is the inability to make the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) work. The latest Bulava test was a spectacular failure (which lit up the pre-dawn sky of northern Norway, for all to see). This was the seventh failure out of 13 tests. Some insiders quietly complain that only one of the 13 tests was an unqualified success. The situation is dire, if Russia wants to maintain an SLBM capability.
The reason for is that only eight of the twelve existing Russian Delta IV SSBNs are available for service. The Delta IVs are getting old, and have only about a decade of useful service left. Currently, it appears that the navy will get only eight Boreis. These new boats are expensive, and the navy wants to build some other expensive warships as well (carriers and attack subs).
There were many delays just getting the first of the new Borei class SSBNs built. This boat, the Yuri Dolgoruky, was launched nearly two years ago, and there were further delays in undergoing sea trials this year. Major delays were introduced because of an accident on a new Akula SSN (nuclear attack sub) a year ago. There, a sailor hit the wrong switch and accidently triggered a fire suppressant system in a compartment where several dozen people were sleeping, killing twenty of them. The safety system was poorly designed, making it too easy for someone to do what the sailor did. Such design problems are common in Russian ships, and the additional months of inspections and modifications for the Borei is another attempt to eliminate such problems. There were also some problems with welds on the hull, and with the nuclear power plant.
The Yuri Dolgoruky was supposed to have been launched over three years ago. But there were technical problems that caused more delays. Construction of the Yuri Dolgoruky began thirteen years ago, but money shortages, and technical issues, slowed progress.
The first three new Borei Class boats will be based in the Pacific. During the Cold War, most of Russias SSBNs were based in the north, at several bases east of the Norwegian border, and facing the Arctic ocean. But now Russia is spending over $350 million to expand and improve its submarine base on Kamchatka island. This will enable its new SSBNs to threaten China, as well as the United States.
The Boreis are the first new Russian boomer to enter service in 18 years, and the first new Russian sub design since the end of the Cold War. The second ship in the class, the Alexander Nevsky, is nearing completion. Construction on the third, the Vladimir Monomakh, began over two years ago.
The Boreis are closer in design to the Delta IVs, than to the more recent, and much larger, Typhoon boats. The Boreis are 558 feet (170m) long and 42 feet (13m) in diameter. Surface displacement is 15,000 tons, and 16 Bulava SLBMs are carried. Work on the Yuri Dolgoruky was delayed for several years because the first missile being designed for it did not work out. A successful land based missile, the Topol-M, was quickly modified for submarine use. This "Bulava" was a larger missile, cutting the Boreis capacity from 20 to 16 missiles. The boat also has four torpedo tubes, and twelve torpedoes or torpedo tube launched missiles. The Borei also sports a huge sonar dome in the bow.
The Boreis have a crew of 107, with half of them being officers (a common Russian practice when it comes to high tech ships like nuclear subs). Each of these boats will cost at least two billion dollars. This high cost, by Russian standards, is partly because many factories that supplied parts for Russian subs were in parts of the Soviet Union that are not now within the borders of present day Russia. So new factories had to be built. All components of the Boreis, and their missiles, will be built in Russia. A dozen (or eight) of these boats probably won't be completed for at least a decade.
The government has insisted that the Bulava will be made to work, no matter what it takes. The only alternative is to redesign the Boreis to use the existing R-29RM Sineva SLBM. Sineva is the last liquid fuel Russian SLBM in service, and is used in the current Delta class SSBNs.
This would cost billions of dollars, and delay the Boreis entering service by several years. To many, switching to the older, but more reliable, Sineva missiles seems like a reasonable move. Liquid fuel missiles are more complex than solid fuel missiles, even though they use fuel that can be stored for long periods inside the missile. Unable, for a long time, to develop the technology for solid fuel rockets, Russia made the most of this, and developed some very effective "storable liquid fuel" rockets. It was only near the end of the Cold War that Russia finally mastered the solid fuel rocket construction techniques. But only one solid fuel SLBM entered service, the huge, 90 ton R-39, for the massive Typhoon SSBNs (which are being retired because they were so expensive to operate.)
