Just as I noticed that we haven't heard anything about the Bulava tests for a while, we got a report from Sevmash that the Dmitri Donskoy submarine returned to the port after spending about a month at sea.
It appears that I guessed it about right last time - no Bulava launch was planned during this trip. As far as I can tell, the test launches would be resumed only in 2009. The exact purpose of the current sea trial is not quite clear - it looks like the boat underwent some significant modernization. I'm wondering if that was a launch tube modification.
The book
Comments
Pavel
Would you be inferring that the Bulava missile itself has undergone “significant modification”?
Frank Shuler
USA
Its anybody guess why she would spend one month at sea ,if it was just lunch tube it need not spend that long time.
I think they would have done some deep modernization on the sub and would be preparing it for operational readiness with Bulava missile , she could well be the first SSBN to enter service with Bulava.
Could the russian modernise the remaining two typhoon and get back them into service ? with proper modernisation all the remaining Typhoon should have 20 years of service life left.
Did Donskoy enter the dry dock this year or is this modernization from the earlier years? It seems having only 1 submarine of this class in service would be very inefficient in terms of operational costs, in my opinion if the RN is planning to keep Donskoy for another decade then its worth while to modernize Arkhangelsk and Severstal.
http://www.barentsobserver.com/have-a-peek-at-russias-new-submarine-monster.4504739-58932.html