Two new nuclear submarines were handed over to the Navy — the strategic missile submarine "Prince Oleg" of project 955A and the multipurpose submarine "Novosibirsk" of project 885M.
One of the most long-awaited and significant events for the Russian Navy took place this year: [...] two fourth—generation nuclear submarines, the Novosibirsk and the Prince Oleg, were handed over to the fleet at once.
Vladimir Putin gave the start to the flag-raising ceremonies that took place in Severodvinsk. The President attended the event via video link.
The ceremonies were held with the direct participation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces Nikolai Evmenov and Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko.
Soon, Novosibirsk and Prince Oleg will become part of the Pacific Fleet, which will mark a sharp increase in its combat capabilities.
Nuclear cruisers "Prince Oleg" and "Novosibirsk" were accepted into the Russian Navy / ©Zvezda
K-552 "Prince Oleg" is the fifth submarine of the Borey family and the second, which was built according to the modernized project 955A. The lead ship of the series was transferred to the fleet back in 2013. The first representative of the modernized project joined the Navy last year. In total, according to open sources, it was planned to build ten strategic missile submarines of Project 955.
The main armament of these submarines is solid-fuel ballistic missiles R-30 "Bulava-30": each boat carries 16 such products. At one time, the media reported that the number of missiles on the upgraded ship would be increased to 20, but this information, as far as can be judged, does not correspond to reality.
K-552 "Prince Oleg"
Image source: Oleg Kuleshov
Novosibirsk is the first production submarine of the 885M Yasen-M project, which became the development of the 885 Yasen project. If we talk about the whole family, she became its third representative: the lead ship of the series was transferred to the Navy in 2014. The boat received ten torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber.
Eight vertical missile silos were installed behind the fence of the retractable devices. Submarines of the 885/885M project can use Kalibr and Onyx missiles, and in the foreseeable future they will receive a new hypersonic complex "Zircon".
K-573 "Novosibirsk"
Image Source: TASS
The first full-time underwater carrier of the new missile will be the Perm submarine of the 885M project. It was laid in 2016. The boat should be transferred to the Pacific Fleet.
In addition to submarines, Zircon will use surface ships, in particular the new frigates of project 22350. The hypersonic complex will be mass-supplied next year.