Borei boats have missile tubes designed to hold the Bulava (which is 12.1 meters long and two meters in diameter.) The Sineva, is 14.8 meters long and 1.8 meters in diameter. The additional length of the Sineva would require substantial revisions in the existing Borei, and the two under construction. The existing solid fuel SLBM that works, and is carried in the larger (and being retired as too expensive to operate) Typhoon, is the R-39, and it is huge (16 meters long and 2.4 meters in diameter.) Much too large even for a rebuilt Borei.
Many Russian officials believed that the root of all these problems was the flight of so many skilled engineers and scientists from Russian defense industries after the Soviet Union collapsed (and sales promptly dropped over 90 percent). The smart people quickly found lucrative jobs in other industries, and there has been little new blood in the last two decades. The same thing happened on the manufacturing end. During the Soviet period, defense industries had the cash to attract the most skilled manufacturing staff. No more. And the dismal Bulava test performance is yet another result of this brain drain.
Bulava SS-NX-30 SLBM
Borei class submarine
“The Boreis have a crew of 107, with half of them being officers (a common Russian practice when it comes to high tech ships like nuclear subs)”
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The high preponderance of officers is because, like the rest of the Russian military, life for enlisted men sucks so bad no one wants to be a career NCO.
Do they have another potential Kursk situation on their hands?
Still, we can not be sure what the Russians are up to. As I stated earlier, having a missile that “doesn’t work” will allow the Russians to skirt treaties that are in the pipework, even if there are compliance checks.
Dunno, but the USS THRESHER was done in by corner-cutting whereby pressurized pipes were silver-brazed rather than welded.
Russia will eventually produce a small fleet of Borei missile subs, two or three wings of Su-35 fighter bombers, and the equivalent of several corps worth of ground troops. This will provide enough nuclear capability to menace other nuclear powers and enough conventional force to intimidate smaller neighbors. This will keep the Kremiln's kleptocrats in power and their foreign bank accounts secure and growing.
Meanwhile, Russia's demographic decline will continue, its economy will remain dependent on oil and gas sales, its political institutions will be those of a failed state, and its population will be swindled by their leaders and preyed upon by criminal enterprises aligned with them. As bad as this future is, on the net, it is an improvement on that offered by the Soviet era.
Well, this arcticle is talking about problems with ordnance, not the vessel itself. Ordnance problems, like what probably sank the Kursk.
Are you for real?
Your post is wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny.
Just what do you disagree with?
let’s see
“shambolic defense industry”
shambolic based on what actually? One failed missile type?
“corrupt, predatory governing elite.”
Actually current russian government has struck massive blows to the corruption instituted during the Yeltsin years and western occupation of Russia.
“This will provide enough nuclear capability to menace other nuclear powers and enough conventional force to intimidate smaller neighbors. “
And what else is needed? You make it sound like a bad thing? Russia is not imperialistic, it has more than enough territories and resources as it is, and capabilities to defend them.
“his will keep the Kremiln’s kleptocrats in power and their foreign bank accounts secure and growing.”
funny how there is no evidence for such accounts. One would think that the western powers surely could use such information (if it existed) to discredit Putin. Not like they didn’t try to discredit him in every possible way.
“Meanwhile, Russia’s demographic decline will continue”
Actually russia’s demographic outlook has improved dramatically under Putin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Natural_Population_Growth_Trends_in_Russia.png
I suspect that is one of the reasons he is so hated on the West, the western oligarchs would love to see the Yeltsin’s disaster continue for decades.
“its economy will remain dependent on oil and gas sales”
There’s no reason why Russia would not exploit it’s riches and make a fortune on them.
Basically you spout them same old anti-Putin propaganda which we heard so much of during the last 10 years in the western liberal media, but do not offer a shred of evidence to back your claims.
Vlad, is that you? ;)
Here are a few points of evidence in addition to the problems with the Bulava ballistic missile already discussed.
-- The submarine Kursk sank in August of 2000 during a test of a defective and notoriously dangerous new model of torpedo. All aboard died, although most would likely have been saved if a prompt modern rescue effort had been mounted.
-- The Russian shipbuilding industry cannot produce a new assault ship or reliably modernize their own ships. Russia is seeking to buy a Mistral assault ship from France and has left India waiting for delivery of a refitted Soviet era aircraft carrier under a contract signed in 2004. The vessel is already two years late, the work has doubled in price, and is unlikely to be completed before 2012.
-- Russia has bought unmanned drone aircraft from Israel because domestic manufacturers lack the capability to develop their own models.
