How the Soviet Akulas forever changed the submarine war

At the end of 1984, when the first submarine Akula of the Soviet Navy began to sail the seas, the way in which it fights against the submarines changed forever. With the arrival of the Akula, the American submarine navy no longer enjoyed the advantages it had since the end of World War II.

The Akula, which in Russian means shark, astonished NATO with its high levels of stealth, especially when compared to any previous Russian submarine.

The reason behind this stealth is that in the battle for submarine supremacy, silence is the key to survival and victory. Before the Akula, the Soviets had already made important advances, making their submarines faster, able to sail deeper, and better armed than their American rivals. A nuclear submarine, the Ione Pope SSGN, from that era still holds the world speed record with 44.7 knots (about 82 km / h) in 1970.

The ability, however, of the Russians to make their submarines as silent, or almost as silent, as the Americans had long resisted. The Akula changed that dramatically. As William Perry, who later became Secretary of Defense, told an army committee in 1989: "It's all over."

"It was the ability of American submarines, combined with other sensors, to locate and track Soviet submarines, especially their ballistic submarines, with no apparent problem. On a 1978 mission, the USS Batfish tracked a Soviet Yankee-class submarine for 50 consecutive days. Batfish began to follow it above the Arctic Circle in the Norwegian Sea and continued it for almost 15,000 kilometers, assessing the position and deployment of the Yankee in the West Atlantic, from where it could have launched missiles to the United States.

But while Batfish took advantage of the acoustic advantage enjoyed by American submarines, the Soviets had begun to design and build a third generation of nuclear submarines. These submarines would eventually become the quietest the Soviets had built up to that point, and benefited greatly from the information provided by John Walker, a communications specialist for the US Navy who began spying for the Soviets in 1968. Between other things, Walker gave them information about a system of submarine hydrophones strategically located to detect Soviet submarines.

Anything else? Yes, in the mid-1980s, the Japanese company Toshiba and the Norwegian company Köngsberg Vaapenfabrikk began selling equipment to the Soviets that allowed them to make their submarines even quieter. Toshiba provided very sophisticated equipment while Köngsberg provided advanced computers capable of running that equipment. This allowed the Soviets a greater level of precision when making their propellers quieter.

But all this happened before the third generation and the Akula class, whose name actually comes from NATO. (Previously, NATO had used the alphabet to designate Soviet submarine classes, but these were so prolific that they soon ended up with all the letters)

For their part, the Soviets called their new class of nuclear submarines Project 971, and also Shcuka-B, or "pica", a species of fish that are aggressive. It would eventually become an impressive machine, as beautiful as it was capable, with an elongated tail that made the actual submarine seem to belong to the depths of the ocean.

The Soviet shipyards would manufacture 15 Akulas between 1984 and 2009 in four subclasses: Seven Akulas I (Project 971), six improved Akulas (Project 971I) one Akula II (Project 971U) and one Akula III (Project 971M).

The Akula is a large submarine, the first units were 110 meters long with a length of 13 meters that accommodated the common double hull system in Soviet submarines. Later designs of the Akula II and Akula III would make submarines increase in size by 2.5 meters, the extra length was meant to accommodate even more stealth measures.

With 12,770 tonnes when submerged (the Akula II and Akula III were even larger, with 13,400 tonnes), the Akula had a significantly larger weight than the Los Angeles class, which weighed less than 7,000 tonnes. Although not made of titanium, the Akula had an operating depth of 0.6 kilometers. Of all the Akula built, all but one carried a large capsule in the stern for a passive sonar.

Built to carry a large number of weapons, the Akula was equipped with eight torpedo tubes arranged in two horizontal rows of four and could carry up to 40 torpedoes. Six pipes are visible on the bow of the later Akula that harbor an MG-74 system, designed to shoot very large lures.

What did the Akula lack? A modern suite of sonar to be able to truly take advantage of all the possibilities of the submarines. The MGK-540 is an advanced system, but it is no match for the latest American systems, with its processing power combined with a higher level of training.

Meanwhile, as the Cold War ended and the Russian economy began to falter, the funds to continue production, or even to finish, the Akulas, began to evaporate. Many helmets remained unfinished in a shipyard of the White Sea. Two Akula who remained inactive, Rhys and Kuguar, would contribute significantly to the construction of the new SSBN class Borei. The bow and stern of the unfinished Akulas would be used to top Yuri Dolgoruky and Aleksandr Nevsky, the first SSBN borei.

The beginnings of Akula

During most of the early years of the Cold War, the US Navy assessed the threat of Soviet submarines on two fronts: hunting large groups of ships on the surface, such as battleships or amphibious forces, and disrupting lines communication in the Atlantic. If the hare was raised in Western Europe and hordes of Soviet tanks advanced through the Iron Curtain, everything would become a battle for survival, and to continue the struggle supplies should come from America. American submarines were expected to fight swarms of Soviet submarines along the Atlantic to get the materials and troops to be sent to European ports. Much of the American effort was focused on achieving this goal.

The Soviets, however, had seen closely the battle in the Atlantic during World War II, when American and British ships had fought against the German U-boats of the Kriegsmarine carrying nearly 100,000 lives ahead. For these reasons, the Soviet Union had no interest in being part of a new battle in the Atlantic. Instead, the Soviets had planned their submarines to stay near the coast in an attempt to affect the ports where supplies could have been sent. Attacking merchant ships with torpedoes and mines, or attacking ports directly with nuclear weapons, the Soviet strategy was not to get caught up in a conflict of attrition along the Atlantic Ocean.

