But the article states 3 Nuclear submarines would enter servce next year, Lada is diesel/electric powerd.1 - Borei next year after Bulava is ok (and it will be ok).
2- severodvinsk project 885 attack sub
3- lada class project 677 diesel sub
these three are expected to be ready next year.
I only doubt about Lada - there was said that there are too many new equipment on it.
can someone clarify something for me - even as a test firing (with a dummy warhead) - what are the dangers to the submarine or crew if there is a failed launch and the missile fails to be ejected from the launch platform?Any news about the Bulava program? The last test was a failure again it seems, the missile didnt even leave the submarine. .
Bingo. I think a round of applause is in order. The Nerpa will be handed over to the VMF before it gets leased to India.It could be that they are counting the Akula attack submarine Nerpa as one of the three. Even if it will be leased to India it still counts as Russian.
Strange that its just the Bulava that has this problems then. The Votkinsk Plant does produce all the other missiles to right?Actually what's so spectacular is that it hasn't been the same parts of the missile failing. First stage has failed. The missile has failed to launch a couple of times. Third stage separation has failed a couple of times. The guidance has failed a couple of times. Now we have fuel leaking out of the missile in mid-flight. Such a huge array of problems when the missile is essentially in final testing stage seems to suggest quality control. Granted I don't know the specifics so it's just my speculation.
I'm starting to wonder if the SSN-20/Sturgeon, as the only other solid-fueled SLBM in soviet/russian service ever really worked as advertised, considering the immense problems Russia seems to have with Bulava, but also had with similar projects like SSN-X-28, SSN-17/Snipe or RT-15M.
From my point of view, the main problem with the Sineva is not that it's liquid-fueled - but that it's HYPERGOLIC liquid propellants, which means that a missile leaking fuel and oxidiser (e.g. due to corrosion or hydraulic shock induced by some sort of collision or nearby explosion or because of thermal expansion etc.) will inevitably result in an unquenchable fire in the missile compartment. This is what happened to the Yankee-I K-219 (with 16 R-27/SSN-6/Serb missiles) in 1986 and, according to my interpretation, was also the most likely cause of the loss of the Golf-II-class K-129 (with 3 R-21/SSN-5 missiles). To a certain extent, this also applies to the sinking of the K-141 Kursk ('hypergolic' reaction of hydrogen peroxide leaking from a 65cm-topedo).
With this in mind, the safety record of all Delta-classes (and even all other soviet/russian SSBNs with that general type of missile technology) is in fact quite astonishing.
Too hastily comment. Bulava have some problems in development, but to the date they are just usual development problems, nothing out of order compared to earlier examples of successful developments. Only 12 test launches - usually missiles in development have around 20, and 5-8 of them fail before development comes to final stage.Quoteing a guy that commented on the Bulava testings and the Sineva SLBM on russianforces.org.
He relly has some god point.
This is on average. One year somewhat more, another somewhat less. For example year 2004 - 15 launches total.We have 12 launches. 1 Fullly successful. 4 sort of successful. The rest utter failures. This doesn't seem normal. I'll go dig up the statistics, if I can find them, on previous ICBM/SLBM development. Also last year Russia carried out iirc 3 ICBM launches, outside of the Bulava program. Not 10.