-- In 2007, Algeria tore up a contract with Russia and returned 15 Mig-29 fighter jets after complaining about their “inferior quality.” Russian aircraft have long been known for poor reliability and quality control, but rejection by a traditional customer marks a new low.
-- Russia's lagging fifth generation fighter project now requires the participation of India as a research and production partner. In light of problems with other Russian arms deals, the Indians are insisting on significant technology transfer.
-- China, which has bought much in the way of weapons and military equipment from Russia, is developing improved versions and substitutes. These are likely to capture a large slice of Russia's arms export earnings to China and other countries.
-- Russia's August 2008 conflict with Georgia exposed many problems with Russia's military, from troop and officer quality to shortcomings in weapons and equipment. The government permitted public reporting of these problems so as to spur reform efforts.
-- The Georgian conflict showed Russia's weapons, communication systems, and electronic warfare assets to be obsolete and in many cases unchanged since Soviet times. One soldier was quoted with approval as saying that "The equipment is for parades, but unfit for battle."
(2) Russia's imperialism and trouble making
Russia's attack on Georgia, the setting up of Ossetia and Abkhazia as client statelets, and the bullying and suborning of neighbors contradicts your assurances. Russia's swaggering siloviki have not reconciled themselves to the loss of empire due to the breakup of the Soviet Union and want to remake it in new form. In addition, control of the oil riches of the Caspian Sea basis is a tempting target.
In a replay of a Soviet era strategy, Russia aims to dominate Europe by becoming its primary energy supplier. In addition, by supplying Iran with weapons and nuclear technology, Russia hopes to keep the price of oil high and uncertain, thereby increasing the value of Russia' energy resources.
These strategies increase the risk of war in the Mid East and of conflicts on Russia's borders. By making Mid East oil supplies insecure, Russia also risks alienating China. As the poor performance of Russia's military in the Georgian war suggests, Russia's ambitions may exceed the grasp conferred by its conventional forces. And by spurring Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia increases the chances that her neighbors will also develop nuclear weapons as a counter to Iran.
What if the EU develops energy resources that make it independent of Russia? What if a nuclear armed Iran demands concessions from Russia in favor of her Muslim neighbors to the south? Or a Turkey with nuclear tipped missiles demands preferential access to Caspian oil? Or Poland acquires a similar nuclear capacity and aligns with China, the Ukraine, the Baltic states, and other neighbors against Russia?
Russia would be far better served by developing her own economy and conciliating with the West and her neighbors. Of course, this would require systemic reforms that would imperil the hold that Putin and his allies have over Russia.
(3) Russia's corrupt, predatory governing elite.
Corruption is endemic in Russia, with Putin at the top of the heap. He is publicly reported by Russian sources to have a personal fortune of 40 billion dollars in cash and shareholdings in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The information about Putin's wealth is believed to have originated from Medvedev's circle.
The respected anti-corruption organization Transparency International ranks Russia at 146 in the world, the same level of corruption as Cameroon, Ecuador , Kenya, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.
Getting and keeping ill gotten wealth in Russia requires determined thuggery. The ascent of Putin and his allies to control of Russia was facilitated by the bombings of apartment blocks in Moscow, Buinakrsk, and Volgadonsk in 1999, causing the deaths of hundreds of ordinary Russians. Although blamed on Chechen terrorists, there is much evidence that these bombings were the work of the FSB in order to help install Putin in power.
Putin has nearly eliminated press freedom, weakened parliament, seized control over the courts, and undermined free elections and eliminated elections for regional governors. In the past decade, at least 17 journalists in Russia have been murdered after reporting critically on the Kremlin. The dead include internationally acclaimed Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov. Attorneys and businessmen are also frequently murdered with impunity in Russia.
Foreign residence is no protection against murders openly directed from the Kremlin against regime critics. In November 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former secret agent turned Putin critic, was poisoned with radioactive polonium that was traced to Russian agents with close tied to Putin. Since polonium is expensive and requires a reactor to produce, there can be no question but that the murder of Litvinenko was approved at the highest levels.
William Browder, an American investor in Russia, the grandson of famous American communist and a Russian woman, and a former Putin ally, recently wrote in the Financial Times that:
Russia is not a “state” as we understand it. Government institutions have been taken over as conduits for private interests, some of them criminal. . . . The sharks have started to feed on their own blood.
