On the last day of the outgoing year, a new deadline was called for the transfer of the Kazan nuclear submarine to the fleet, which completed its assigned tests and was preparing to raise the Naval flag on December 30, 2020. Now they intend to do this in the first quarter of the coming year.
"The boat has completed the test cycle and is ready for transfer to the fleet. In the first quarter of 2021, the St. Andrew's flag will be raised on it, " RIA Novosti quoted an informed interlocutor in the military-industrial complex as saying. The name and position of the interlocutor, as is often the case, are not called, but what is said seems to be true.
Indirect confirmation of this information was made today by the words of Sevmash CEO Mikhail Budnichenko in his New Year's greetings to the shipyard's workforce and its partners. In the outgoing year, according to the general director, Severodvinsk shipbuilders " conducted tests of the Kazan submarine, brought the repair of the Admiral Nakhimov ship to a new stage.
And in the coming year - new interesting tasks, I quote: "Sevmash" should transfer the nuclear submarine "Kazan" to the fleet, continue the construction of other nuclear-powered ships and repair the cruiser."
Experts and interlocutors of RG, who are privy to the situation, connect the next postponement of the Kazan submarine's acceptance into the Russian Navy with the ongoing tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile, which should be armed with multi-purpose submarines of the 885M Yasen-M project.
The Kazan nuclear submarine is the main one in this series of upgraded "Ash Trees", which means that it must experience everything new, try it out for itself. But at the time of its design and laying on the slipway, there was no question of a hypersonic "Zircon". Its main weapon, according to the initial project, was to be the Onyx and Kalibr cruise missiles. Such systems, already adopted by the Navy, the crew of "Kazan" under the command of Captain I rank Alexander Beketov this summer and autumn successfully tested practical launches.
And with "Zircon" the collision is more complicated. Should a new ship that has not yet been accepted into combat, but is undergoing state tests, make a test launch (and for the first time-from under water) of a fundamentally new hypersonic missile that has not yet been adopted for service? In the St. Petersburg MBM "Malachit", where the "Kazan" and other ships of this series are designed, such a" question is not publicly commented on.
On "Sevmash", where "Kazan" is built, where the next "Novosibirsk" is already launched on it and four more "Ash-M" are being built, they consider the question legitimate. In the sense that the sixth and seventh ships of this series were already "sharpened" for hypersonic weapons at the time of their laying, as the general director of Sevmash said publicly in front of TV cameras. "Kazan", if we follow this logic, should first be accepted into combat - with the weapons that are laid down under the project. And only then, on a combat-ready ship, conduct test launches of hypersonic missiles.
And in a good way, test launches of the hypersonic "Zircon" from under the water should be worked out on a submerged stand. Or, as it was with the Bulava ICBM, on a specially equipped submarine for this purpose - tested and with a margin of reliability in case of an accident or an emergency situation during such a test launch.
Experienced submariners and equally experienced shipbuilders can hope that these reasons will be heard "at the top" - in the leadership of the Military-Industrial Commission, the General Staff of the Navy and the ordering Department of the Russian Defense Ministry. And in the crew of Alexander Beketov, they make a wish "under the Christmas tree" that they will soon bring "Kazan" to Gadzhievo, and the Day of the submariner, if it happens, will be met already in the place of permanent basing.
Alexander Emelyanenkov