The Soviets also tried to follow closely their American counterparts, deploying nuclear rapid-attack submarines to hunt US submarines should the war begin. These Soviet submarines would remain along the coast hoping to catch the trail of an elusive American ship. Soviet submarines also stalked the outer waters of the American base at Holy Loch, Scotland, hoping to find some submarine to leave patrol. In November 1974, the USS James Madison left Holy Loch when a Soviet-class submarine Victor realized the bad after the James Madison was submerged just above him. Both submarines were damaged and had to return to their respective ports without help.

In fact, the problem with the Soviets was that they had very bad luck finding American ships. Assuming reality, the Soviets reassigned some of their attack ships to protect their own submarines, which had begun to patrol near the Soviet Union as the range of their ballistic missiles increased.

The Russians made their greatest advances in the construction of submarines in 1980 with the commission of the first Oscar class. The United States was more ahead than ever with the Los Angeles-class 62 that entered service between 1976 and 19996. However, the Oscar class, which the Soviets called Project 949, was a real leap in technology over previous designs. It was a huge ship, and the Oscar had a bigger displacement than the submarines with American ballistic missiles class Ohio.

Four years later, the Russians ordered the construction of the Sierra and the Akula, the Sierra were built with titanium helmet while the Akula were built with aluminum, although the cost and complexity of producing titanium limited the Sierra program to only four units. The Akula, however, would eventually be built in two different locations: Komsomol'sk in the Pacific and Severodvinsk in the Kola peninsula, northwest of Russia. It was, for 30 years, the best Russian submarine, before the Yasen class was completed in 2013, 20 years after the start of construction.

Assignment of the Akula to India

In 2004, India signed an agreement with Russia to give them an Akula submarine for 10 years. At a cost of almost one billion dollars, it was the second nuclear submarine ceded to the Indian army. Between 1988 and 1991 the nation rented a Charlie class from the Soviet Union, mainly for its army to gain experience operating a nuclear submarine.

The new submarine began to be developed under the name of Nerpa, a design of Akula II that was elaborated in 1993. Due to the lack of funds after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Nerpa remained unfinished in a shipyard of the Russian pacific until the agreement was signed with India in 2001. Originally, the Nerpa should have been completed and shipped in 2007 but did not go through testing until October 2008.

A month later, on November 8, the disaster struck when the Nerpa performed test maneuvers in the Sea of ​​Japan and suffered a mechanical failure in its chemical system of suppression of fires, killing to 20 and hurting others much. It could have been worse, the ship was reportedly carrying 208 people on board in what was a submarine system test. With the ship full of workers supervising the tests, there were not enough respiratory emergency options to mitigate the effects of Freon gas.

However, on January 23, 2012 the Akula finally joined the Indian Navy as the INS Chakra, and has spent its first five years patrolling the Indian Ocean, providing India with a modern fast-attack nuclear submarine that is among the World's greatest. With half of the cession past due, India is trying to get another Akula to Russia for 2022.

Last week several Indian media reported that the Charka had suffered an accident, probably in August of this year, which had damaged the dome of the sonar. The damage is expected to require significant repair work before the submarine can re-operate although it most likely appears to have been involved in either a collision or was damaged by returning to its port in Visakhapatnam colliding with the ground.

In 1989, just two years before the Soviet Union came to an end, eight classes of submarines (Delta IV SSBN, Typhoon SSBN, Kilo SS, Victor III SSN, Sierra II SSN, Akula SSN, Oscar II SSGN and Paltus SSAN) were in construction. The Soviet Union had invested heavily in its submarine force towards the end of the Cold War and the Akula was to be the star of the fleet. Less than five years later, however, the Soviet Union had disappeared, and Russia was struggling to find itself in chaos. The pride of the fleet fell into ruin and remained in port, rusting.

Of the 15 Akulas built, only 11 are considered to be active, but that number is inflated with ships undergoing modernization and reconditioning. At most, it is estimated that four Akulas are operational within the Russian navy, and about six are awaiting improvements. But with the delays of the Yasen class, the Russian navy may be considering investing more in the rebuilding of the old Akula, since doing so costs considerably less than the 3.5 billion dollars per Yasen class unit.

The remaining Akulas, meanwhile, have remained active, detecting a pair on the East Coast in 2009. The submarines were undoubtedly hunting an American Ohio class leaving Kings Bay in Georgia.

In 1995, the then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jeremy Borda, was speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee when the issue of the Akula came out. Boorda then said: "At tactical speeds (less than 6 or 7 knots) the Akula is quieter than the 688 (class Los Angeles) and it is very difficult for us to detect it. Our people are better and that's why we do it properly, that's the term, properly ... there are six improved Russian Akulas that are a rival, or something more than a rival, for our 688. "

The context in which he stated it should be taken into account, since Boorda was trying to secure his budget, especially since the problematic class Seawolf had exceeded its budget and was delayed.

But yes, the Akula was the quietest submarine the Soviets built, until the Yasen sailed, and changed the way in which American submarines operated, especially in the Nordic areas. However, experience has shown that the submarine can be detected and tracked, but American ships, of course, have to get much closer than before.