The last submarine of Project 941, also known as the Shark, was withdrawn from the Russian Navy. The flag is lowered on the heavy nuclear-powered strategic missile cruiser Dmitry Donskoy. What was unique about these largest submarines in history, for what and how rightly they were criticized, and what lesson can their creation give the Russian Navy today?These were unique and contradictory ships.
Some say a lot of bad things about them, "the victory of technology over common sense", "water carriers" (because of the huge ballast tanks). Others admire their huge size, because they were the largest submarines in history.
In fact, excessive sizes are bad. But it's still worth remembering "Sharks" with kind words.
Forced measureOnce upon a time, Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, knowing that it was impossible to build an intercontinental bomber with turbojet engines of that time, decided to build a turboprop aircraft.
This went against everything that was being done in the aviation world at that time, and the resulting aircraft in the West is still perceived as something extremely exotic.
But with all the exoticism of the Tu-95 design, the task of creating an intercontinental strike vehicle by Tupolev was solved – and solved successfully. The machine is still the main one in our Long-range aviation.
The submarines of Project 941 are the same technical exotics, just naval. An anomaly, a flight of engineering fantasy that runs counter to all schools of submarine design. No one has ever done this and now it will never be. But the construction of these submarines solved an important task, in the possibility of solving which in other ways there was no confidence in those years.
Our answer to AmericaThis story began in the seventies with... American solid-fuel ballistic missiles of the Trident-2 submarines.
In those years, it was customary in our country to "give an answer" to Americans. Will the US have a solid-fuel rocket with a huge range? We will have it too!
In 1971, the Engineering Design Bureau (now JSC "GRC Makeeva") began work on a domestic "response to Trident" – the future missile system D-19 with a ballistic missile R-39.
The creation of the rocket, however, went very hard. So much so that in the Engineering Design Bureau since the mid-1970s, they began working in parallel on a new liquid-fuel rocket, which later received the name "Blue".
Even at the beginning of work on the R-39, it was clear that the rocket would turn out to be much larger than the Americans, and much heavier – the ability to create solid-fuel engines was not a strong point of the domestic "defense industry" and the chemical industry. Looking ahead, it is worth saying that in terms of its mass (90 tons) and size (length 16 meters, diameter 2.4 meters), the rocket really turned out to be unprecedented for submarine missiles.
In 1972, a tactical and technical task was issued for the future heavy missile carrier, and the Leningrad Design and Installation Bureau "Rubin" began to work out the appearance of the boat. The chief designer of the future "Sharks" was Sergey Nikitich Kovalev, the general designer of all Soviet nuclear submarines armed with ballistic missiles. An outstanding designer, engineer and organizer who played one of the decisive roles in the history of the Russian navy and in the nuclear deterrence system.
Kovalev and the team working on the future "Shark" found themselves in the same position in which Tupolev once found himself in aviation - the task of creating a rocket carrier cannot be solved by traditional methods. Not only is the rocket huge and heavy, it will not fit into a boat of traditional design, so they also need 20 for each ship. There was also a natural limitation – it was impossible to withdraw submarines with a large draft from Severodvinsk (from the shipyard).
It was like a death sentence. It is not at all a fact that the same Americans or the British would be able to solve such a problem. However, it was solved in Rubin, but it was solved by such unconventional methods, which then gave the detractors a reason to talk about "the victory of technology over common sense."
A unique solutionAll Soviet submarines were double-hulled.
The crew and the systems that should not be exposed to water are located inside a sturdy hull. The robust housing is able to withstand monstrous pressure and is made of special high-strength steel.
Outside the solid hull there are systems, components and parts that can or should come into contact with water, and already on top of this whole structure there is a light hull, the outer contours of which we identify as a submarine. On missile-carrying submarines, the missile silos are located in a strong hull, and their heads come out of it upwards. And they are traditionally located behind the wheelhouse, towards the stern.
On the Sharks, we had to apply a completely different design logic. A battery of twenty missile silos became the center around which the boat was built. They had to be positioned not behind the wheelhouse, in the direction of movement, but in front of it. Instead of one huge, unrealizably durable hull, comparable in diameter to the length of the rocket, they made two, significantly smaller, to the right and left of the missile silos.
With this arrangement, in order to accommodate the torpedo compartment, it was necessary to perform a separate compartment in the bow from the two strong hulls, and in another compartment separate from the strong hulls in the stern, the steering compartment was located.
