On February 3, 2012, Admiral Vladimir Vysotskiy, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy announced that the Russian strategic submarines will resume regular patrols "on the 1st of July or a bit later." According to Vysotskiy, the Navy was awaiting this "for 26 years."
What this probably means is that Russia will try to keep at least one strategic submarine at sea at any given time. I'm not sure what will change in June 2012 that would allow the navy to do that - the only significant development is that Novomoskovsk will probably return to service by then - it has been in overhaul since May 2011. But then there is Ekaterinburg, which is unlikely to be back after the fire until at least 2014. Also, another submarine, Karelia is in the dry dock right now, although this seems to be a brief repair work (let's hope they removed missiles this time).
Maybe the plan is to rely on the first Project 955 class submarine, Yuri Dolgorukiy, which is expected to begin service some time in June-July 2012. That's a possibility, I guess.
It's interesting to look back 26 years to see why Vysotskiy believes it was such a remarkable year. It wasn't in fact - according to the U.S. naval intelligence data (posted by Hans Kristensen), in 1986 Soviet strategic submarines conducted about 80 patrols. But the patrol rate was higher before and did not drop significantly until much later - there were still 60 patrols in 1990.
In 2008, Russian strategic submarines conducted ten patrols, but as Hans notes in his post, these were probably clustered together rather than spread over the course of the year. Still, that rate seems to indicate that the Russian Navy could keep continuous deterrence patrols with five or six submarines.
The book
Comments
Always good to hear the our (US) SSNs will have someone to play with again on a regular basis. The ocean has been a pretty lonely place with only Chinese submarines to follow.
Why shouldnt Russia be able to patrol today? With 10 submarines this shoudnt be that hard.
riverman
One issue the Russian Navy has keeping nuclear submarines on patrol is the dearth of qualified crews to man the boats. There is a particular shortage of nuclear reactor officers in the fleet; some serve on both the strategic submarines and the nuclear fleet boats as well. To keep a high deployment of the American Trident strategic nuclear submarines at sea is made possible by having two complete crews for each submarine. While one crew is out on patrol, another crew is in training. The emphasis is on unit cohesion and teamwork. Most US boats have crews that have trained and deployed with each other for years. It just builds continuity that the Russian navy lacks at this time.
Frank Shuler
USA
Frank, while manning is indeed an issue in the Russian armed forces as a whole, the nuke Navy also uses the two crews system, just like the United States. Have been since early 80's. The nukes have also been the only part of the armed forces that has gone all-volunteer many years ago (due to complexity of equipment).
Frank USA
So you meen to tell me that Russia dont have two complete crews for having ONE ssbn on continuing patrols? Whats the point of having 10-12 subs when you cant even use 1-2 of them?
As far as I can tell, Russia normally has more crews than submarines, but it's never been two for one.
Pavel
artjomh
riverman
Yes. It would be my contention that Russia doesn’t have “complete crews” for any of its strategic nuclear submarines and is forced to “fill in” needed technical positions to sortie any boat to patrol.
It is the only conclusion I can reach for the Russian Navy having 10 strategic submarines and not being able to keep even one on constant patrol. (If indeed, constant patrol is a goal.)
Frank Shuler
USA
Frank, I know for the fact that the three Pacific boomers (Delta IIIs) have all recently been on patrol. IIRC, the Podolsk has been the latest to return from a deterrence patrol. Though, I do not know if it was a full on 3-month "combat service" or a shorter cruise.
In general, the whole "Russian submarines are back on patrol" announcement has been peculiar. On one hand, we know (thanks to Hans, the specialized blogs and other sources) that Russian boomers have never really stopped patrolling. On the other hand, the Navy may be referring to something else, e.g. sailing into deep Atlantic/Pacific. Although, what possible utility would such a deep cruise have, I can't honestly say.
Double checked about Podolsk. She was on a 2-month cruise in Nov-Dec '11.
artjomh
Just wondering, while the “Podolsk” was on patrol, was any other fleet submarines at sea? Was there a Oscar (Project 949) or Akula (Project 971) “in the blue”? That might be telling.
Speaking about fleet submarines, how is the second Project 885, Severodvinsk-class coming along?