Browder's Russian lawyer was imprisoned and, after refusing to provide false testimony against his client, was permitted to die through medical neglect.
(4) Russia’s demographic decline
Russians experience abnormally high mortality from chronic ailments: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and the like. In the rest of the developed world, death rates from these chronic diseases are low, relatively stable, and declining. In Russia, overall mortality levels are high, manifestly unstable, and rising.
Alcoholism and cigarette smoking are responsible for much of the chronic disease burden in Russia, but AIDS and tuberculosis are also rampant and poorly treated in Russia. Moreover, death from accidents and violence in Russia are at astonishing levels -- roughly the same as Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone . Mortality from injury in Russia is like that found in impoverished sub-Saharan conflict and post-conflict societies.
In the context of high mortality, poor public health, and a weak medical system, the recent upward blip in Russian birth rates cannot remedy the country's demographic decline. U.S. Census Bureau data ranks Russia at 164 out of 226 countries globally in overall life expectancy.
This is below India and even Bolivia, which is South America’s poorest and least healthy country. For females, Russian life expectancy is less than Nicaragua, Morocco, or Egypt. For males, it is similar to Cambodia, Ghana, and Eritrea.
(5) Russia's dependency on oil and gas sales.
Economists note that when natural resource extraction dominates a country, it tends to suffer from a "resource curse" that leads to a corrupt, undemocratic regime and chronic underdevelopment of human capital and other parts of the economy. From that perspective, Russia pays a severe and disabling price for her oil and gas wealth.
Instead of the Putin model of letting a corrupt elite loot state enterprises and cementing themselves in power, Russia would be better served to reestablish democratic institutions. State enterprises should be privatized and oil, gas, and mineral concessions auctioned off in the manner of developed countries, with the revenues going directly and transparently into state coffers.
Public health, education, and transportation infrastructure should be primary spending priorities. Corruption and crime should be suppressed and property rights assured -- and especially so for foreign investors.
An alliance with Europe and the US would help assure Russian security and permit a redirection of military spending to civilian purposes. Russian military thinking needs to reorient from quantity to quality. Over time, a smaller Russian military and navy would be more professional and better trained and equipped against tangible security threats.
Instead of antagonizing the West and immediate neighbors, Russia should drop tariff and trade barriers so as to draw them closer economically and politically. Russia's size and resources would make themselves felt in a productive fashion. Foreign investment would help revitalize the Russian economy.
Of course, little if any of this will happen. The Russian tragedy continues.
Other sources indicate that the torpedo involved was an obsolete old model. This supports my larger point, that the disorganized and faltering Russian defense industry had produced a torpedo with deadly defects and that it had been maintained in service too long. Western navies regard HTP as too dangerous for use as torpedo propellant.
. . . accused the Russian defense industry of squandering massive budget allocations disbursed in recent years, while leaving the defense industry technologically backward. According to Medvedev, the quality of armaments for export and the ones procured by the defense ministry is lagging. Moreover, he accused the defense industry of grossly overpricing its produce, “so it makes less and less sense to buy it.” Research and development of new weapon systems drag on for decades, according to Medvedev, until they become obsolete while “money is spent to modernize hopelessly outdated equipment” (www.kremlin.ru, October 26). The Minister of Trade and Industry Victor Khristenko declared that the quality of defense produce is falling, while the defense ministry and foreign customers are filing more complaints (RIA Novosti, October 26).
. . . Medvedev has announced plans to re-equip the armed forces with new weapons by 2012, but it does not seem to be happening. The Russian defense industry is in deep crisis and it is good that the president has publicly acknowledged the facts. But simply scolding an industry in which the government itself has a controlling stake will not result in change. The Russian defense industry has been able to continue to produce Soviet-era weapons using equipment, know-how and stockpiles of components left over from the Cold War. In some cases, modernized weapons like the Su-30 jet sold to India and other foreign buyers have been produced using Western avionics and other components. But the defense industry has utterly failed to produce weapons the Soviet inventory did not have – like modern intelligence-gathering drones. Another embarrassing public frustration is the Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile that has failed test after test. Sloppy workplace discipline, the growing lack of a qualified workforce, shortages of modern materials and components are plaguing the defense industry.