Such an unprecedented layout, for all its singularity, in principle made it possible to build a boat with R-39 ballistic missiles. But the same layout led to the fact that the boat had a huge buoyancy reserve. On the one hand, this reserve of buoyancy required a huge volume of ballast tanks and the same huge volumes of water that has to be taken into them for diving, for which evil tongues nicknamed the boat "water carrier". But the same buoyancy reserve gave the boat a lot of other advantages.
The patrol aircraft of the US Navy has always posed a tremendous danger to our submarines. The main way to get away from this threat in the Northern Fleet was to carry out combat services under the polar ice. But at the same time, a nuclear missile strike on the enemy for a submarine turned out to be very difficult - it was necessary to look for wormwood or thin ice that could be broken through by the hull.
For the Sharks, the solution to this problem was much simpler – a huge reserve of buoyancy gave the necessary buoyancy force, which acted on the boat when blowing ballast tanks. The "sharks" could break through the ice with a hull of such thickness that it was impossible for boats of any other type.
The same system of ballast tanks made it possible to solve the issue of withdrawing the boat from Severodvinsk, from the factory – with full purging and without missiles in the mines (which was allowed by the design of the boat), it floated like a float and, for all its huge size, went through shallow water.
The boat had other advantages, but it won't be possible to tell about everything soon. One way or another, the Rubin team was able, having extremely contradictory requirements for the ship, to cope with its creation.
Missed opportunitiesThe submarines turned out to be successful and served well.
They turned out to be secretive and quiet, as it should be for a rocket carrier. The service conditions were good, the accident rate was low.
This was largely due to the fact that for all the exotic design of the boat, its systems were unified with other boats of the third generation. This, by the way, has seriously reduced the price of submarines.
By the mid-1980s, it became clear that the liquid-fuel SLBM R-29 "Sineva" turned out well, and Rubin was able to create a modification of the 667th project – 667 BDRM, which is still in service. Therefore, the construction of the "Sharks" was stopped. The built series of six boats continued to serve. Well-designed and built non-old ships could serve for a very long time, but…
The collapse of the USSR and the cessation of production of the P-39 at the Ukrainian Yuzhmash now left the boats without the "main caliber". Rockets have a lifetime limit, they are not eternal. The situation could have been saved by the Bark rocket, which was being developed at JSC "GRC Makeev", which could have replaced the R-39, but its development was stopped by a strong-willed decision in order to start investing in the Mace.
What would have happened if the Sharks had been modernized in the 2000s and received a new missile weapon system? To begin with, there would be no need to build so many new strategic boats of the Borey project and Bulava missiles. Significant budget funds would have been saved. There were chances to have a project of a submarine with ballistic missiles more adequate to the modern situation. In addition, the modernization of the "Sharks" would allow the rest of the third-generation submarines to be upgraded on the developments made for it, simply due to the use of the same type of equipment on ships.
None of this happened. The P-39s were shot down, the boats were taken out of service forever, now that's it. The story of the Sharks is over.
Looking backThe haters who brand these boats with different nicknames are mistaken at best.
"Sharks" were the answer to the challenge of time – and the answer was successful. Their design was a consequence of the tactical and technical characteristics of the weapon and nothing more.
Those who believe that it was necessary to throw all their forces at the "Blue" (R-29) and the project, which later became known as the 667 BDRM, are wrong because in the 1970s it was completely unclear what would come of it, and the tasks of nuclear deterrence had to be solved. As soon as it turned out that "Sharks" can not be built, they stopped building them.
Of course, not everything was smooth. The boats were armed with obsolete USET-80 torpedoes at that time and had no effective means of countering enemy torpedoes. It would be very difficult for our Shark to win a fight against Sturgeon or, God forbid, Los Angeles. But it was possible to successfully hide.
Today, when faced with modern anti–submarine defense, large boats are doomed, as are double-hulled ones - now is a different time, and the boat should be relatively small and single-hulled. Nowadays, the construction of such boats as the 941 project no longer makes sense. But then it was completely justified.
These boats have shown that talented designers and innovative thinking can seriously reduce the gap in technology and industrial power, and consequently, in the combat power of the fleet. This lesson from the "Sharks" who have gone forever will be even more important than pride in the country and its great achievements. Today it is especially important for us to remember him.
Alexander Timokhin
