The Sevmashpredpriyatiye shipbuilding plant announced that the Yuri Dolgorukiy submarine, the first of the Project 955 class, willl be launched on April 15, 2007. The submarine has been under construction for more than ten years.
The launch, however, is not yet the end of the story for this boat - the Bulava missile that will be deployed on Project 955 submarines is still far from being ready for operations. The Bulava development program suffered three failed flight tests in a row in 2006. The program will probably recover, but it will take time.
Project 955 submarines seem to be particularly unlucky when it comes to their missiles. As I understand, when this project started in the early 1980s, the submarine was supposed to carry a small SLBM known as "Ost". By the time the construction of the first submarine started in 1996, the project was changed to accommodate the "Bark" missile, which was an upgrade of R-39 (SS-N-20). After three flight test failures, that project was cancelled in favor of Bulava in 1998. Now it's Bulava that is having problems.
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Comments
Pavel:
It has been reported the Yuri Dolgorukiy will go to sea with twelve missile tubes for its eventual Bulava SLBMs. It has also been reported in the press the additional Project 955-class boats will have twelve tubes but some sources are suggesting sixteen. Do we know with reasonable certainty how many tubes the Alexander Nevsky will carry when completed? Thanks.
Frank Shuler
USA
As I understand, it's twelve. We'll have the exact numbers when START MOUs include these submarines.
It's stupid to put only twelve tubes when everybody puts at least sixteen (France:Triomphant
G-Britain:Vanguard).This is a huge ressource waste and a degradation of defence capabilities.How come the planners don't see that ?
Searching more informations about the 'Ost' missile.
According to an old RIAN article, the first two will habe 12 tubes and the rest of the series 16. Modifications were probably forced in the Dolgorukiy to intially acommodate the BARK
There is not much information about the Ost missile. It seems that it was a proposal to build a small single-warhead SLBM. As far as I understand, it never got off the ground - the Navy liked it, but the industry didn't.