In a recent monograph on Russian military reform, Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University observed that
. . . Once the initial conflicts surrounding the personnel reforms are resolved, the Russian military will have to deal with the fact that the country’s military industrial complex is no longer capable of producing modern weaponry in the quantities necessary to reequip the Russian military in a timely manner. In the short term, it will have to shed its insistence on buying only domestic military hardware and make more purchases from abroad, such as the unmanned drone aircraft it recently purchased from Israel. In the long term, it will have to reform and modernize its defense industry, a project that may also require foreign assistance.
Russia’s New Model Army, The Ongoing Radical Reform of the Russian Military, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 78, Dmitry Gorenburg, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies September 2009
Available via: russiamil.wordpress.com/publications/
Shortcomings in Russia's military were apparent during the Russian attack on Georgia. For the details, I recommend an article in the US Army War College's quarterly by Roger N. McDermott, “Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War.” Spring 2009. pp. 65-80.
As for the Scorpion, it went down in the open Atlantic in deep water while returning from patrol during the Cold War. The cause of the sinking is attributed to mechanical defects but is still disputed. There is lingering suspicion of a Soviet attack.
In contrast, the Kursk sank in peacetime in shallow littoral waters close to major Soviet naval bases. The Kursk was on exercises at the time, with major fleet vessels and ranking admirals nearby. An effective rescue effort was not mounted though for lack of proper equipment and training.
. . . accused the Russian defense industry of squandering massive budget allocations disbursed in recent years, while leaving the defense industry technologically backward. According to Medvedev, the quality of armaments for export and the ones procured by the defense ministry is lagging. Moreover, he accused the defense industry of grossly overpricing its produce, “so it makes less and less sense to buy it.” Research and development of new weapon systems drag on for decades, according to Medvedev, until they become obsolete while “money is spent to modernize hopelessly outdated equipment” (www.kremlin.ru, October 26). The Minister of Trade and Industry Victor Khristenko declared that the quality of defense produce is falling, while the defense ministry and foreign customers are filing more complaints (RIA Novosti, October 26).
. . . Medvedev has announced plans to re-equip the armed forces with new weapons by 2012, but it does not seem to be happening. The Russian defense industry is in deep crisis and it is good that the president has publicly acknowledged the facts. But simply scolding an industry in which the government itself has a controlling stake will not result in change. The Russian defense industry has been able to continue to produce Soviet-era weapons using equipment, know-how and stockpiles of components left over from the Cold War. In some cases, modernized weapons like the Su-30 jet sold to India and other foreign buyers have been produced using Western avionics and other components. But the defense industry has utterly failed to produce weapons the Soviet inventory did not have – like modern intelligence-gathering drones. Another embarrassing public frustration is the Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile that has failed test after test. Sloppy workplace discipline, the growing lack of a qualified workforce, shortages of modern materials and components are plaguing the defense industry.
In a recent monograph on Russian military reform, Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University observed that
. . . Once the initial conflicts surrounding the personnel reforms are resolved, the Russian military will have to deal with the fact that the country’s military industrial complex is no longer capable of producing modern weaponry in the quantities necessary to reequip the Russian military in a timely manner. In the short term, it will have to shed its insistence on buying only domestic military hardware and make more purchases from abroad, such as the unmanned drone aircraft it recently purchased from Israel. In the long term, it will have to reform and modernize its defense industry, a project that may also require foreign assistance.
Russia’s New Model Army, The Ongoing Radical Reform of the Russian Military, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 78, Dmitry Gorenburg, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies September 2009
Available via: russiamil.wordpress.com/publications/
Shortcomings in Russia's military were apparent during the Russian attack on Georgia. For the details, I recommend an article in the US Army War College's quarterly by Roger N. McDermott, “Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War.” Spring 2009. pp. 65-80.
As for the Scorpion, it went down in the open Atlantic in deep water while returning from patrol during the Cold War. The cause of the sinking is attributed to mechanical defects but is still disputed. There is lingering suspicion of a Soviet attack.
In contrast, the Kursk sank in peacetime in shallow littoral waters close to major Soviet naval bases. The Kursk was on exercises at the time, with major fleet vessels and ranking admirals nearby. An effective rescue effort was not mounted though for lack of proper equipment and training.
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