Frank Shuler
USA
Frank, the Oscars have recently been on exercises, but combat patrols are not announced to the press. Even details of the Podolsk patrol came from OSINT (the commander was thanked for "successful service", the rest was unveiled from there) As for Kazan, the latest news a year ago was that her hull sections are ready and are being pressure tested. Nothing since then.
artjomh-
Kristensen said patrols never stopped, but the rate went down hugely. It's not just lower than it was during the Cold War, it's lower than during the mid-90s (hardly a peak of Russian military power by any estimate). They've definitely got room for improvement.
Frank-
I'm not saying you're wrong about manning, but couldn't a lot of it be due to safety concerns? Might the navy not fear another Kursk more than an American bolt from the blue? The Deltas are all petty old, too, and I doubt they've been kept up as well as the Ohios...
Derek, during the 90's, the Russian Navy was still relying on the larger remaining Soviet boomer fleet. More submarines, larger manpower, more patrols. Today: less submarines, smaller Navy, less patrols. Seems pretty obvious to me.
In the 60-70, Soviet Navy had an operational tempo (KON) of 25%. By 1980's the operational tempo was raised up to 35%. That was still much lower than the US Navy (~70%), but due to the significantly larger Soviet submarine fleet, the actual deterrence value was fairly similar. What do we have today? There 9 SSBNs in active commission. 3 of them are in overhaul (Verkhoturye, Novomoskovsk, Ekaterinburg), 3 of them are in post/pre-deployment refit (Karelia, Bryansk, Podolsk), which leaves 3 submarines (Tula, St. Georgy, Ryazan) either on patrol or at least able to go on patrol. That's an operational tempo of 33%, same as the Soviet Navy. The number of patrols has gone down due to fleet downsizing, but the tempo remained fairly even.
Note, I am not saying that those 3 submarines are actually on a deterrence patrol right now. I actually don't know due to OPSEC nature of the whole thing. But at least judging by activity at the shipyards and drydocks, that number should be available for deterrence. There maybe many other reasons why submarines which can patrol do not (lack of manning, lack of supplies, maintenance issues, some other obscure reason), but since we are not privy to this information, we can't really comment.
PS: So that people know what we are talking about here: http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/russia.php
“In general, the whole "Russian submarines are back on patrol" announcement has been peculiar. On one hand, we know (thanks to Hans, the specialized blogs and other sources) that Russian boomers have never really stopped patrolling. On the other hand, the Navy may be referring to something else, e.g. sailing into deep Atlantic/Pacific. Although, what possible utility would such a deep cruise have, I can't honestly say.” – artjomh
As I see it, the announcement probably refers to strategic/deterrence deployments while most of what we had in the past 4-5 years were probably a mix between training, sea-trials and some strategic missions. Thus it may refer to constant Atlantic-Pacific-Arctic deployments. There were statements from high-ranking officers stating the return of detterence patrols for some time now.
Worth noticing that if this will happen, than one should expect an equal increase of attack boat patrols as well.
“I'm not saying you're wrong about manning, but couldn't a lot of it be due to safety concerns? Might the navy not fear another Kursk more than an American bolt from the blue?” – Derek
By safety concerns do you mean your boat being deliberately torpedoed? If yes, than I agree that such safety concerns might be more immediate than the “American bolt from the blue”.
“One issue the Russian Navy has keeping nuclear submarines on patrol is the dearth of qualified crews to man the boats. There is a particular shortage of nuclear reactor officers in the fleet; some serve on both the strategic submarines and the nuclear fleet boats as well.” – Frank Shuler
When you mention Russian Navy’s lack of nuclear reactor engineers, I really wonder what you might base such an assumption on. I kindly disagree with your statement.
However, there was/is a shortage. I agree. But it’s essential once mentioned it, to also explain the reasons for it rather than just state it and lead to a misconception of Russia being unable to produce both qualified crews and officer- technicians.
Russian Navy does have both qualified crews and reactor officers for its ships. It’s not the core of the problem. It never really was – except in isolated cases – as far as I know. The problem was the lack of funding the Navy had to go through, lack of wages being paid to crews for months or even years on end due to the financial and socio-political turmoil Russia went through from 1991. That led to disgruntled officers to seek employment somewhere else, ships being mothballed, crews assigned to other shore-duties etc., etc.
It's a provisional shortage and not a conclusive one.
But signs show that the situation has improved and keeps improving. In Putin, Russia has the man to see to it.
Artjomh’s last post wrapped the whole issue pretty well.