This week featured the normal ramp-up for Submariner’s Day (March 19).
According to Interfaks-AVN, Vice-Admiral Aleksandr Moiseyev stated on March 16 that the Northern Fleet will receive a new project 636.3 diesel-electric submarine in 2021. The Improved Kilos are Kalibr LACM (SS-N-30A) shooters that Admiralty Wharves have busily built for the Black Sea and Pacific Fleets since the early 2010s.
Admiralty is currently at work on units 3-6 for the Pacific Fleet. A unit beyond number six has been postulated for the Baltic Fleet. But if Moiseyev’s Northern Fleet is to get an Improved Kilo in 2021, it’ll have to be one forecast for the Pacific (probably Magadan). Moiseyev said his fleet is preparing a crew for the boat this year.
Not as much a news story, Moiseyev said (again per Interfaks-AVN) that Northern Fleet submarines are widening their training and patrol areas.
In his briefing dedicated to the impending holiday, the Northern Fleet’s commander said:
It’s become normal practice for us when we have more than a dozen submarines of various classes at sea working on different tasks.
Visiting our garrisons you can’t but notice that many piers are empty. This says yet again that submarine crews are occupied with carrying out missions — they are improving their at-sea training, fulfilling combat training tasks, carrying out combat duty or combat patrol.
Recently the Northern Fleet has significantly broadened the regions in which we are occupied with planned combat training.
Moiseyev reminded his audience that, in 2019, Delta IV-class Tula and Borey-class Yuriy Dolgorukiy fired SLBMs and crews of Delta IV-class Karelia and Yasen-class SSN Severodvinsk “confirmed their readiness to operate as designated . . . .”
Vice-Admiral Moiseyev reported reconstruction of piers and shore facilities at Gadzhiyevo (SSBNs and SSNs) is complete and similar work is focused on Zaozersk (Severodvinsk and SSGNs).
Worth stating the obvious. Empty piers could also mean that sub numbers are low or some subs are under repair.
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Improved Kilo being assigned to the Northern fleet could allow some conclusions with regard to the Lada class. Since Ladas have longer range, they could be sent to the Pacific fleet, which lacks the number of nuclear submarines of the Northern fleet. How probable does this seem to you?
Could be . . . . But Ladas may need to operate in Northern Fleet for a while before they have confidence to deploy in the Pacific. Haven’t checked all the math, but Northern Fleet’s pr. 877 boats are pretty old. Might like a nice, new, modern diesel-electric that can work as an ASW picket in the Barents.
This sounds very nice, though one difference between projects 636 and 677 is also armament (4 vs. 10 Kalibr missiles). So the decisive question might be where do they want to enhance their anti-shipping capabilities the most? Barents bastion seems pretty hard to penetrate, while the Kamchatka seems to be seeing some reconstruction (e.g. after a decade, MiG-31 squadron will be reactivated).
As always, thank you for the update. Seems like they can recapitalize the fleet relatively quickly and cheaply with a series of 6 MRKs, SSKs and 20380 corvettes (6 each) for each fleet. Are there any news on the Ivanov AGI?
Pr. 18280 SRZK unit one operational in Northern Fleet; unit two in BSF. Two units still planned, not yet laid down for Pacific and Baltic.